While America’s large cities are expected to have their public transportation systems down to a science, sometimes smaller and mid-sized cities fall into a gray area in between.

New York is dotted with these smaller and mid-sized cities, from Buffalo to Syracuse, all of whom have similar, but varying, degrees of public transportation options.

Syracuse in particular is known for being highway dependent, and one city leader is pushing to use cities like Albany and Buffalo as a model to rethink the systems in the Salt City.

“We’ve really kind of suburbanized the urban fabric of the city,” said Michael Greene, common councilor at-large for the city of Syracuse.

Greene is on the Syracuse’s Common Council’s Transportation Committee, and has a background in transportation.

“I’ve seen the benefits of a really strong public transportation system,” he said. “When you come to Syracuse you notice that we don’t have that.”

He says starting in the 1950s, downtown Syracuse developed a love affair with highways and parking, but it wasn’t always that way. Like other cities Syracuse’s, suburbs now neatly connected by interstates we’re once connected by public transit.

“It was a series of streetcar suburbs,” Greene said.

Syracuse isn’t alone. He says now, many conversations about development in downtowns that have embraced highway off-ramps bring with them concerns about losing that coveted parking.

“When you consider the great downtowns in America and throughout the world, what you don’t see are a lot of are huge surface parking lots,” he said.

He says downtown Syracuse for example actually has a parking surplus, it just might take an adjustment in mindset for visitors and residents to fully appreciate.

“They go in front of the restaurant and the first few spots in front of the restaurant are full and they say there’s no parking downtown,” he said. “What they really mean is there was no parking directly in front of where I wanted to go, but when you go to the mall for example, you’re accustomed to walking five minutes to get into the mall and that’s really what it needs to be downtown too.”

He says an embrace of that mindset would enable the development of some of Syracuse’s surplus parking, meaning more retail and housing. Meanwhile, emphasizing that we can get back to that idea of a street car suburb, and back to more livable and walkable downtowns free of massive parking lots, by also embracing a modern-day alternative. He says Bus Rapid Transit, which operates like a rail-less subway, could be the answer to making Syracuse less highway and auto-dependent.

“You can just show up to a bus stop and even if you just missed it, you know another one will be coming shortly,” he said.

He stresses that across New York, other smaller to mid-sized cities are embracing public transit. Buffalo’s Metro Rail has seen success, and Bus Rapid Transit has already been rolled out by the Capital District Transportation Authority in Albany.

“Those cities are very culturally similar to Syracuse," he said, "and it works there so it provides a good model for us to say ‘if we build it, people in Syracuse will use it.' "

In the Capital Region, CDTA CEO Carm Basile says people are certainly using Bus Rapid Transit.

“It’s been as successful as anything we’ve ever done in the history of the company,” he said.

He emphasizes that success came from understating the day-to-day needs of the community.

“Much more frequent service, wide spans, weekends, evenings, really something people can rely on for whatever trip purpose they need,” he said.

As Syracuse prepares plans to say goodbye to I-81 through the center of town, Greene says he hopes this pivotal moment in the city’s history will embrace that same idea.

“You’ll see a lot of private investment along those corridors where people build new apartments, they build new businesses, because the value of being along a bus route will greatly enhance the quality of life for the people who live there,” he said.

Greene says he recognizes that the I-81 project may add to commute times for people traveling through their city, but believes it will create a better experience for those visiting and living in the city overall.