Is not it absurd that Manhattan bound traffic from Staten Island is so pushed upon the Verrazano Narrow Bridge?
Why not instead better use Route 440 to and through the Holland Tunnel?
Because the Holland Tunnel is irresponsibly deficient in capacity!
It was constructed 1924-1927, being opened to traffic the year when Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic non stop.
And ever since, in the past nearly 100 years, ZERO ADDITIONAL CAPACITY.
Not even a simple addition of an extra westbound tube, so the past proposals for a Lower Manhattan Expressway (1929-1969), as well as Westway (1974-1985), were hobbled by what would have been an atrocious westbound traffic jam, especially the LME, being fed from the east by its Brooklyn Queens Expressway connection to the Long Island Expressway, plus a Bushwick Expressway from the Conduit Avenue/JFK Airport corridor.
And why is it that we have ZERO grade separation on the "West Side Highway" corridor, south of 57th Street?
It is a somewhat positive development that persons involved with Donald Trump's project between 57th and 72nd Street planned a set of 3 lane box tunnels, northbound beneath the Riverside Drive southern extension, at least for smaller vehicles. I ought to know, as I attended and testified at its sole public hearing way back in 1999.
But it is a sad commentary that so many were bamboozled by the fraudulent "environmentalist" movement against not only the 1974-1985 Westway project as then planned, but taken in by the lie that the United States was somehow too poor to afford a modern, interstate grade (aka full SHOULDERS) highway TUNNEL, for placing the main flow of vehicular traffic underground, freeing up the surface for a more pedestrian any cyclist friendly environment,
The anti Westway movement as we know, sadly failed to address any potential design issues, nor preservationist concerns. The pier district it would have displaced was largely removed anyway (except in Chelsea). The development was at least an extension of the existing street grid, rather than an urban enclave as with Battery Park City, or the Mott Haven area of the southwest Bronx, south of Yankee Stadium, where ill placed development has commenced to stymie placing the lower Deegan underground in a pair of rectangular box tunnel with an extra travel lane in each direction along with SHOULDERS.
The moronic orchestrated anti Westway movement displayed every indication of the interests of big petroleum and Wall Street high finance- obsessing against the project's TUNNEL segment (but nothing about its elevated segment to the north of 29th Street to 57th Street), and lying through their teeth in insisting that outright cancelling Westway (or ANY modern expressway replacement of the antiquated viaduct constructed at about the time of the Holland Tunnel) was "unaffordable".
Faux environmentalists spouted against the tunnel upon specious "clean air" arguments. AKA the pollution "hot spots" within 17 feet or so of the portals would have been embarrassing to the petroleum industry. Better to just adhere to the petro industry maximum that "the solution to pollution is dilution" (just note how these anti highway folks say NOTHING about cleaner fuel standards as greater use of ETHANOL, our cleanest and renewable source of fuel octane for enhanced engine efficiency. And why cancel a highway tunnel upon an already established desire line corridor for enhanced MTA funding? Because that serves to deflect from the impending computerization = 1983 - of the NYSE, along with the phase out of the minuscule 0.1% rate NYSE trading/transfer/sales tax, 1978-1981. Yes, 0.1% considered unacceptable, even though retail taxes are an upwards of 7.75%. And narly a word from the supposed liberal progressive DNC/RINO tools, with DNC spokespersons continuing to say nothing about this while bashing the Reagan tax cuts, but not the HUGH CAREY tax elimination so here elucidated.
For whatever it was worth, Westway was scuttled by September 11, 1985 with Albany throwing in the towel.
Officials would essentially do likewise, offering only a few partial expressway (grader separated) proposals for this 91 corridor, but nothing with full enclosure- to placate the petroleum industry and wall streets faux environmentalist orchestrated organizations.
They eventually selected a $360 million "boulevard" plan of a nice new concrete roadbed adorned with a raised landscaped center median, alongside a waterfront pedestrian and cyclist path with a NARROW sliver of park.
