BUFFALO, N.Y. — It has been a rough summer if you travel on Delaware Ave in Buffalo. But much of the road construction has been completed.
There weren't too many horns or screeching tires during rush hour on Delaware Ave between North St. and Forrest Ave early Monday evening.
With one of Buffalo's main north/south arteries changing from four lanes down to two, you might have expected an early preview of the annual demolition derby at Erie County Fair.
But no accidents occurred and Delaware Ave was buzzing with pedestrians crossing newly striped roads and cyclists enjoying a dedicated lane.
Buffalo Dept. of Public Works commissioner Michael Finn says the downgrade from four lanes to two will provide natural improvements to road safety.
"It calms traffic, we use that term a lot," Finn said. "It makes it safer overall for all the users of the roadway, not just the drivers, but pedestrians, bicyclists, everybody."
Buffalo DPW crews finished the striping over the weekend. One significant change is the new center lane that is dedicated for left turns only.
"We liked that traffic configuration," Finn said. "It's been shown both with national studies and locally, the downtown section we did reduced crashes by 24%."
Left turns had been prohibited between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Delaware Ave, Monday through Friday.
Finn admits that Buffalo Police couldn't be everywhere at all times and it was a known problem that drivers were still turning left during those hours.
"It's really a recognizing of two things," Finn said. "Number one, wanting to make the corridor safer overall, and slow speeds down."
The second was recognizing that people were turning anyway, so how does the city make it safer?
"Let's just make it safe for them to do so and allow traffic to flow smoothly past them while they're waiting to make their left turns," Finn said.
Gates circle also saw some drastic changes and some very apparent striping.
"Gates Circle was designed before cars were even thought about," Finn said. "For all these years, Gates Circle, Niagara Square, a lot of our historic circles were just kind of left up for people to kind of figure out how to get through them."
Now there is a clearly defined single lane and identifiable entrances and exits to the circle.
"It kind of brings people to better conflict points as they're entering and exiting," Finn says.
Also clearly identifiable on Delaware Ave are two bikes, in the north and southbound lanes respectively. The bike lanes aren't protected like what you see on Niagara Street, but the marked lanes expand Buffalo's biking infrastructure.
"We're hoping to continue to make improvements like this and appreciate the public's patience and understanding with kind of learning new traffic patterns," Finn said.