TOWN OF TONAWANDA, N.Y. — 2019 was the year the Town of Amherst and the Town of Tonawanda planned to put up street lights to improve visibility for motorists and pedestrians on a dark and dangerous section of Niagara Falls Boulevard.
A check of the roadway on the eve of 2020 shows, on the Amherst side, most of the brand new light poles are up and operational. Amherst Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa told 2 On Your Side their portion of the project is actually near completion because the weather had been relatively mild through the end of the year.
However, on the Tonawanda side, there are still no street lights.
2 On Your Side went straight to the Town Supervisor Joe Emminger to find out what's going on.
"We were hoping to have the lighting project...the street lighting project...done in 2019," said Emminger. "Unfortunately, we tied our LED street lighting project into Niagara Falls Boulevard...we're doing them both."
Emminger is talking about changing over more than 6,000 existing street lights — across the Town of Tonawanda — to more energy-efficient options where the brightness can be adjusted, depending on need. This project, through the New York Power Authority, is estimated to cost upwards of $11 million.
Emminger says the hope had been to put in the new lights on existing National Grid utility poles, such as the poles on Niagara Falls Boulevard, but in order to install the new town-owned lights, they need to purchase the poles from the utility company.
The town supervisor says negotiations did not go as smoothly as they had hoped.
"We had some snags, let's just say, in getting things finalized," Emminger said. "But we exchanged documents as recently as three weeks ago. We did finally get a response from National Grid, and we are hopeful, very hopeful, that one of our meetings in January coming up we will be authorizing signing the document to go forward with the entire project...not just Niagara Falls Boulevard."
Emminger stresses that Niagara Falls Boulevard, north of Interstate 290, will be the top priority in terms of areas slated for lighting upgrades.
"The project...it will be done in 2020," he said. "A year later than we had hoped, but at least it's going to be done."
If the Town of Tonawanda board approves the agreement with National Grid, the town supervisor believes construction to light the west side of Niagara Falls Boulevard will begin next summer, perhaps even by spring.
As for any other safety improvements along this state road, 2 On Your Side is still waiting to hear from NYSDOT on what happens next.