Friday, February 9, 2024

Upstate Gateway/Hastings On Hudson Span with New RR Further Elaborated

My previous article about this idea:

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2024/02/i-684i-687-nyw-plus-upstate-gateway.html


In developing this I-684/I-687 Upstate Gateway Project, I had initially included the "NYWB" as a logical accompanying mode.  Just look at that I-95 233rd Street ramp set immediately west of Co Op City, pointing right at the Dyre Avenue IRT.  Indisputably needed for uncorking what would be an insane traffic bottleneck coming up from Long Island. (Which begs the question, why was the Central Corridor Expressway not pursued?  After all, much of the route in Westchester, indeed about everything past Mt Vernon, was NOT yet built up in the years immediately following WW2.  And wtf?  Why did they removed the NYWB, specifically the mainline to White Plains?  And if they did, why not some sort of vehicular road, even if only a single lane in each direction while leaving space for future capacity addition?  All we would get in that regard is the Heathecote Bypass, with no apparent talk of at least extending that south into New Rochelle to Pine Brook Boulevard, or north into White Plains to the 4 lane Mamaroneck Avenue, getting it past Archbishop Stepinac HS and Our Lady of Sorrows Church.

 

But how about this- wtf about the NYC metro regional area developing a more suitable new railroad link to the west?  We know that Manhattan's RR tunnels are in sorry shape.  And we can not deny the utter sheer stupidity of NO heavy RR suitable for FREIGHT rail anywhere along the Hudson River, until 140 miles to the north at Selkirk, by Albany.  WTF?  And don't get me started on the situation with how the planning for the I-287 corridor from Sufferan to White Plains was undermined, particularly with the weird planning swap in 2011-2012 with the illegal sacking of the replacement Tappan Zee Bridges lower deck suspiciously omitted from the EIS with not a peep from the cacophony of phony liberal progressive transportation and environmentalist activist advocacy groups, such as this and this.

 


 

We blew it on the replacement TPZ, even abandoning a pair of nice designs with well shaped artfully sculpted supports in favor of a pair of ordinary skinny legs with towers suggestive of a devils hand-sign, outward canted, perhaps even to disallow more than a single RR track for double stacked rail cars.  WTF?




So we cant do anything about the TPZ for a while.


But how about to the south?


Well, a Yonkers Bridge is a bit problematic, due to that huge bridge, which no one is going to allow having it cut away like I-68 in western Maryland, and which would be challenging at best to drill multiple moled tunnels along each other.


But look at Hastings on the Hudson.  Yes, that other new Hudson River Bridge crossing between the TPZ and the GWB.


No ridge blocking that as in Yonkers.


And consider that 1979 television show SUPERTRAIN.  Yes it was corny with that extra wide gauge track, and a travel intenary that made little sense- e.g. why not show it going anywhere in New Jersey or Pennsylvania?  Let along upstate New York, not even Buffalo.  Nor how about Detroit, or, Chicago?


But do recall what it suggested.  A train that leaves NYC Manhattan's Grand Central Station, emerging from it tunnel at about 96th Street (on a single track. wtf).


But then what?


A train leaving Grand central heading north and the swinging west.

 

SUPERTRAIN failed to show just how.

 

But clearly there is only one really good option, the Hastings on the Hudson Cross Hudson Bridge to Alpine New Jersey (at the very northeaster corner of that state).

 

This I-684/I-687 proposed project includes such a RR link, essentially as a YY configuration of both RR and expressway.

 

Now it does not go to Grand central, but rather the eastern Bronx down to alongside the Bruckner Expressway, tying into the RR proposal made by the group RETHINK NYC, which does a great deal of excellent work.

 

But it could so connect with Grand central, via the RR along the Westchester County western side, of the eastern shore of the Hudson River, with a set of underground loop RR ramps to make the grade change up to our new I-687 with RR in the new river crossing spans lower deck.  With a 6 or 8 lane span, lets include a minimum of 5 RR lanes within its lower deck, with that RR continuing to the west of the Palisades Parkway, to connect with New Jersey's Northern RR.


Given this idea;s intrinsic logic, what studies have the authorities ever conducted upon such a RR link?


