Batteries and Other New Technologies For The Many Over Manhattanization For The Few

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/opinion/l23krugman.html

To the Editor:

I disagree with Paul Krugman’s analysis, for two reasons.

First, Europe has a much greater population density than the United States, so it’s more cost-effective for European countries to build and maintain public transportation.

Second, the coming alternative-energy-powered cars will change everything, allowing widely used private transport to be cost-effective once again.

James W. Voelz
Des Peres, Mo., May 19, 2008

New hybrid technology automobiles are going to be far more affordable than overpriced Manhattan dwellings.

So are new highways, even tunneled, versus the addiction to the Pentagram/Pentagon.

Perhaps the elites refuse to admit this because they are really depopulationists.

And, as well, control freaks: note how Krugman can bring up Germany as an example to follow, without mentioning its infinitely more enlightened speed limit policies upon its Autobahns.

NYC West Side Highway in A Box

A Sampling of Attitudes 6-0 for the good guys

Neither Westway nor the Big Dig: It's Highway-'na-Box

http://curbed.com/archives/2006/06/23/neither_westway_nor_the_big_dig_its_highwaynabox.php

Friday, June 23, 2006, by Jeremy

---

The Times unpacks the somewhat confusing pile-driving that's going on in the backyard of Avery, Rushmore and friends. The short version: They're building a highway in a box (or a box for a highway) so that the West Side Highway can eventually be rerouted into this box from 59th Street to 72nd Street. The speedy development of the ex-Trump land into more apartment buildings is pressing the issue, because the road and the towers have to be built kinda sorta in concert with each other. The good news? Riverside Park South will eventually be expanded and spiffed up—we think—based on the added tiny green trees in the paper's handy dandy graphic here and above. And when have those little green trees ever lied?
· The Surprise in This Box? A Highway, Some Assembly Required [NYT]
· Avery Getting a New Riverside Friend: Rushmore [Curbed]

Comments (6 extant)

1.Trump offered to do this exact same thing when he was first putting those buildings up.

Congressman Jerry Nadler killed the plan based on a petty personal vendetta against Trump.

By Sean at June 23, 2006 11:50 AM


2. The relatively new viaduct (for the elevated west side highway) is the worst example of blight for the riverside south park users. Burying the highway will benefit all users: pedestrians, bicycle riders, joggers etc. However, those most helped will be the owners of the western facing, low floor apartments at riverside south or trump place, whatever it's called now, since many of these units face or look up to the viaduct.

By UWSider at June 23, 2006 12:09 PM


3. Anyone with more knowledge than I have of Olive Freud's concerns care to suggest what her objections to this may be?

I still don't understand why there was so much resistance to Westway.

By VDH at June 23, 2006 1:17 PM


4. So can anyone tell me why Olive Freud would be against this? I never understood why Westway was objected to so much. Intead of having a 6 lane highway at grade that pedestrians have to cross while cars invariably speed through red lights (happens all the time where I live) we could have had the same highway out of the way underground. After a little bit of research it seems that striped bass were in danger and there was this general feeling that automobiles were bad. We still have speeding cars on that fricking highway so what was achieved except saving some striped bass?

By VDH at June 23, 2006 1:29 PM


5. VDH - as I read the article, It seems that Olive Freud's argument is that there should be no West Side Highway at all - either at grade, elevated, or underground. Which, of course, is idiotic. Obviously there needs to be a highway there, and just as obviously, it would be better for everyone if that highway were below ground.

By davey at June 23, 2006 4:49 PM


6. Olive Freud sounds like an anti-environmentalist who has this childish idea that he/she should be able to just push it all away. So was the case with the idiotic anti Westway movement which promoted the idea of transferring highway moneys to rail transit as a distraction from the bloated military/law enforcement/prison industry. Since the striped bass are primarily along the shore line, revive Westway as a barrier island, hence creating more habitat for the striped bass.

By Douglas Willinger at January 28, 2007 2:35 PM

Manhattan Tunnel Structure Is Built for the Long Term



Tunnel being built now may someday replace
viaduct but it will be years.


