WHAT IS ONE REGION FORWARD?

One Region Forward is a broad-based collaborative effort to promote more sustainable forms of development in Erie and Niagara counties – the Buffalo Niagara Region – in land use, transportation, housing, energy and climate, access to food, and more. It combines research and public engagement with planning and action to help us meet the combined economic, environmental, and social challenges of the 21st century.

One Region Forward was launched through a planning process to craft a Regional Plan for Sustainable Development, a federally recognized document that gives our region priority status for funding opportunities today and into the future.

The plan, called A New Way to Plan for Buffalo Niagara serves as a practical roadmap for improving mobility, promoting more efficient land use patterns, strengthening our basic infrastructure, growing a 21st century economy, ensuring broad access to healthy food, protecting housing and neighborhoods, and mounting our region’s response to the challenge of global climate change.

ONE REGION FORWARD IMPLEMENTATION

Through One Region Forward, we learned what we as the Buffalo Niagara region want out of our transportation system in broad terms. GBNRTC’s Moving Forward 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan Update identifies how our transportation systems can help us achieve the region’s goals via specific strategies and targeted transportation projects.

Buffalo Niagara’s Priority Climate Action Plan

The Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC) is leading a climate action planning process for Erie and Niagara Counties. Along with partners involved in One Region Forward, we are working together on a new federally funded initiative through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) opportunity to reduce our region’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP)

GBNRTC is currently working on the Buffalo Niagara CCAP to include a fully updated GHG inventory, GHG Emissions Projections, GHG Reduction Targets, Quantified GHG Reduction Targets, Benefits Analysis, including a Low-Income, Disadvantaged Community (LIDAC) Analysis, and Workforce Planning Analysis. The CCAP process is building off the Buffalo Niagara Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) and will include broad municipal and stakeholder outreach and engagement that will extend through 2025.

Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP)

The Buffalo Niagara PCAP develop in February 2024 is a narrative report that focuses on near-term, high-priority strategies to reduce GHG pollution from across the economy including transportation, housing, and commercial buildings which comprise 82% of emissions in our region along with other key sectors.

The PCAP is available and accessible by clicking on the image below.