A legacy city modernizes its historical streets with smart technology and data-informed decisions

City of Buffalo Smart Streets Design Plan

Building on the success of the week-long charrette and the insights gained from the Future of Mobility report in 2020, the City of Buffalo aims to set a new standard for future connectivity in Buffalo. By harnessing their historic waterfront walkable neighborhoods and well-planned legacy infrastructure system, the City will modernize and establish new, equitable mobility solutions, focusing on one of its greatest assets—its streets.

Together again, the City partnered with our Urban Places team to develop a transformative downtown smart streets design plan. Our approach, rooted in understanding Buffalo's downtown, involved an intentional public engagement process, a downtown-wide parking inventory and utilization sweep, and a policy and governance analysis. Armed with this data and the City’s goals, we created a smart streets design toolkit. This toolkit was key as we tested four corridors, with Washington Street emerging as the ideal implementation corridor. Its design plan will revolutionize the street and support future deployment downtown and beyond.

Leveraging curbside and street design, technology, and data, this forward-thinking plan will elevate Buffalo’s connectivity and position the City as a national leader in adaptable and equitable mobility.