By Aileen Cho
11/13/06

Wedged up against high-end, unfinished buildings on New York City’s west side, crews are building the northern half of a “tunnel to nowhere.” But private advocates are betting that by building the 0.8- mile-long box structure now, the city will benefit in the long run.

The goal of this tunnel, which represents the 15-year-old efforts of the Riverside South Planning Corp., is to someday replace the Miller Highway viaduct along the Hudson River. Along this stretch of waterfront, private developers Extell Development Co. and the Carlyle Group are constructing a 77-acre complex of office buildings and condominiums. They acquired the land from Donald Trump and his Hong Kong partners last year. Two buildings are under construction and eight are completed.

Because of RSPC’s successful arguments, the city asked Extell in 2004 to take advantage of existing excavation for tower foundations to build the tunnel structure’s northbound half. The original plan had been to build a support structure for a future 28-acre park and new Riverside Boulevard. But by building the box structure instead, builders won’t have to rip up the park atop it later in order to relocate the highway. Michael Bradley, RSPC’s executive director, says this will save at least $25 million. The viaduct would have had to be rehabilitated again someday, but by building the tunnel box now, the city can reroute traffic to it when that day comes, he points out.

Highway relocation had not been a top priority for the developer or city. The city spent $89 million in the early 1990s to rehabilitate the viaduct. “It was an example of making an investment without foresight,” says Alex Garvin, former New York City Planning Commissioner. “If in the future, money is available to rebuild the highway, it can go underground and the money will have been spent well. The quality of life will be enormously improved.”

Samson Construction Co., Hicksville, N.Y., is working on the $12-million first phase of the northbound box structure, about 250 ft long, 45 ft wide and with a 30-ft elevation.

Samson will complete the job by spring 2007, says Joe Montano, Extell’s director of construction. It required steel piles to be driven as deep as 60 ft into bedrock, says Montano. The concrete walls, up to 3 ft thick, were built to two-thirds the total elevation. Samson now is building customized formwork to pour the top third of the walls and the ceiling monolithically, says Joe Cursio, Samson’s chief operating officer.

Crews have only 20 ft between the tunnel wall and new buildings to work with as they relocate scores of utilities, including a 20-in. water main, a 48-in. storm sewer and future conduits for future buildings. Because of work done to build tower foundations, Samson only had to excavate about 10 ft for the box.

Before the end of this year, Extell will begin soliciting bids for the rest of the northbound tunnel, to be done in phases. One block-long segment will be done in late 2007, the next by late 2008 and the last in 2009. The total cost of the northbound half is estimated at $30 million.

The state Dept. of Transportation, using $15 million in federal earmarks, will build the southbound half once Extell is done. However, it is still awaiting federal approval of the financial plan and does not know when that will occur, due to the possible reactivation of a 2002 lawsuit contesting the environmental impact statement for the tunnel project, says a state DOT spokesperson.




Advocates hope viaduct along Hudosn will be replaced by tunnel built underneath park.


© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

West Side Highway, You're Buried

Another Sampling of Attitudes

Positive-Neutral-Negative: 6-1-2

March 15, 2005

http://gothamist.com/2005/03/15/west_side_highway_youre_buried.php

West Side Highway, You're Buried

Hmm, it seems that Congress has approved $2.5 million to help bury the West Side Highway at West 61st Street - which would help Donald Trump's Trump Place development. Last week, Congress passed a $284 million highway spending bill, and there was this little boon for the man with the craziest combover this side of Giuliani. Trump has been lobbying non-stop, much to the dismay of neighbors, for the development, from getting the West 72nd Street exit for the West Side Highway closed to getting special zoning for the development. Putting the West Side Highway underground would ensure better views and more parking for Trump Place residents, but the thing is that to put the West Side Highway underground, it would costs millions of dollars.

The NY Times looks at other things NYC is getting from the transportation bill. Senate will be looking at the bill later. And the second Apprentice, Kelly, is supposedly working on the Trump Place project.

