Buffalo has begun the last phase of the Cars Sharing Main Street program, a six-tenths-of-a-mile rebuild from Mohawk Street to Exchange Street that reconstructs the Metro Rail trackbed and returns automobile traffic to a stretch of Main Street that has been closed to cars since 1985. Construction on the final phase started in April 2026 and is expected to run through spring 2028 (WKBW).

What happened

Work on the final segment began in April 2026 on the stretch of Main Street between Mohawk and Exchange. The scope is not a resurfacing. According to Buffalo Place, the completion project rebuilds the street between the building fronts and the trackbed curb from Mohawk to Church and North Division, and between Division and Exchange it rebuilds the full width of Main Street from building line to building line, including the trackbed itself (Buffalo Place).

Angela Keppel of Buffalo Place described the scope this way: "It's rebuilding the entire Metro Rail tracks and building a better street for everyone, so there'll be cars, there'll be pedestrian amenities, beautiful plantings and it's a better, accessible, safer street for everyone" (WKBW).

The transit side of the work is coordinated with NFTA-Metro's Rail Renewal program. NFTA identifies "Cars on Main Street — Mohawk to Exchange" as a City of Buffalo project executed in partnership with NFTA-Metro, with a work area along Main Street between Church and Exchange Streets. The sequence began with removal of the pedestrian bridge at Main and Eagle in February 2026, followed by Phase 1 construction in spring 2026 affecting the inbound side west of Main Street, with Phase 2 on the outbound side to the east (NFTA-Metro).

The cost figures, and why they differ

Two different numbers circulate for this work, and they measure different things. WKBW describes the project as "nearly $60 million" (WKBW). Buffalo Place lists the Cars Sharing Main Street Completion Project from Mohawk to Exchange at $54 million, funded through a $54 million allocation from New York State plus other construction funding sources managed by the City of Buffalo (Buffalo Place).

The most defensible reading is that $54 million is the identified state allocation for the completion segment and the higher figure reflects total program cost including other city-managed funding. Neither source reconciles them explicitly, so contractors and suppliers should work from the $54 million state allocation as the documented number and treat the larger figure as an approximate program total.

The broader corridor has been assembled from many funding sources over two decades: an $18 million competitive TIGER VII grant in 2015 for the Lower Main Street Rehabilitation Project between Exchange and Scott, a $15 million TIGER III grant in 2011 for Fountain Plaza and the 500 block, an $8 million state appropriation in 2006, $4 million in SAFETEA-LU transportation funds, and an additional $2 million in SAFETEA-LU funds (Buffalo Place).

Project team and delivery

The City of Buffalo Public Works Department has managed the design process, with DiDonato Associates as lead consultant and Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects handling streetscape design. NFTA is the local review agency and is completing trackbed and catenary work (Buffalo Place). Work starts at Mohawk Street and proceeds south; after the Mohawk-to-Church sections are complete, work moves south between Church and Division Streets and Exchange Street (Buffalo Place).

Automobiles returned to the stretch between East Tupper and Mohawk in 2009 under an earlier phase, and the segment now under construction has been closed to cars since 1985 (WKBW).

Why it matters to construction professionals

Reconstructing embedded light rail track in an active downtown corridor is one of the more constrained forms of urban heavy civil work. The trackbed, catenary, drainage, utilities, roadway structure and streetscape all occupy the same narrow right-of-way, and the transit system remains in service around the work. NFTA's broader Rail Renewal program shows the scale of the parallel transit effort: a rail car rehabilitation program representing a $45 million investment covering all 27 cars in the fleet, plus catenary and insulator replacement covering approximately 18,500 linear feet of overhead contact wire (NFTA-Metro).

The staging is equally instructive. Splitting the work into inbound and outbound phases keeps one track and one side of the street operational at a time, which lengthens the schedule but preserves transit service and business access. A two-year duration on six-tenths of a mile is a direct consequence of that constraint, not an indication of a slow job.

Implications for owners, developers, contractors and subcontractors

• Contractors: Expect sequential, block-by-block mobilizations rather than a single continuous work zone. Utility conflicts under a street that has carried rail since the 1980s are the most common source of change orders in this kind of work.
• Subcontractors: The recurring packages are trackwork and special trackwork, catenary and traction power, concrete and paving, drainage and utility relocation, granite and unit paving, lighting, signals, irrigation and landscape.
• Property owners and developers: The corridor is being rebuilt building line to building line in the southern section, which affects sidewalk vaults, building entrances and any planned facade or ground-floor work. Coordination windows matter more than usual.
• Adjacent businesses: Storefront access is the recurring pain point. Rick Bassett, owner of Salty Dog Barber Shop on the affected block, is among the business owners tracking the work as it moves down the street (WKBW). Access management during construction is a leasing issue for corridor landlords, not just a logistics issue.

What to watch next

• Completion of the Mohawk-to-Church sections and the shift of work south toward Exchange Street.
• The transition from Phase 1 on the inbound side to Phase 2 on the outbound side, which NFTA describes as the basic staging structure for the Church-to-Exchange work area (NFTA-Metro).
• Final curbside management. Business owners on the block expect two-hour parking, though that has not been confirmed as a project commitment in the reporting reviewed here (WKBW).

Bottom line

This is the closing chapter of a corridor rebuild that began in 2006 and has been funded through at least six distinct sources. The final phase reconstructs both the roadway and the Metro Rail trackbed on a six-tenths-of-a-mile stretch, carries a documented $54 million state allocation, and runs to spring 2028. For contractors, the work is constrained, phased and utility-heavy. For owners along the corridor, the two-year disruption window is now defined, which is more useful for planning than any single cost figure.

Sources

• WKBW, "Final phase of Cars Sharing Main Street project underway in downtown Buffalo" (April 10, 2026) — https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/buffalo/were-very-excited-final-phase-of-cars-sharing-main-street-project-underway-in-downtown-buffalo
• Buffalo Place, "Cars Sharing Main Street Completion Project" — https://www.buffaloplace.com/resources/project-information/cars-sharing-main-street
• NFTA-Metro, "Rail Renewal" project page — https://metro.nfta.com/about/projects/rail-renewal