By Karen Zraick

The Buffalo Bills will play their first regular season home game in Toronto this month, marking a new chapter in a long history of links between the economies of Western New York and Ontario. To observers, the team’s efforts to build a fan base in a city so close and prosperous is smart business—as it stands, Canadians make up 15 to 20 percent of the crowd at home games. And since Toronto is a regional destination, the team expects American fans to take up some of the 46,000 seats at Toronto’s Rogers Centre.

But in a situation that seems somewhat symbolic of the connection between the cities in recent decades, traffic jams could stymie the bi-national football fervor. The Peace Bridge, which links Buffalo and Ontario, has only three lanes of traffic in either direction and has been jammed on game days. It was the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing over the last six months, but plans to expand its capacity have been flummoxed by complicated negotiations for over 20 years.

“Here you are, the busiest northern border crossing, and 50 percent of the time you’re down to one lane of traffic,” said Rep. Brian Higgins (D-Erie/Chatauqua). “With the Peace Bridge, because it’s been so congested for such a long period of time, the mindset in Buffalo and West New York is to avoid a cross-border trip at all costs unless you absolutely have to. It’s the wrong message to be sending.”

That political and logistic bottleneck has long frustrated local officials and residents—but many are hoping that a new federal administration will mean a fresh approach to managing the northern border, which is often forgotten in the emotional debate over immigration and security on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I think there’s going be a whole new approach to the way we run our borders,” said Maryscott Greenwood, executive director of the Canadian American Business Council.

But with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) nominated as homeland security secretary and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) nominated as secretary of state, Greenwood is feeling optimistic. Napolitano took a pragmatic approach to border management, Greenwood said, while Clinton has a deep understanding of the issues facing Western New York.

Canada and the U.S. are each other's largest trading partners, moving approximately $1.5 billion worth of goods across the border each week at the Buffalo and Niagara Falls crossings, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.  But many in the business community say a one-size-fits-all approach to border management—along with inadequate infrastructure-- has hindered cross-border trade and tourism. 

“We’re dealing with pre-NAFTA infrastructure in a post-NAFTA world,” said Stuart Johnston, vice president for policy and government relations at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “Border crossings are economic lifelines, but all too often they become the chokepoints of our economy.”

Experts say Western New York’s best hope is a diversified economy built on services, tourism and banking. Manufacturing has been in decline since the 1950s; the population of Buffalo has been steadily decreasing since then. The city has fared even worse than other Rust Belt towns like Pittsburgh and Detroit, said Peter Lombardi, a policy analyst at the University at Buffalo’s Regional Institute. But Lombardi cautioned against exaggerating the city’s much-chronicled decline. Jobs have remained steady, as manufacturing losses have been offset by growth in health, human services and education, though those sectors do not offer the same wages manufacturing once did.

The local economy has become somewhat dependent on Canadian consumers, with the burgeoning and relatively prosperous population of southern Ontario drawn to Western New York by considerably lower sales taxes and close proximity.

But easing passage from one country to another is spectacularly complicated, given the dozens of agencies and levels of government that are involved. Cross-border trade was severely affected by tightened security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks, said Andrew Rudnick, president and CEO of the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership, a regional chamber of commerce. In the years since, local, regional and national governments have been in talks to revise security measures to ensure both safety and efficiency. But balancing security and business concerns, as well as accommodating both freight and passenger traffic, has been a challenge.

Higgins had strongly supported a proposal for Shared Border Management, a scenario in which both U.S. and Canadian customs operations would have been based on the Canadian side of the border, in order to expedite crossings. Despite strong support for the proposal in Western New York, the Department of Homeland Security shelved the plan in April 2007 when negotiations for security clearance procedures reached an impasse.

Higgins and Sen. Charles Schumer (D) have said they doubt the plan will be revived, and a Government Accountability Office report on the negotiations released last September concluded that there were irreconcilable differences between U.S. and Canadian border protocols. There was a grab bag of sticking points, from differences between the Canadian and American constitutions and laws concerning gun control to disagreements on fingerprinting visitors and other matters.

However, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-Niagara/Erie/Orleans) and some locals continue to hope that the plan will be revived or tweaked to become a viable option again.

“I think that the prospects are very good,” Slaughter said. “I’ve talked to people in the Federal Highway Administration and they are very interested in it, as well as other people from Homeland Security.”

Slaughter also noted Clinton’s support for the proposal, which she said was “unilaterally” dashed by outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Having the customs operations in Canada might make the bridge more palatable in Buffalo, where under the current plan some homes in a historic waterfront district would be razed to build an entrance plaza to the new crossing.

