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Perspectives on the draft physical plan
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“We really want a mass transit or light rail to connect the three campuses for those of us who live on all three, whether you’re a student or faculty.”
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UB stakeholders began review and comment yesterday on a draft of a plan to dramatically redesign and reconfigure the university’s three campuses, with the goal of making UB a great place to live, learn and work.
The draft of the comprehensive physical plan, which gives each campus a new identity and purpose, was presented and exhibited at a daylong public forum held in Harriman Hall, South Campus.
The draft plan assigns each UB campus a new and distinct identity in support of the university’s core academic mission:
- The North Campus is envisioned as the “academic heart” of the university, home to the College of Arts and Sciences, the core of the UB undergraduate experience, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
- The South Campus will become the center of professional education in law, executive education, social work and architecture and planning. It will preserve classic quadrangles and historic structures, and be better integrated with nearby neighborhoods.
- A new Downtown Campus will bring to downtown Buffalo the five schools in UB’s Academic Health Center—Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Nursing, Public Health and Health Professions, Dental Medicine and Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Their downtown presence will promote research, clinical and educational collaboration with the region’s leading hospitals and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
The plan addresses transportation—the ways in which people will get to the UB campuses, how they will travel between them and where they will park when they arrive—and defines strategies for limiting UB’s energy use, reducing the university’s carbon footprint and promoting sustainable practices. And it details a vision for creating public spaces that promote the social and intellectual life of the university, producing a “learning landscape” that supports the ways students learn today.
During three formal presentation and discussion sessions held during the course of the day, Robert G. Shibley, professor of architecture and planning and senior advisor to Simpson for campus planning and design, and Frederick A. Bland, the consultant leading development of the plan, solicited feedback from attendees via question-and-answer sessions and through the use of audience response system technology, or “clickers.”
Among the approximately 130 respondents attending the first presentation yesterday morning, 81 percent said the creation of a rapid transit system connecting UB’s three campuses should be a “high priority.” Sixty-one percent called well-planned roads on the North and South campuses, including pathways for bicycles and pedestrians, “very important,” and 58 percent said the same about creating high-quality buildings, landscapes and “public realms.”
Forty-three percent also “strongly agreed” that environmental stewardship should remain an important part of the physical plan. Only 19 percent said the plan achieved excellent “seamless integration” of the three campuses, however, with 28 percent calling the plan “good” and 31 percent “OK.”
Among the dissenting voices on a rapid transit system was Joseph Krakowiak, director of university residence halls and apartments.
“We’re three independent campuses,” he said. “How much moving around is there going to be if you’re planning to put housing and all services on each?”
But despite the fact that the plan projects reduced traffic between the campuses due to the clustering of programs and schools on specific campuses, Shibley said the concept of “one university, three campuses” still requires maintaining a strong connection using both technology and transit.
Among those in favor of a rapid transit system was David L. Dunn, vice president for health sciences.
“We really want a mass transit or light rail to connect the three campuses,” he said, “for those of us who live on all three, whether you’re a student or faculty.”
In response to a question about the decision to relocate the Law School to the South Campus, rather than a site closer to the downtown court system, Shibley acknowledged that while there had been “a very clear request” and a student referendum that urged UB to relocate the Law School downtown,” there had been “a decision at a very senior level to not diffuse the campus.”
“We exist on three centers, and the energy of each of those centers is a function of the relationships of the decanal units that occupy them,” he said. “If you start to cherry pick, there’s no stopping it.”
Ron Battaglia of Flynn Battaglia Architects PC, a Buffalo-based design and planning firm, voiced concern about the UB’s ability to move forward in its planning process in light of the state’s budget crisis. He also questioned whether UB’s plan addresses what he called “the lack of connection” between the university and its neighboring communities.
“One of your early principles was you wanted to connect to the community, but you still have a line around the campus,” he said.
Bland responded that UB remains committed to creating connections to neighboring communities, and pointed to plans to create new pathways oriented to off-campus locations on the South Campus. Although greater distances create bigger challenges on the North Campus, he said the plan to transform one lane of the Audubon Parkway into a greenway for cyclists and pedestrians is designed to invite community, as well as campus use.
“That big green ring is not a buffer from the community; it’s actually a space to join with the community,” he said. “We view that as a recreation way that rings the campus—that brings the community and the campus together to use this recreation [space], which includes the lake.”
Pointing to the plan to integrate the Ellicott Complex with the academic Spine, UB Council member Edmond J. Gicewicz noted that attempts to design a safe passage between these locations—whether via a bridge or tunnel—have failed in the past.
Shibley said that plans to construct a new housing complex just north of the intersection of Audubon Parkway and Lee Road include a proposal to reduce the parkway to a single lane in both directions and construct a small roundabout that would require motorists to slow down to 20 m.p.h.
“We’re not climbing over it, we’re not digging under it,” said Shibley. “We’re going to say to everyone entering this campus: ‘pedestrians first.’”
The plan will be finalized in April and will be continually updated and adapted during each phase of implementation.
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