Insanely, they failed to design/construct tis upon any sort of fixed structure to preserve this roadscape for subsequently constructing a cut and cover tunnel, within the existing West Side landstrip.
So this $360 million must be amortized over the past 3 decades, roughly $10 annually, in order to do the right thing and construct a twin set of cut and cover tunnels, each with 3 travel lanes and SHOULDERS, at least 12 feet for the righthand shoulders, and PLACING THE ACCESS RAMPS WITHIN THE SURFACE MEDIAN. That's right. NO shoulders emerging or opening up on the right hand sides of either northbound or southbound West Street/11th Avenue or 12th Avenue. This therefore places the express traffic AWAY from the est Side Boulevard's outer edges, eliminating traffic conflicts along the waterfront park and the inland side. Doing this requires either a "braided" arrangement, with the submerged tunnels swapping positions so the access ramps are to the right within the tunnels, t avoid placing the underground ramps to the left.
Construct these braided West Side Highway land tunnels within the existing land corridor, from the new Holland Tunnel tubes, northward to connect with the Trump development tunnels around 58th Street. Better yet, employ the existing northbound Trump development tunnel as an access ramp into the grid at or somewhere north of 72nd Street, likeliest 79th Street, using its southbound tunnel for northbound traffic and construct a 3rd such box immediately west for southbound traffic.
A Cross Brooklyn Expressway is a MUST, together with a MANDATORY addition of capacity to continue west towards New Jersey via Staten Island.
The Cross Brooklyn Expressway obviously must be a fully enclosed rectangular tunnel box set, equipped with exhaust filtration and covered with a new linear park.
It must not be a brutalist design as per the 1967-69 proposed Linear City with its proposed new buildings, and its *semi* enclosed tunnelways.
Nor can it be a set of merely 3 through lane roadways stacked atop each other to fit within the mere 80 foot wide right of way of the existing LIRR Bay Ridge RR. It must of course include the long proposed "Bi Borough" IRT, underground, along with extra heavy railroad tracks. for a minimum of three heavy RR tracks, and 2 IRT tracks. Sadly the expressway box tunnel requires clearing buildings. But to minimize the use of residential properties, have it slice through Brooklyn College, fully enclosed, and be sure to give all displaced residences a full 3 1/5 x existing fair market value (at the time of this writing), or 1 1/2 x such, together with replacement housing of equal of greater interior square footage, perhaps within new 4 or 5 or 6 story military academy scaled mansion styled architecture buildings, together with generous off street parking, of a minimum of 5 cars per unit.
My previously proposed idea of a direct tunnel to New Jersey is excessively expensive, and has the detriment of requiring an all new parallel link alongside the existing I-78 spur to the Holland Tunnel.
Better is simply expanding and enclosing the existing 6 lane trench to its design width capacity of 12 lanes, and constructing a twin span to the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge.
Widen the Staten Island Expressway, using its existing corridor, together with a tunnel box enclosure upon its more populated area segments, to provide new land space atop for recreation.
Construct a new westbound roadway from I-278 in New Jersey extending to the west, so as to provide additional capacity extending inland away from a potential tsunami. Ideally, construct a 3rd Goethals span, westbound only, with a greater capacity westbound roadway continuing past the New Jersey Turnpike.
Construct an all new Outerbridge Crossing, replacing the existing shoulder-less 2 lane in each direction span with a pair of spans each with 5 through lanes and s set of outer shoulders.
The additional capacity for the Goethals has the distinct advantage over the Outerbridge for being further inland. Therefore it is advisable to construct a new westbound roadway extending from I-278 inland.
The northern U.S. region MUST have an additional bypass, from I-80 & the existing northern terminus of the New Jersey Turnpike through southern Westchester County to I-95, together with a bridge-causeway linking New Rochelle to Long Island, together with a new cross sound rail link, as it is impractical to add a raillink to the Throggs Neck.
