On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:10:20 -0400, Dave Smith
adavidsmith@sympatico.ca> wrote:


However, due to heavy traffic and
inadequate parking I was unable to stop on the Canadian side the last
time I was there.

Christ, first you complain about the hotels ruining the view, but they you
complain that the entire park is not paved for your parking convenience,
and in your mind there is less to see because the place is packed with
people. There us a large parking lot just south of the falls where you pay
to park for the day and get a pass on the People Mover shuttle buses.


If they hadn't put so many hotels up right smack across from the
falls, the traffic wouldn't be so horrendous, would it?

The large parking lot with the people mover pass was *full* when I was
there.

I wanted to see the falls. The immediate area of the falls on the
Canadian side resembles Cancun.

Bullshit. The "immediate area* is a park. There is a road along the side of
the river and a nice wide sidewalk, plus a paved pedestrian walkway right
by the falls.


What's on the other side of the road?


Most of the tourist traps are on Clifton Hill and along
Victoria Ave, which is more than a half mile away and its total area is
less than the park alongside the river in the "immediate vicinity" of the
falls, and not counting the 25+ miles of park land than runs along the
river al the way from Fort Erie to Niagara on the Lake that you managed to
miss because you spent all your time in tourist traps.


I spent most of my time walking in the park on the American side. I
also went to the observation tower over the river and took the Maid
of the Mist ride. Is that a tourist trap? Because that was the only
paid attraction I frequented.


The reason the tourist traps are there
is of course because there are so many tourists there, but a
responsible urban planning would have prevented them from ruining the
immediate vicinity of the falls. The Canadian side was truly beautiful
30 years ago and now it's been trashed.

Most of those tourist traps were there 30 years ago. Some of them have
changed hands or changed themes. The road was repaved and roadside parking
removed along the last mile of the parkway by the falls. The sidewalks have
been replaced and there was a lot of interlocking brick installed. The old
concession building by the falls was refurbished. A parking lot was added
when they removed the roadside parking. Other than that, the "immediate
vicinity" of the falls on the Canadian side has not changed much in the 43
years I have been living in the area.


Did the high rise hotels just spring up like mushrooms?


You can have all the hiking
trails and butterfly conservatories and riverside parks you want along
the Niagara river, but what's been done in the vicinity of the falls
is execrable. People don't go to Niagara Falls to see butterflys.


Obviously some of you are more interested in driving around the tourist
traps and looking down their noses at them than putting a little effort
into seeing something significant. People do go to the falls to see the
falls, but then they want to see something else. If you think that they
don't go see the butterfly conservatory, then I guess you haven't stood in
line for an hour or two to go through it. What you have managed to do is
to ignore the miles and miles of parks and hiking trails in the area and
harped about a few blocks of tourist traps because you were too lazy or
apathetic to get out an look for them are take part in them.


Look, I've done a lot of hiking all over the world, on four
continents, actually, but that's not what I would go to Niagara falls
for. I don't visit tourist traps, period, not here, not there, not
anywhere.


Smoky Mountain National Park in the US is beautiful, but to get to it
you have to pass through a gauntlet of tourist traps and heavy
traffic. I took some European friends camping there and was sorry I
had.


Yep. And the worst thing is that you can't find a parking spot when you get
to those places because that is where everyone else goes.


If you actually enter the park there's no problem finding a parking
space. It's just in the tarted up towns on the perimeter that there's
a problem and unfortunately you can't get into the park without going
through those towns. We did a lot of hiking there, but as I said,
Niagara's Falls has one big attraction: IT'S THE FALLS. If you've
lived there for 30 years and don't think the ambience has been ruined,
I can only say that it must have happened so slowly that it crept up
on you. Or maybe you have a fondness for neon.

I visited Niagara Falls once in the 1960s, once in the 1980s and once
in 2002 or something like that. In the 1980s the American side had
improved since my first visit and the Canadian side was nice but
already getting a bit overbuilt. On that visit, we spent most of our
time on the Canadian side. On my latest visit, I was pretty much
horrified.The Italian first time visitor to the falls who was with me
couldn't believe the level of tackiness. I could only say, "You should
have seen it 30 years ago."

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:04:31 -0400, "Frank F. Matthews"
frankfmatthews@houston.rr.com> wrote:

There is a nice walking park along the river on the Canadian side.


I'm all in favor of that, but I don't think it atones for what they've
allowed to be built in the vicinity of the falls.


With regard to parking you might park at the Butterfly museum and get a
day ticket for the shuttle. The butterfly museum lot is rarely full
when the lots near the falls are overflowing.


We didn't know of that at the time. In fact, I thought that it would
have been a good idea to have a real-time electronic sign that could
have warned us that all the lots in the direction we were going were
full.