NIAGARA FALLS — What would it cost to remove the northern section of the Robert Moses Parkway?

People on both sides of the parkway argument have been debating the issue for about as long as they’ve been discussing the need for the roadway itself.

One soon-to-be-released study may shed new light on the subject.

Meanwhile, officials from New York State Parks are promising to make available preliminary cost figures for various parkway options when they release the initial findings of a scoping study later this year.

“There will be numbers attached to the options,” said Mark Thomas, state parks regional director.

The scoping process — what state parks officials have called a “public conversation” about the future of the northern section of the parkway — started in 2010. Led by the consulting firm, the Parsons Group, the process has involved a review of existing parkway data as well as input from local officials and residents.

State parks officials will soon release a draft scoping report which is expected to recommend at least three of the six alternatives for further consideration by the community. Thomas said the draft report is currently under internal review and will be shared with state parks’ partners — the state Department of Transportation, the state-run USA Niagara Development Corp. and the city of Niagara Falls — later this month. The draft report will be made public following the meeting with local officials. At that time, Thomas said, residents will be invited to submit comments to be included in the final version which he expects to be completed in a couple of months.

“There’s a lot of material there,” he said. “The report lays out a wide range of options.”

Thomas said the final scoping plan will contain cost estimates for the various parkway recommendations. There’s no word yet on whether those recommendations will include total parkway removal. Thomas stressed that all estimates would be preliminary in nature and said formal engineering design would be needed to determine final costs associated with all options. State parks has made it clear that scoping is intended only to identify various alternatives for the roadway as part of much larger process  that would involve additional design work and, if necessary, actual construction.

Parkway advocates have long maintained that it would cost too much money to remove all four lanes of the northern section.

Bob Baxter, conservation chair for the Niagara Heritage Partnership, a local group that has long advocated for parkway removal, said the argument has yet to be substantiated by actual cost figures.

Until now, that is.

Baxter and other parkway removal advocates are awaiting the release of another study being completed by the consulting firm, Environmental Design and Research.

Wild Ones Niagara, a local environmental advocacy group, hired EDR to examine the potential impact of the ecological restoration of the gorge on adjacent communities like Niagara Falls. The consultant was hired to examine the Gorge Rim’s natural resources, local geological, environmental and cultural history as well as potential benefits to breaking down “physical boundaries” to the Gorge. Supporters of the study maintain that ecological restoration of the Gorge and Gorge Rim would result in increased eco-tourism while helping to revive adjacent neighborhoods, including the area surrounding Main Street in Niagara Falls.

Baxter, who has reviewed a draft copy of EDR’s work, said the document pegs the cost for removing all four parkway lanes at $3,824,758.08.

“With an actual and verifiable estimate for total removal now provided, perhaps those responsible for waving their hands in alarm and talking about hundreds of millions for removal will put their hands down and keep quiet,” Baxter said. “The fact that they kept harping on this in the first place suggests that all other reasons for retaining the gorge parkway have been discarded as nonsense and all they had left was ‘we don't have that kind of money.’ Well, we do. And I will personally donate $58.08 toward removal, just to round it off.”

State officials have said that the final cost for removal would be significantly higher than the $3.8 million estimate. Thomas said he has not seen the EDR’s draft report and could not comment on it, but did describe the $3.8 million figure as “low.” He noted that any such project would involve more than simply tearing out the four lanes.

“You don’t just rip out the road,” Thomas said. “You have to deal with where the road was.”

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

Six options for the future of the parkway have been under consideration, including:

• Restoration of all four lanes

• An update to the current “pilot project” that saw the roadway reduced to two lanes several years ago

• Three options for redesign involving Whirlpool Street

• Complete removal of all four lanes