Like Charley, I also fail to see what advantage studs provide in deep snow. Hell, in SUPER deep snow, some people will actually switch to big, wide tires to try to stay on TOP of the snow. In extreme cases, they use tracks to really increase their contact area and to "float" on the snow, but I digress as these are strategies employed in northern Canada and Alaska, rarely anywhere else. Studs are for digging into ice, so how do the help you paddle through deep snow? Yes, if there is deep snow, there's likely to be ice here and there; where one goes, the other follows, but I fail to see how studs are as amazing as you (wilson) are conveying especially for an area with a very well-developed snow-removal infrastructure that also employs liberal use of road salt.
While I'm not from Buffalo, NY, I DO know what lake-effect snow is; I'm intimately familiar with it having grown-up walking distance from the Lake Michigan coast. Heck, I still live near the lake now. While I'm sure it's much more common downwind of the lakes in a place like Buffalo, I'm very experienced with what the lakes can do to the weather year-round and especially in winter. I just don't see the advantage of studs anywhere but places that are consistently icy, and I have seen real damage done by them other areas and here in WI in spite of our law prohibiting their use.
Studs have their place, and regardless of that, this thread really isn't about studs anyway. Many winter tires are studdable if the OP is allowed and wants to use them. Winter tires would still be wise with or without studs. If the OP can always manage to wait until the streets are plowed, then discussion of 96+ inches of annual snowfall is also moot because, once plowed, there's roughly the same amount of snow left on them in NY as there is in OH as there is in WI as there is in WA. I don't know for sure, but speaking from my experience, there are probably plenty of times that you can't wait for the plow, so Buffalo's snowfall is probably semi-relevant.