Remove 4 lanes of Robert Moses Parkway

Niagara Gazette, 14 March 1998

I am writing this letter to voice my support for the proposal by the Niagara Heritage Partnership to remove the four lanes of the Robert Moses Parkway from the Schoellkopf Museum to Lewiston. The letter that appeared early last month in the Gazette that was against this project largely stimulated me to write this one.

I am not an environmentalist nor am I any kind of expert in any related field; therefore, my opinion is only one of a lay person. However, I am a lay person who has spent my entire life here and who regularly frequents the falls and the gorge on weekends during all seasons. My point of view on this matter comes strictly from that of an outdoors person or, as the more fiscally minded might choose to say, an "ecotourist."

When people come to Niagara to experience the unlimited natural wonder of this special and unique place, they find themselves bombarded by artificial and man-made constructs on all sides. As an "ecotourist," I think I speak for many others when I say that at Niagara, I seek a link to the natural world. I believe that Niagara Falls should always be a place where all of us can go to transcend our finite little worlds of steel and glass and machines and plastics.

In pursuit of such essential natural experiences at Niagara, we shouldn't have to, and certainly our children shouldn't have to go down into the gorge where the overdevelopment is less visible and/or to have to close our eyes at the cataract to try to imagine how it once was.

Ecotourism is by far the fastest-growing form of tourism. Removing the unneeded four lanes of the Robert Moses from Schoellkopf to Lewiston and restoring the natural flora of the gorgetop would be an enormous step in not only tapping into Niagara's limitless ecotourist potential, but more importantly, it would be a giant step in doing the right thing for future generations who should also have the right to know Niagara.

David D. Saj, North Tonawanda