This bypass starts immediately east of the existing eastern terminus of I-80, along the Northern Railroad corridor, briefly elevated to avoid the marshlands potential flooding and to cross over Route 4, before descending into a cut and cover tunnel.
Further north, this cut and cover tunnel veers northeasterly. easterly, towards a golf course, to emerge from its portal at the Palisades Parkway, to transition to a new span across the Hudson River, to Yonkers, landing at the short block or so long "Bridge Street" continuing east along Ludlow Street, heading towards the Saw Mill River valley and Parkway.
Technical advice is here solicited for the best way to cross the high mountain ridge. As I doubt that anyone wants a Maryland I-68 style deep mountain cut, we need to explore tunneling techniques, likely with a pair of large tunnel bores, sufficiently wide to render at least a full set of right-hand shoulders.
Said tunnels would emerge just west of the Saw Mill Parkway, with an artistically styled span crossing over, continuing east into a cut and cover tunnel segment displacing and replacing the Lincoln High School, and so continuing to a second artfully designed viaduct to pass over I-87 and along through the southern parking area of the Casino-Raceway Park, and subsequently over the Bronx River Parkway, to enter a cut and cover tunnel segment in Mt. Vernon along 2nd Street, to a set of connections with the I-684 North Central Road Upstate Gateway Expressway Tunnel system, with I-80 continuing east over the Hurchinson River Parkway upon a new artfully styled arched span, and enter another cut and cover tunnel segment, along the Metro North to New Rochelle (with no access to downtown Pelham).
I-80 Tunnel would emerge along the western side of the I-95 corridor, with generous use of tunnel box enclosure for muffling traffic noise and giving back surface space.
Immediately north, northeast, the I-180 spur (cut and cover) would veer towards Long Island Sound via a thankfully located bit of industrial waterfront, along with an all new railroad spur.
Both the expressway and the railway would here enter into a new box tunnel causeway, with the roadbed just below the waterline, but with the tunnel box standing up as a new pier- shaped land-way, and continuing into the Long Island Sound, with a drawspan, or turn-style span for the railroad, and an overhead span for the expressway.
This causeway would land in Long Island at the northeastern corner of the Port Washington peninsula, and continue as enclosed tunnel box, either directly off the existing northeast shoreline, if not a new swath paralleling just inland, so swinging to avoid displacing the dwellings along the coast, before entering a golf course.
This project would continue south to the corridor of the previously planned Roslyn Freeport Expressway which was in-explicitly cancelled in 1953.
I-180 would employ generous use of tunnel box enclosure and have its interchange with the Long Island Expressway, with a spur continuing south at least to Mineola.
The railroad component is particulalry needed as the grade of the Throggs Neck is impractical for a railway, and because this New Rochelle to Port Washington causeway is far more financially and engineering practical that a railroad tunnel crossing under the Sound.
1- the Clearview Expressway extension MUST be a cut and cover tunnel.
But not at the expense of creating a chasm at its northern end, immediately south of the interchange with the Grand Central Parkway (do note the topography, how it drops to the south).
To do it right, we MUST re-excavate the southernmost 1/3 of a mile or so of the EXISTING Clearview, and do so with a plan to completely remove and replace the Clearview-Grand Central Parkway interchange, best with a overpass design mimicking the previous multi arched GCP bridge/overpass.
And that means shutting down the Cleaview south of Union Pike, with the possible exception of maintaining a eastbound GCP to northbound Clearview through the reconstruction.
Clearly this Tunneled reconstruction and extension would continue south before turning to parallel Hempstead Avenue before turning south at Belmont Park to parallel the Cross Island Parkway, flanking each side, until the interchange (retained) with the Southern State Parkway, before its northbound lanes emerge further south with the northbound lanes immediately to the west. Eminent domain is required, so we have the space later to bury CIP/Belt, with at a minimum 3.5 x fair market value, for a high capacity, cut and cover mixed use interstate expressway.
