Cars Credited with a Comeback on Main Street

Mark Sommer writes of a boom for business on Main Street in Buffalo: "The cars came back – and now the diners, renters and shoppers are beginning to come, too."

After listing some of the new businesses opening in the area, Sommer talks to one business owner in particular who credits the return of vehicle traffic to Main Street after it was banned in 1982. The city opened Main Street to cars when it launched the "Cars Sharing Main Street" program in 2009. "As the automobiles, which share the road with Metro Rail, slowly make a comeback, so, too, does the commercial heart of downtown itself," writes Sommer.

While this article, gives credit to the car, a story picked up by Planetizen in 2013 credited Buffalo's Metro Rail system, once touted as a "Train to Nowhere," with the massive investment represented by the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.