The Skyway has taken a beating since it was constructed in 1958. Built as a high-flying arterial to the south from both downtown and the I-190, it was built to soar 110 feet above the harbor to facilitate the passage of Great Lakes freighters from the Midwest to our extensive network of grain silos and railroads—back in the day.

The roadway has fulfilled its utilitarian purpose, carrying traffic north and south for nearly 50 years, and for half of its existence it has been the target of a long line of critics who point to it as an ugly blemish. A reminder that Buffalo lost its role as a vibrant port city with the completion of the Welland Canal. It’s also pointed to as a dangerous thoroughfare where high winds and slippery surfaces typically close it to traffic a few times a year. It is the site of a substantial number of traffic accidents resulting in injury and sometimes death. True enough.

For these and other reasons, the Skyway has frequently served as scapegoat for why we haven’t realized the potential of our waterfront. While it was never designed to deliver people to the beach, or to a new and exciting series of shoreline businesses or attractions, it has somehow taken on the role of spoiler.

Let’s leap into the future for a moment and picture yourself as a tourist at the terminus of the Erie Canal. The city is just beginning to reap the benefits of historic tourism. The docent says, “Yes, Buffalo continued as a vital port well into the 20th century. Picture, if you will, an enormous bridge high above the harbor carrying car and truck traffic as freighters sailed in underneath.” She is gesturing up at the empty sky.

But what if the Skyway were viewed not as a barrier to real estate development but as valuable real estate itself?

Since we are a community looking at options, I’d like to suggest a different future for the Skyway other than tearing it down. Despite its maintenance needs, it is built like a tank. Experts say it could easily function as a roadway for another 50 years with routine maintenance. Constructed in the golden era of the Eisenhower Interstate System, I look at it as a gracefully functional arch that artificially creates something wholly lacking in our basically flat city: a breathtaking view.

Imagine what that view would be like if you could take it in at your leisure, without keeping your eyes on the road. Imagine sitting at a table outside the coffeehouse located at the apex of the arch on a brilliantly sunny summer afternoon several months after the roadway has been closed to vehicles and landscaped with trees and grass. Look out at the vast expanse of the lake, watching sailboats moving imperceptibly on the glittering water. Then turn your head toward the city. Look at the traffic flowing on the boulevard beneath you—the road that leads people from downtown to the new developments on the growing waterfront and on south to the rest of Route 5.

You got up there via one of the glass elevators located at the base of the bridge, or maybe the chairlift or gondola if you didn’t want to hike or bike up the incline, past landscaped foliage planted next to the path. You are sitting next to a table of tourists who can’t stop snapping pictures of the puzzling grain elevators. In this wi-fi zone you take a minute to shoot an email to your friend in New Orleans.

While you’re sitting there, below you are windmills affixed to the bottom of the bridge to catch the constant flow of energy coming off the eastern end of Lake Erie, providing all the power necessary to run the gondolas, elevators, shops and restaurants situated on the long, flat top of the old road surface.

In the winter, the slope is dotted with colorful ski jackets as children ride toboggans and skiers slash their way down this unique urban winter recreation area. Some will ski down into the city in time to catch a Sabres game or go out nightclubbing, some may choose to rent an inner-tube at the top and ride it down to the south, where they can rent cross-country skis and explore the trails around Times Beach and Tifft Nature Preserve or stop in for drink at the re-opened Pier restaurant. If we are to be perceived as a snowbound city, let us at least show the world that we know how to have fun with it.

Seattle and New York have transformed elevated roadways into park-like settings, but nothing like what our Skyway Park could become. In our society of the spectacle, everyone driving through Buffalo along the I-190 would look in amazement at what was done with this old piece of infrastructure—an enormous piece of living folk art.

Of course, fences would be required, and windbreaks would be helpful, but if they can put safeguards in place to keep sailors from falling off aircraft carriers, something can be fashioned to provide a suitable degree of safety for pedestrians. People walk over tall bridges all over the world.

Sometimes appreciation is a matter of perspective. Next time you look at the Skyway, don’t picture it as a grayish ribbon of steel, concrete and blacktop roaring with tense drivers. Picture it as a calm, green oasis high above the city and our magnificent lake. If it helps, picture ivy growing over the concrete pillars and cascading over the concrete railings. Covered in green, it would take on a strange, alluring appearance—but more so it will become a destination to be looked from, not at. It’s a view that cannot be replaced by a street level boulevard that will only let us see the lake as far as the breakwall allows.

Wouldn’t it be a happy surprise to wake up and find that Buffalo’s “signature span” is already built? And wouldn’t it be cool if places like Milwaukee, Portland and New York pointed at us not as imitators, but as thrifty, imaginative leaders?