Notably though (and quite sadly), the planning authorities erected a "UBS" Arena, directly in the path, complicating this, and best in need of demolition, as far as I can see. This UBS Arena was erected only as recently as 2019-2021, and represents the sadly typical contempt of road planning by the authorities & their associated elites.
2- We need a more capacious as well as STURDIER Throggs Neck Bridge crossing.
Lets see the development of plans for a pair of 8 lane bridges ideally, with sturdy, stocky legs more able to withstand a tsunami. Our security demand absolutely nothing less.
3- We must have a separate new crossing to the west. Namely a pair of new road bridges perhaps mimicking the classic style of the Hells Gate RR Bridge. Connect this to the south via a new Inter borough Expressway Park Covered Cut and Cover Tunnel. Do it together with the, not "Bi" Borough, but rather a Borough (or even a Quad Borough with a bridge or tunnel to Staten Island as long anticipated. Reconnect the former NYW&B, removing the apartment/condo buildings foolishly placed upon it right of way to the north of 177th Street) IRT line.
Reconstruct the entire lower Bruckner, (along with the lower Deegan expanded from 6 to 8 through lanes), removing that disgusting elevated monstrosity flanked by new higher capacity cut and cover tunnels. Restore the NYWB stations, widen and tunnel lid the land segment foolishly converted to a "boulevard", and construct an 8 lane tunnel extending north, northeasterly beneath the Zoo, perhaps with a long bored tunnel paralleling the Bronx River Parkway north to the Sprain and or I-87, and 4 to 6 lanes along Route 1 likewise as tunnel, to join with the new North Central Road Tunnel along the west side of the restored NYWB. Construct an aerial tunnel with wooden planks atop without heavy soil, and continue it northward to Webster Avenue to enter the Wykagil Bathtub, with a split with the start of a new route I-687 as previously discussed in this blog. Have it cross over Pine Brook Boulevard in an aerial tunnel with a soil roof for new recreation space, crossing under Weaver Street and arcing northward behind the Quaker Ridge School. continuing north in new linear park tunnel aligned with that existing to the north, displacing and replacing the Heathecote School building and continuing paralleling the Heathecote Bypass before arcing to parallel the 4 lane Mamaroneck Avenue and connect with an all new I-684 interchange.
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?
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.
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.
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:
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).
I am a long time car & roads enthusiast (yes, that includes trains, but that is a topic for another post).
I had to sell my 1972 "Lemans" to a friend in 2005, because I no longer had safe storage. Sure a driveway, but alas only a 2 rather than 3 or more car garage, and with numerous tall pine trees ready and waiting for a storm to cause them to crash down and crush anything sitting in the driveway.
In 2016, my Dad, the attorney Warren J. Willinger succumbed to cancer from a botched colon removal surgery, performed October 2015 at NY Presbyterian near the GW Bridge.
Because of the high living expenses in Mt Kisco, NY, including a 21K annual property tax, Mom and I elected to move to the family second home, a 1600 foot condo unit in the San Elijo hills recent development on San Marcos, California.
At that time, I had to move my partially restored 1970 Trans Am from NY to Ca, and I had to send my recently purchased 1972 "Luxury Lemans 4 door no center side post hardtop, purchased in Texas as well, without its original engine. A good friend, known since 1980 and long term Pontiac enthusiast, took in these two cars, before later having them transferred to a storage facility near LA. Having previously owned a 1970 GTO, I had been offered the opportunity to purchase a 1972 Luxury Lemans 2 door hardtop no center side post, as a second hobby car to essentially make into a GTO by adding the appropriate parts. But since building such a "clone" GTO would cost as much as doing a real factory GTO, I declined the offer, having that thought followed by a secondary thought, of building a GTO from an alternative Lemans body style, to with the 4 door no b pillar 4 door hardtop (I also like the wagons, alas not made as a "hardtop"). I was aware of the Pontiac Lemans 4 door hardtops from the brochures, though cant recall ever seeing one on the road, nor anywhere. So I figure, lets find a 1970, 1971 or 1972 , offered as the standard (ugly door panel) Lemans, and the Lemans Sport (nice GTO style door panels) for 1970-1971. Or a 1972, weirdly offered ONLY as a so called Luxury Lemans with silly added lower chrome trim that obscures the car's lower coke bottle line introduced for 1969 & 1969, also great cars, particularly the 1969 with swapped in 1968 grills with an added GTO endura front bumper.