Photo of the West Side Highway, circa 1936, from NYC Roads

By Jen Chung in News | Link | Comments (9) | Recommend this! |

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Tags: Congress, Donald Trump, Giuliani, House, House Bill, money, Money, News: NYC, NY Times, NYC, NYC Roads, parking, The NY, The NY Times, transportation, Trump, Trump Place, West Side, West Side Highway

Comments (9)

By Troy Torrison

[1] | 03/15/05 11:45AM

Bury it! Of all the bad Robert Moses impositions on the city (or any city for that matter) the elevated freeway has to be the worst. After post-earthquake San Francisco's experience where the 1950's vintage freeways were jackhammered and hauled away to be replaced by blue skies, trees and rising property values can anyone argue that elevated freeways are a good thing?

Let's forget about Trump and imagine if Central Park was surrounded by 6 lanes of elevated freeways. Would tearing them down benefit the Trump? Yep. But who cares? Someday, he'll be dead and buried in some gold plated monstrosity and the city could have a lovely waterfront. Or not, should the city design its infrastructure with spite in mind.

The West Side redevelopment downtown has made the river a living thing again. Why should Chelsea and the West Village have all the fun? The whole area would benefit hugely from a city encircled by greenways and fishing piers and places to just view the city. San Francisco got its Embarcadero back. Paris and Oslo (to name two citites) are loaded with underground tunnels that whisk traffic away from pedestrians. Why not us? Drop the 'anti-developer' bias for 2 seconds New York, and think. Let's not cut off our river to spite our vulgarians.

By roger D

[2] | 03/15/05 12:15PM

too bad we didnt bury it 30 years ago... the westway project was going to bury the thing and build large parks along the shoreline all with federal money... but local anti-dev groups blocked it back then-- we need a better balance between development and anti-development in the city. It seems local groups have too much power now and block anything and everything they can. we've swung the other way from where we were in the middle of the 20th century (that's not to say we should not protect historic buildings)

By hijiki

[3] | 03/15/05 01:51PM

I heard somewhere that the final obstacle that prevented burying the WSH back then was the possible destruction of non-endangered trout habitat.


By joe

[4] | 03/15/05 02:17PM

Not to be too nitpicky but the Westway project was below 40th St, see http://www.thirteen.org/nyvoices/highlights/road_not_taken.html and not the portion of the old Miller Highway viaduct that Jen mentioned. Still, burying these highways would do wonders for waterfront access.


By Troy Torrison

[5] | 03/15/05 04:34PM

Some nice articles here that might clear up a few things.

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/henry-hudson/

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_58/westwayvetsremember.html

It's hard for me to picture how the Westway would have ever worked--and can you imagine how much it would cost today? But it's fun to think about this stuff. It's even more fun to imagine a president and a congress who don't milk the city dry only to give us...what exactly? Where's our government boondoggle?

By natis

[6] | 03/15/05 08:41PM

Um.... hasn't anyone learned anything about the last major highway that was taken down and put underground ala The Big Dig?

By Kieron Humphries

[7] | 03/16/05 01:54PM

Maybe rather than spending millions on moving a highway under itself, perhaps they should spend that money on getting the poor out of their poverty. Or maybe clearing up the mess the US is making in other countries.


By Troy Torrison

[8] | 03/16/05 03:49PM

The Big Dig is pretty awesome if you ask me. Sure it was expensive and probably built in a way that made a few too many contractors rich, but man-o-man is that thing going to tranform Boston in a few years. Once the kinks are worked out and the former elevated areas are filled with parks and museums and LIFE it'll be hard for New Yorkers to make stick in the mud claims that they'd rather give the money to the "poor." Helping the poor is a favorite canard of an argument brought up by people who'd rather not build anything...except low cost housing of course. The problem with this argument is that it's not an either/or situation. Burying elevated freeways (or building the Second Avenue Subway) are projects that have their own economic reasons that exist beyond, say funding other, no doubt worthy projects. Since the Federal government is going to spend untold BILLIONS on roads in the red states, why shouldn't New York get a cut of our share since we pay MORE than our share in taxes anyway. When it comes to transportation we're getting screwed. The anti-urbanites are winning. And the more we bemoan the Big Dig's leaks and talk about helping the poor the more money goes to build more highways to the sprawling Nowherevilles in Tom DeLay's district.