Thursday, February 1, 2024

I-684/I-687 "NYW&B" plus Upstate Gateway- further developed

My earlier article:

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2023/12/ny-requires-constructing-revived.html

 

The need for a modern expressway extending northward from the Co Op City area 233rd Street ramps is indisputable. The route would of course follow the old "NY, Westchester & Boston" RR corridor, and it would definitely INCLUDE the entire segment from the northern end of the "Dyre Avenue" IRT, into downtown White Plains within a a reconstructed Westchester Mall, with an extension to Westchester County Airport. The restored RR would include architecturally faithful "NY&B" stations at Sanford Street, East 3rd Street, and Columbus Avenue for a transfer to the Metro North in Mt Vernon, and at Wykagil in New Rochelle, with a new underground Heathecote Junction station in Scarsdale, likely with some new mixed use buildings in the style of downtown Scarsdale.  Having lived nearby, I can see the idea of a restoration of the Marx Estate Mansion, as an integral part of a redevelopment featuring military campus scale residential condominiums - with a first right of refusal for existing residents displaced, with sufficient units to offer as well to newcomers - akin to the Marx Mansion architecture.  And my intuition tells me that others already have this vision.  I can NOT be the only person seeing that potential.

 

It would exclude the branch through Pelham.

 

It would be an exact restoration of the original alignment, EXCEPT for the segment from near Pine Brook Boulevard, in Scarsdale, and in White Plains except for a few hundred feet south of the Westchester Mall. And it would exclude the "Quaker Ridge" station at 556 Stratton Rd- a historic landmark in a marshy low lying wetter area. 

 

The expressway would start at I-95, with connections to Route 1. 

 

It would be underground, encased and filtered cut and cover along the western side of the IRT, with a elevated, styled northbound segment to the east that enters the aforementioned tunnel, remaining fully underground to the vicinity of East 3rd Street, and either going under or over the Metro North (depending upon feasibility), before transitioning to an aerial tunnel extending northerly, alongside the restored "NYW&B" within a enclosure mimicking the style of the old elevated stations that were demolished by the 1950s. 

 

Both expressway and RR would enter an enclosed underground segment just south of Wykagil, where we would have an underground station and concourse, with a lower level for a transfer to the start of an all new RR line that branches off with I-687. This would be fully underground, passing in a cut and cover tunnel alongside Morrison and beneath the Hutchinson River Parkway "hump" where the Wilmont Avenue ramps join that, and continue as cut and cover beneath the front portion of Iona Prep, and continue as tunnel into Eastchester principally through cut and cover within a golf course, to a new train station west of Route 22. 

 

From there, the expressway would emerge upon a new bridge crossing over the Bronx River Valley, with the RR carried in its lower deck, before landing near Central Avenue with a new station in the former Alexanders site. This would continue west, with a tunnel segment along/beneath Jackson Avenue, continuing to a new trans Hudson River Bridge to Alpine, N.J., connecting to the Palisades Parkway corridor to and from the northwest, and with the RR connecting into the existing RR network with improvements. 

 

These pair of expressways together with these accompanying pair of railroads would serve a vital national security need for evacuation from NYC and Long Island, open up the Catskills for significantly greater economic development, while serving as an initial leg of a new transcontinental railroad.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Expanded Kensington Humboldt Parkway Tunnel to Include the Scajaquado Expressway past Agassiz Circle

 

 

We MUST suspend the current project as it now stands.  But not with a surrender but rather an extension, giving Buffalo what it really needs instead of a project that falls short by requiring a wasteful reconstruction at the now as proposed expressway tunnel's northern end, even better than simply extending some of the later excavation within the initial project.

 


First and foremost we must have a decision on how to address the buried Scajaquado Creek concrete culvert.

 


To have the expressway tunnel pass below is a waste as it requires nearly double the depth of the excavation.  And it is best that the expressway tunnel pass atop the underground creek.   With waterway regulations likeliest to preclude some underground spillway waterfalls for simply relocating the under the expressway and its downstream extension, this project requires an all new underground creek tunnel extending in both directions in order to maintain a continuous descending grade.  And as I wrote more recently, we now how new high heat rock excavation to deal with the underground rock that affects this project, along with its extension to include the Scajaquado- new excavation techniques capable of reducing such costs by 30 to 90 percent.  So lets not only extend the project, but improve upon what is already being proposed, with a somewhat deeper cut for more substantial trees, as well as with more fully using the corridor, perhaps by going back to the previous design that was not only deeper, but had a 4th lane in each direction southward to the Science Museum.