Seeing how weirdly obscure these 4 door hardtop Pontiac intermediates were, I purchased a 1970 Lemans from New Jersey, in May 2019, and another 1972 Luxury Lemans from the northeastern U.S. - in late August or early September 2019, having that latter car shipped to me in San Elijo/San Marcos - a car with severe but highly localized rust damage, and well worth the money to me as a complete running car.
Mom and I were dissatisfied with the small square footage of the condo, and particularly the piss poor respect for building spacings, (others were 30-40 feet but our a mere 22 feet) making it impossible to pull these cars straight into the garage, especially if the left space was occupied.
In May 2019 we start locking about 6 miles to the northwest. Yuck, Tiny house lot sizes. NOT say 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 acre, but 7300 square feet. By early 2020 we start looking at Temicula (inland empire). Yuck, same nonsense. So by late summer 2020 we drive further to Victorville. Wow, some decent size lots, but ONLY with moon crater dirt roads. And anything with paved roads is again the same nonsensical bullshit. And made worse with these builders all choosing to offer the single story houses with ZERO attic space, you known high ceilings with a shallow pitched roof. And back yards bare;y 30 feet deep.
So I turn to Zillow, and Mom says "NORTH CAROLINA".
WOW!
1 1/3 acres lots.
Houses with GOOD architecture, generous roof space.
But what? A covenant that says NO "junk" vehicles allowed anywhere upon the property, even indoors.
We keep looking. We find a listing in early December 2020, a house that had been offered and sold that previous October, but the deal failed.
House has a nice detached rear garage, 30 feet deep, pretty through alas a potential tinderbox, and am told that metal garages are not allowed.
I check the county regulations, am allowed to keep unregistered/interoperable cars indoors, and registered cars outdoors upon concrete. This is actually superior to other places as I have since found, which prohibit any such unregistered cars anywhere on the property, or limit that to only ONE such car, even if indoors (sadly the case in southern Maryland). I look at other places, and see that the outer shore (Delmarva) is considerably more reasonable. One may store such cars indoors or outdoors as long as they are shielded from public view. But quite weirdly, when I expand my jurisdictional search to western Maryland, all I see so far are the ridiculous ban on having more than ONE such car, indoors.
What organization is behind such ridiculous, unreasonable and unjustified statues/regulations?
It reeks as a conspiracy to drive the wasteful scrap-page of our automotive members of the family.
I-684 Tunnel with restored NYWB from the Dyre Avenue IRT to Westchester County Airport & I-687 Tunnel across Eastchester to I-87, with extension via Hastings on Hudson Bridge to the Palisades Parkway.
I-80 Tunnel along the NJ Northern RR corridor, arcing east to a new Alpine NJ to Yonkers NY at Bridge Street, entering tunnel beneath Yonkers Ridge, with initial stage to connections to and from the north to the Cross County Parkway and new underground connections to and from the north with I-87, with design continuation for a new set of expressway tunnels to Yonkers Raceway Park and along 2nd Street in Mt Vernon, connecting to the I-684 Tunnel, and with a tunnel along the south side of the Metro North through Pelham, connecting to and from the north in New Rochelle with I-95, with MANDATORY stubs through the retail area next to New Rochelle Chevrolet (the former Sears site), for a tunnel continuation buried underwater to a new causeway with tunnel enclosure and bridge, for a enclosed tunnel box along the Sands Point peninsula's eastern shore buried beneath new beach for the ultimate in mitigation.