By Douglas A. Willinger

[9] | 10/14/05 05:06PM

" Let's not cut off our river to spite our vulgarians."

That was what I detected at the June 30, 1999 public hearing, with the opposition largely based upon spite: aka, Trump's buildings block the river view of those to the east, so let's keep that ugly elevated highway to block their view.

The *sensible* (as opposed to spiteful) opposition centered upon the fact that elevated highway was refurbished around 1990, with some complains about the tunnel's curve and perhaps a conflict with rail expansion.

So, perhaps let's modify the tunnel plan for these purposes, staightening it somewhat and hence moving it a bit west for greater flexibility, hopefully with an extra lane per direction and full shoulders for on-off traffic, and design it to be extended southwards, eventually all the way to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and an improved Battery Park Underpass that would bury the FDR Drive to the South Street Seaport area.

Tunnelifcation for the 9A (I-478) corridor could reduce pollution with filtration as done in vehicular tunnels outside the United States.

Alas, New York's politicians would rather placate the spiteful over the sensible, as it has become politically popular to attack such projects as a means of some extra funding for non-vehicular mass transit (and as a useful distraction from addressing such things as questionable MTA finances).

Waste Time & Fuel, and Continue to Push the Traffic Burden Disproportionately Around Manhattan

According to the New York Time's Thomas Friedman, column of May 21, 2008

Friedman has at times made a great deal of sense, particularly with his earlier writing favoring more fuel efficient automobiles via biofuel and hybrid technologies. Such things would improve the environment while preserving mobility for the many.

Hence, its disheartening to read his latest call to waste time for the many, of whom which he would turn into law-breakers:

(excerpt)

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

Perhaps he spends too much time in Manhattan with its propensity to build vertically, while ignoring the horizontal- aka highways.

If he wants to improve fuel economy, he should propose doing something about NYC's lacking highway infrastructure- that is highways as roads without traffic lights, as such decrease driving efficiency significantly- think about freeway mpg versus that of guaranteed stop and go traffic.

As a start, he should develop an interest in the Gowanus Expressway Tunnel project, and have it extended to include a Tillary Street Tunnel bypass to an undergrounded BQE in Williamsburg, along with improvements not only on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, but also to its Manhattan side.

Revive Westway, as a tunnelway in some configuration, with additional capacity, including separate carriageways for trucks!

If nature gives us that earthquake that a recent documentary on cable tv (the History Channel or the Discovery Chanel) that will cause the ill-advised buildings on Battery Park City to tilt, have those buildings demolished and route the new tunneled highway approach through the Battery Park City landfill for superior geometry, beneath a new park with beach that should have been constructed 30 years ago.

Build both the Mid Town and Lower Manhattan Expressways as tunnels (cut and cover and/or drilled) to preserve buildings such as those in historic SoHo)

Build supplemental tubes to the Holland Tunnel- 40 minutes to leave the city is a planning atrocity, particularly after 911 with the jesuitical government's lip service to increasing evacuation route capacity.

Build the 4th tube for the Lincoln Tunnel, and at least the 3rd tube for the Mid-Town Tunnel.

Otherwise, let's have a law suit against the existing environmental classism/racism that places the traffic around most of Manhattan and through the Bronx.

Also, build a Cross Harbor/Cross Brooklyn Highway/Railway tunnel, linking to JFK airport and the Sunrise Highway corridor in Long Island, to an extended I-287 that crosses the sound as the new drilled Sound Link tunnel, with a slightly larger bore (60' versus 55') to permit a lower deck for rail and/or a separate truckway.

Fund this by opening up the existing books to thwart the siphoning, whether that be to the overseas bank accounts of the international continuing counter reformation terrorist/elites that get away with robbing the public of their monies and liberties, or the Pentagram/Pentagon.

Let us get beyond the standard jesuitical distraction -- repetitiously pushed by the "environmentalist" and transportation planning advocacy lock-step groups, such as the infamous 'Straphangers' Campaign' and the 'Tri-State [anti-traffic light free vehicular road] Transportation Campaign' -- of transit versus transport that allows the graft and military/prison-industrial complex bloat, and the accompanying immoral pharmacratic inquisition and its criminal mercantilism to continue.