 

 

But how do we best configure the details to restore/reconstruct Humboldt Parkway?

 


 

 


 


First, do not saddle it with standard straight line access ramps, as such are incompatible.

 

And do not make it to require having Scajaquado Expressway (Route 198) to Route 33 traffic cross the surface.


Rather, give it such ramps that continue as cut and cover tunnel to turn away to portals nearby, and yes give it a full set of underground connections for 198/33 movements- yes, mandate a heating system to preclude ice.


During the latter part of 2023 I began some preliminary rough design work upon such ramps.


Firstly, eliminate the southbound off-ramp at Ferry Avenue, instead carrying its lane as a 4th southbound lane to the Best Street off-ramp.  And have a 4th northbound lane starting with the corresponding northbound on ramp.  We have the space within the existing corridor, so do NOT waste the potential capacity.


Second, we can add a 33 Kensington Expressway Tunnel northbound off ramp.





 

 


 

And lets have a cut and cover underground Scajaquado Expressway, with underground cut and cover tunnel ramps in both westbound and eastbound directions.





Yes, these are rough, preliminary sketches.


Has anyone else done such work?


I can't be the only person who has done this?


I certainly doubt that everyone is simply going along with the NONSENSE about either maintaining the expressway as is, let alone eliminate it with filling in its short trench that is being touted.



Sunday, January 28, 2024

New Heated Micro Tunnel Could Reduce Excavation Costs by 30 to 90%

 



 


The Buffalo NY Kensington Expressway Tunnel/Humboldt Parkway Restoration is being opposed over under certainties of it being subsequently extended north, under a false idea that the parkway's restoration should instead mean flanking it with expressway traffic, requiring wider surface roadways and hence little median space for Olmsted's vision.


The uncertainties of the Tunnel/Parkway restoration north of Sidney Street owe to the obstruction of the Scajaquado Creek buried conduit, a 24 foot wide x 14 foot deep concrete box, next to the overhead pedestrian bridge over the surface expressway.



To have a later project to extend the Kensington Expressway Tunnel, means having to rip out the current project's tunnel to surface ascent/descent transition, while maintaining traffic use of the tunnel.

 

The area is hard rock, time consuming to excavate.  So would we have to close off at least one direction of the tunnel for the number of months to remove the material.

 

But what if, we instead had extended the initial (current) project's expressway tunnel excavation a few hundred feet closer to the buried creek conduit. 

  

By doing so, the transition area would be upon fill material that would take a fraction of the time of removing than hard excavation.  

 

And with the underground space nearer to the conduit, set up a mico tunneling operation, such as this:

https://newatlas.com/technology/petra-thermal-drill-robot/

 

Consider this applied to the Kensington Expressway Tunnel. 


Establish an underground staging area for micro tunneling equipment.

 

Establish and fix in place a plan for the expressway tunnel/buried creek crossing, perhaps to replace 24 ft x 14ft box with a number of smaller diameter pipes to dissipate the water-flow and reduce the depth of expressway excavation, while avoiding a 1/3 of a mile long replacement downstream outlet.

 

Use the micro tunneling to drill bores for the 1400 or so feet northward.  Do this in parallel to excavate, reducing the amounts required for more conventional methods.  Establish an excavation that includes an underground off-ramp not marring the restored Humboldt Parkway, with an underground split to exit to Delavan Avenue that would be used for continuing upon the surface Humboldt Parkway, and a cut and cover tunnel beneath the northbound Humboldt Parkway for a subsequent Scajaquado Expressway Tunnel to a point west of Agassiz Circle).


Also consider:


https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2013/12/for-cast-iron-friendly-lower-manhattan.html


https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20York%20City?updated-max=2016-02-27T17:13:00-05:00&max-results=20&start=9&by-date=false