He graduated from Brainerd High School in 1991. Marohn received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota.[1] In 2000 he became a licensed professional engineer (PE) in the state of Minnesota.
He has since[when?] faced scrutiny by the state licensing board after an engineer from South Dakota
reported Marohn for failing to renew his license in the mandated time
frame, yet still calling himself a PE. Marohn admits to missing the
license renewal deadline but acted quickly upon being made aware of the
situation and addressed the oversight. Marohn viewed this action as a
limitation upon his first amendment rights because of his critical statements made about the practices of traffic engineering, as well as his disapproval of civil engineers who he views as doing little to protect human life on roads.[8][needs update]
Marohn giving a lecture about Strong Towns in Seattle in 2016
Marohn started Strong Towns as a blog in 2008.[6]
He was frustrated with projects he was working on which he believed
were actively harming the places they were supposed to help.[6][2] As he gained many readers, he realized there was a need for an organization that advocated the principles he espoused. Strong Towns
became a non-profit organization to "support a model of growth that
allows America’s towns to become financially strong and resilient".[9]
Marohn believes that post World War IIsuburban development
has been a failure, due to it being inherently economically
unsustainable. He posits that low-density communities do not produce the
tax revenue necessary to cover either their current services or the
long-term costs of maintaining and replacing their services, and that
suburbs are very difficult to adapt to an efficient, dense model because
they were built as fully developed places.[7]
In 2011, he coined the word "stroad," a street/road hybrid, which has become popular among urbanists and planners.[10][11] According to Marohn, stroads are the "futon"
of transportation alternatives. "Where a futon is an uncomfortable
couch that also serves as an uncomfortable bed, a STROAD is an auto
corridor that does not move cars efficiently while simultaneously
providing little in the way of value capture."[7]
In late 2015, Marohn participated in a White House conference on rural placemaking.[7]
Whatever good ideas Smart Towns may well have, is alas undermined by their lack of credibility with regards to its dogmatic opposition to any major road infrastructure expansion whatsoever. They reflexively hate roads without stop signs or traffic lights, opposing any expansion of those existing, the creation of new ones, and are disappointing weak on offering mitigation.
No New Roads
We understand the problem of highway expansion. We have seen its impact firsthand in cities and towns across North America. That is why Strong Towns has been advocating to end highway expansion for over a decade.
No new roads, and no expansion of existing roads, especially expressways/freeways constructed during the 1950s. Gets its facts wrong, overstating harms while ignoring benefits as well as creative design solutions that would address legitimate concerns of urban livability, including disregarding environmental and safety concerns.
Who and what is behind "Smart Towns"?
Accordingly:
Our 2023 Supporters
Strong Towns is supported by an incredible number of people. Since the organization’s founding in 2008, its supporters have built a remarkable movement. Whether your support is through membership, hosting an event, partnering or sponsoring a project, foundational support, or anything else, we thank you.
In addition to our members and other supporters, we acknowledge the following as major contributors to the Strong Towns movement. Thousands of people across North America are working to make their cities safe, livable, and financially resilient. These supporting organizations have taken major steps to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to live a good life in a prospering place.
Of these, the most apparent tie in with wall street and the notoriously anti road Jesuit Order is Driehaus Foundation founder Richard Herman Driehaus. Some excerpts from wikipedia:
Richard Herman Driehaus (/ˈdriːhaʊs/; July 28, 1942 – March 9, 2021)[1][2] was an American fund manager, businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder, chief investment officer, and chairman of Driehaus Capital Management LLC, based in Chicago.
The philanthropic activities of the Richard H. Driehaus
Foundation and the Charitable Trust are widely acknowledged in the
fields of culture, arts, heritage protection, journalism and
architecture, including the renowned global Driehaus Architecture Prize for new classical architecture.
