To the Board of
Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority ·
181 Ellicott Street · Buffalo, New York 1420
Dear Luiz F Kahl ,
It has come to my attention that NFTA is selling off railroad corrodrs that formerly belonged to Conrail.
The reason for aquiring these right of ways were for the future expansion of the NFTA light rail system.
These right of ways were aquired under the rail-banking act and provisions under the
Interstate Commerice Commision (Now The Surface Transportation Board) which gave
local goverments first “dibs” or right of aquistion.
The Intent was to preserve the right of ways for future railroad or trail use.
Use of the right of ways for Bus Rapid Transit is also allowed.
However the selling off of the right of way precludes the this act and side steps the legal
mandate of planning transportation needs for the future of Buffalo.
The Private development of houses and retail on top of the right of ways instead of building a rail line and developing around it is damaging to the enviroment and is violation of the trust that the people of Buffalo put in NFTA to procure these right of ways for the enevitble growth that this city will see once links to the Toronto-Niagara Falls-Golden Triangle is establised. The Golden Trianlge was built in part becase of GO trains going thru that corridor. Preserving these right of ways will ensure that there will be rail service when feasible on these right of ways. Aquiring new right of ways and using eminate domain could cost hundreds of million of dollars.
The Selling of NFTA real estate is suspect because there has been little public invovement in how this will impact them. It also seems to the transit riding public that NFTA is more instrested in the Airport and Real Estate Development then its core mission of providing low cost transportation to thousands of working people every day. By building rail for these people and ignoring the not in my ba