LAST EXIT BEFORE BRIDGE [CITY Edition] Buffalo News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Print Media Edition: Financial edition Buffalo, N.Y. Jan 4, 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pagination: B2 Abstract: The Niagara Frontier's effort to span its namesake river with a new and better bridge has consumed a lot of community energy in the past several years. That effort has now spilled over into the year 2000, and it's more crucial than ever to see this project through with both commitment and enthusiasm. The public will have a chance to do just that. The Public Consensus Review Panel -- formed as a last chance at reaching binational agreement as an alternative to legal rulings -- is about to head into public hearings. Later this month, the panel will launch a series of presentations that will lead to a final mid-March recommendation. Open to the public, the meetings will provide chances to listen to the findings of the panel's well-credentialed expert consultants and to discuss the community impacts. Copyright Buffalo News Jan 4, 2000 Full Text: New millennium. Same problem. The Niagara Frontier's effort to span its namesake river with a new and better bridge has consumed a lot of community energy in the past several years. That effort has now spilled over into the year 2000, and it's more crucial than ever to see this project through with both commitment and enthusiasm. The public will have a chance to do just that. The Public Consensus Review Panel -- formed as a last chance at reaching binational agreement as an alternative to legal rulings -- is about to head into public hearings. Later this month, the panel will launch a series of presentations that will lead to a final mid-March recommendation. Open to the public, the meetings will provide chances to listen to the findings of the panel's well-credentialed expert consultants and to discuss the community impacts. There's a challenge to the public in all this. On one level, it's simply a mandate to stay involved, to air and evaluate all the viewpoints possible in shaping a border crossing for the new century. On another, deeper level, it's an educational challenge. For this debate to work, participants will have to learn enough to insure that the community's bridge system preferences are workable and affordable as well as beautiful. "There are many technical issues," notes Gail Johnstone, former city planner and a leader of the Review Panel process. "The learning curve for the public is going to be huge; it was huge for the panel." Members of the Review Panel say that curve was not only steep but enlightening. As blue-ribbon engineering firms evaluate technical aspects, the community panel has learned to ponder comprehensive bridge systems instead of segregated bridge and plaza designs. Some panel members add they have been encouraged by the amount of agreement and cooperation between the American and Canadian firms at work on the evaluations, and others say the Peace Bridge Authority itself has shown welcome flexibility on the issues. Those are good signs. The first of the Review Panel's public presentations, on plaza design concepts and aesthetics, is scheduled for Jan. 24, four days after a final workshop on those issues. Sessions on bridge system alternatives and the final binational consulting team report follow in February, with public hearings and a panel vote on the final recommendation in March. Even consensus won't completely erase the possibility of legal mandates from current or future lawsuits. That could add months more of study to the process. It also would threaten efforts to open an expanded crossing before increasing commercial traffic clogs the Peace Bridge or hastens deterioration, which would force lane shutdowns. But this process, which should have started years ago, offers the best -- and probably the last -- chance for the thorough community consideration such a vital project has always demanded.