Amherst-sur-lac?

Via Buffalog - where do you get this kind of surfing time, Craig?;-) - comes this very spot-on comment from a former Buffalonian, Undercaffeinated. The huge Opus East plan for the waterfront is too everything. Just LOOK AT IT. It looks like the horribly planned Waterfront Village, Transit Road, Erie Basin Marina, Toronto's waterfront, and New York's Javitz center copulated and created this monstrous, illegitimate love-child. It's too damn big, first of all. No one has done anything with the waterfront at all ever. EVER. It's been empty for decades. Now, all of a sudden, they want to build multiple highrises, some low-rise residential condos (like the ones in Waterfront Village that, although popular, do not in any way resemble a "Village"), a bunch of marina space with requisite at-grade parking, a "family park", a massive convention center, some ball fields, some commercial space, and some (presumably) retail space. Just pop - all of a sudden, we have Toronto. It ain't gonna work. Because Toronto is smart enought to know that you need to, for instance, put a Loblaw's within walking distance of the condos. Buffalo (Waterfront Village) can't even get it together to put a Starbucks, a dry cleaner, or a little grocery store within its boundaries. Tell me what's the point of urban living if you can't go to the corner for milk? Sure, some of the ideas are great - building a little canal district with a cool cable-stayed pedestrian bridge, rebuilding the Michigan Avenue bridge, for instance. But let's talk basics first. 1. If you don't expand Metro Rail to this new community, you are WASTING YOUR TIME AND OURS. Without a Metro Rail link to offices, courts, and hospitals you will not attract residents. Who wants to drive 1/2 mile from the Outer Harbor to the Fernbach ramp? It's foolish. 2. Take down the goddamn Skyway. It is an EYESORE. It is DANGEROUS. It is probably the single biggest obstacle to real, tangible inner harbor development. It is unnecessary. We don't need it. No one needs it. Replace it with a drawbridge - we don't even need a tunnel. And make sure Metro Rail uses the bridge, too. 3. Do not build Amherst-sur-lac. We don't need more at-grade parking. Build an adequate underground garage. Or a ramp. We don't need an outdoor e-zone, either. Just build it so that it's aesthetically pleasing to look at and walk through, and people will come. We need retail, retail, retail to be one of the anchors of this project. Give residents someplace to walk to at night, and give visitors something to look at and do. This looks like a mistake to me: What I'm saying is that the WestEnd project is far more desireable, workable, and will not be the public-money-boondoggle that the Opus East project is. (Mark Poloncarz comments below that it will require $300 million in public money)