Much to his credit, Friedman writes in this same column about a book titled "Superclass" by David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar from the Carnegie Endowment, regarding:

... “the superclass” — a new global elite, who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders.

Some of this new elite “are from business and finance,” says Rothkopf. “Some are members of a kind of shadow elite — criminals and terrorists. Some are masters of new or traditional media; some are religious leaders, and a few are top officials of those governments that do have the ability to project their influence globally.”

The Example of Accused Nazi Sympathizer newspaper editor Eleanor 'Cissy' Patterson's Classic Classism Against Washington, D.C.'s DuPont Circle Underpass

Fisker Karma Serial Hybrid

Serial Hybrid Electric Technology to Preserve Mobility


Fisker Karma- plug in serial hybrid electric drive-train by Quantum Technologies: uses its combustion engine solely for charging its lithium-ion batteries, avoiding the complexities of clutching-transmissions of standard hybrids. This would be the 1st serial hybrid within the US for an automobile: diesel locomotives in use for decades are serial hybrids, given that electric is superior to combustion for propulsion, e.g. superior torque curve. Has plug in capability to allow charging from the grid and/or a solar panel kit for a 50 mile range before resorting to a small 4 cylinder engine for battery charging; includes regenerative ability to recover energy lost to braking.


Has an optional roof solar panel for stationary air conditioning and trickle charging its batteries.

Demonstrates human ingenuity to preserve mobility to the chagrin of the new medievalists/neo feudalists who presume that the "profane" will abandon private automobiles for slow street cars (trolleys) so that the elites have more room upon the existing roads for themselves.

Is shown as a 4 door pillarless -- no "B" post -- "hardtop": a body style not produced in the United States of America since the 1978 Chrysler New Yorker; however the prototype below undergoing testing alas shows a "B" pillar (look through its windshield), suggesting that they may be wimping out as Chrysler did with its 2008 Challenger, and GM with its 2009 Camaro.


Price: $80,000 - $100,000, which is not that much more than a 12 cylinder BMW sedan, and which will go down as the costs of the new technologies are amortized over a larger production.



Fisker Automotive Web Site
Quantum Technologies

Serial Electric Hybrid Drive-train Manufacturer
web page header shows tunneled road

Transportation Corridor Chocking- Un-built I-95 Washington, D.C. Red Line

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/05/cuabrookland-transport-corridor-chock.html

Although the US government after 911 paid lip service to the idea of additional evacuation routes, they now want to chock Washington, D.C.'s sole north-south express ground transportation corridor.

Washington, D.C.
1971 proposed freeway network
the un-built North Central Freeway -- the sole north-south route --
along today's surface WMATA Red Line railroad corridor
midway between Beltway and Potomac River

That same transportation corridor
proposal for a chocking
next to the Catholic University of America

CUA's Transport Corridor Chock By Developer Jim Abdo
Brookland/CUA Corridor Chock- DC Government Link

Compromising for the Common Good A Freeway Story

http://www.americanepic.org/freewaystory/FreewayStory2.swf

Enviro-Distraction/ Freeways Not Oil

EV1 web site page makes an excellent point:

It isn't the vision of freeways mixed with residential that's the problem, it's the oil-fired vehicles that run on them as well as the oil refineries that serve this ocean of polluting vehicles among us.

Interesting how "environmentalist" organizations all harp upon freeways as the pollution culprit, and light rail transit -- particularly slow speed 'streetcars' -- as the solution while ignoring the sheer logic of electric automobiles.

Such tactics work well to distract people from suppressed technologies while promoting the myth that electric power is only feasible when tethered somehow to a power cord.

Perhaps they hate freeways because standing next to one would underscore the need for electric cars. This would be especially so with the environmentally sensible concept of underground freeways, which can further reduce emissions into the general atmosphere via exhaust filtration technologies, given the concentration of exhaust at the portals!

Perhaps that is why those in New York City -- home of Wall Street -- so "puffed" Marcy Benstock's anti-Westway scheme, which also worked so well to distract "activists" from the $ spent on the Pentagon and the criminal Pharmacratic Inquisition.