February 2017 | Business View Magazine

172 173 nant paradigm was no one was ever going to put their feet on the ground again; we were just going to zip from place to place in vehicles. So, the way you would access the waterfront was by driving by it and looking at it through a window as opposed to getting on the ground and walking through it. That’s now changed, and we seem to be in a peri- od where reconnecting to the natural environment and encouraging oth- er means of transportation besides automobiles, including pedestrian access and bicycles, seems to be the paradigm now going forward.” The removal of the Parkway is a two-phase project. “The first phase will be completed this spring,” Dyster says. “That is going to end up costing us about $23 million; that’s the portion upstream from the Falls. The second phase of the project will be completed in the spring of 2019. We’re estimating it at some- where around $42 or $43 million to remove the existing expressway and replace it with additional Niagara Falls, NewYork York metropolitan area, he was responsible for the construction of many of the Big Apple’s bridges, parks, roadways, and housing projects. “Mo- ses came here in the late 1950s to build a new power plant after the existing Schoellkopf Power Plant collapsed into the river,” Dyster relates. “He was successful in building the new power plant and, at the same time that he did that, he also built the Robert Moses Parkway, which is actually a limited-access expressway built right along the waterfront of the city. So, neighborhoods and business districts since the early 1960s have been cut off from our greatest resource which is our waterfront. And whether you’re talking about the rapids above the falls or the gorge below it, there are not just tremendous recreational opportunities, but tremendous scenic views that are available that have been inaccessible for two generations.” Moses was a great fan of large roads, and according to Dyster, his was the prevailing style of urban planning for several decades after the Great Depression. “It was a panacea at the time,” Dyster explains. “The domi-