At the end of the day, there is not even a finalized design yet for the Peace Bridge; the Federal Highway Administration rejected the latest blueprint because the soaring heights of the bridge could endanger migratory birds. The plans are being revised and will then be put before the cities of Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario, and the Public Bridge Authority for final approval, Higgins said. From there, the decision would move to the Federal Highway Administration, which could green-light the project within the next six months. Construction could begin in late 2009 and be completed in four to five years.

“Let’s move ahead with this already,” said Rudnick, the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership CEO. “It’s been a political issue for the last nine years. We’re certainly hopeful that it will be brought to the forefront given the delay.”

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In Buffalo and Beyond, Western New York’s Political Future Also in Question

by Karen Zraick

Western New York was flush with political cash and attention last election day, leading many to expect upsets in local races. But there were few surprises once the votes were tallied, as Democrats struggled to make significant inroads in heavily Republican rural areas.

Democrats were especially disappointed by Joe Mesi’s loss to Michael Ranzenhofer for the State Senate seat of retiring Sen. Mary Lou Rath (R-Erie/Genesee). Mesi, a former heavyweight boxer, was crippled by lukewarm support from local Democrats after a bruising primary, despite major attention from the Senate Democratic conference. Even a reported $700,000 cash infusion from Rochester billionaire Thomas Golisano did not help put him over the top in the heavily Republican district. Less of a surprise was Alice Kryzan’s loss to local businessman Christopher Lee for the seat of Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-Erie). Kryzan edged out two opponents in a divisive and scandal-ridden primary, and was significantly outspent in the general election.

There were a couple of notable Democratic wins: Eric Massa narrowly beat Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl (R-Cattargus/Allegany/Steuben), with financial help from Golisano. Republicans had held the seat since the Civil War. And for retiring Rep. James Walsh’s (R-Wayne/Onondaga) seat, Democrat Dan Maffei defeated county legislator Dale Sweetland to win a seat that had been in Republican hands for almost 30 years.

“The Democrats didn’t have a bad year,” said Kevin Hardwick, a political scientist at Canisius College. “They just didn’t have as good a year as they did in other places.”

State Sen. Antoine Thompson (D-Erie) said he believes local Democrats have the momentum to take two or three more Senate seats in the next four years, and noted that most Democrats who lost last November did so by narrow margins.

“This was a test of how Democrats can perform and compete in some of these Republican districts,” Thompson said. “We were within striking distance, within five or six points in all the races.”

But many attributed Democratic gains to “the Obama effect.”

“[Upstate Democrats] rode a massive surf wave in, with Barack Obama at the top of it,” said Paula Snyder, chairwoman of the Cattaraugus County Republican Committee.

In the long-term view, the area’s political demographics are changing. Western New York’s cities have long been Democratic, while rural areas tend to be solidly Republican. But Democrats are gaining ground as longtime party members from Buffalo and other big cities migrate to the suburbs, diversifying districts that were once solidly red. Coupled with the Democrats’ statewide gains on Election Day, this has some local Republicans worried that they may not be able to hold other seats or win some of the lost ones back.

“Our work is cut out for us,” said Henry Wojtaszek, the Niagara County Republican committee chair, who cited candidate recruitment as the number-one priority going into the next election cycle.

Other Republicans interviewed said that sticking to a clear message of job creation and lower taxes will help the party maintain their ground. The GOP must act quickly, Hardwick said, or they could lose a lot more ground once districts are redrawn following the 2010 census.

Golisano’s organization, Responsible New York, had put money behind both Republican and Democratic candidates. Observers expect the group to play a significant role in the next cycle.

State Sen. William Stachowski (D-Erie), another major recipient of Golisano’s funds, successfully fended off a challenge from celebrity cold-case detective Dennis Delano. Under the leadership deal that fell through, though, Stachowski would have been denied the chairmanship of the Finance Committee that he had been expecting in exchange for being named deputy majority leader. Whatever leadership deal is ultimately struck, including one with a senator from outside New York City—and likely from Western New York—in a senior position will likely remain a priority.

And with ambitious politicians sizing up the chances of being appointed to Hillary Clinton’s (D) Senate seat, there have been calls for Gov. David Paterson (D) to pick someone from Western New York like Buffalo mayor Byron Brown (D) or Rep. Brian Higgins (D-Erie/Chautauqua).

Hardwick said such an appointment would help the Democrats make more inroads in Western New York in future elections.

“It would blunt Republicans’ criticism that Democrats only care about New York City and downstate interests,” Hardwick said.