In 2000, he was named in Barron's
"All-Century" team of the 25 individuals who have been the most
influential within the mutual fund industry over the past 100 years.[3] His firm had $13.2 billion in assets under management as of March 2021....
He is often credited as the father of momentum investing, as he popularized the strategy which calls for spotting stocks on prolonged upward trends.[4][5]
This strategy reportedly delivered compound annual returns of 30% for
Driehaus Capital Management in the 12 years after it was set up in the
1980s.[6
Driehaus was born in Chicago. He attended high school at St. Ignatius College Prep and received his undergraduate (1965) and master's (1970) degrees in business from DePaul University. He also received an honorary doctorate degree from DePaul in 2002.[7][8][9]
From 1968 through 1973, Driehaus developed research ideas for the institutional trading department at A.G. Becker & Co.
In 1973, he became director of research for Mullaney, Wells & Co.
In 1976, he became director of research and a money manager for Jesup
& Lamont.[10]
In 1979, he set up Driehaus Securities, a research broker that provided
ideas to a select group of accounts, followed by Driehaus Securities
LLC in 1980.[9][10]
He founded Driehaus Capital Management LLC in 1982 and until his death was the current chief investment officer and chairman.[9][10] He later founded Driehaus Mutual Funds in 1996, and Driehaus Capital Management (USVI) LLC in 1997.[9][11]
Driehaus explained that "the momentum investor has confidence
that a stock that is high can head even higher. We rarely invest in
stock because it's cheap and hope for a turnaround."[12]...
Driehaus
has given widely both individually and through the Richard H. Driehaus
Foundation and the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Trust.[9] He contributed an equivalent of $92 million in 2000's dollars from 1984 until 1987 already;[26] and his foundations kept donating ever since.
Driehaus often pointed to his Roman Catholic roots as a guide to
his philanthropic endeavors. Driehaus said, “You have to continue to
learn your whole life, you have to be responsible for your own actions,
and you have to give something back to society.”[27]
He has said that his original plan was to give away only $100
million during his lifetime, but believed that he will end up parting
with more than twice that amount.[28][29]
In his 2012 interview with architect and urbanist Michael Lykoudis, Driehaus gives his inspiration for establishing the prize: "I believe architecture should be of human scale,
representational form, and individual expression that reflects a
community's architectural heritage. There is a delight, proportion, and
harmony in classical architecture that I wasn’t finding in the
contemporary buildings coming up around me in Chicago."[31] The Driehaus Prize is often compared to the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which typically encourages modern design.[7][32]
“The prize [...] represents a partial counterbalance to the
rejection of classical forms by elite architecture that prevailed for
much of the last century,” notes James Panero, an American culture critic.[7]
The Driehaus Prize is typically awarded around the same time, has
similar terms, are both commemorated by a bronze award (the Pritzker is a
medal and the Driehaus is a miniature Choragic Monument of Lysicrates), and, until 2008, both were the same monetary prize amount.[33]
The first recipient of the Driehaus Prize was Léon Krier, who helped lay the theoretical framework for New Urbanism and designed the Prince of Wales' model town of Poundbury in England.[7][33] The first American to win the prize was Allan Greenberg in 2006, who redesigned the interior of more than 30 rooms of the U.S. Department of State.[32] The award has been given to architects associated with postmodernism, such as Michael Graves (2012) and David M. Schwarz (2015).[citation needed]
Di Mento, Maria "No. 38: Richard Driehaus". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. February 10, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2015.
Dietlin, Lisa M. "Richard Driehaus", Transformational Philanthropy: Entrepreneurs and Nonprofits. Jones & Bartlett, 2010, pp. 174-82; ISBN0-7637-6678X. Select pages archived through Google Books, books.google.com; accessed September 4, 2017.
Lykoudis, Michael. "ICAA Interview with Richard Driehaus."The Forum: The Newsletter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. Spring/Summer 2012; retrieved September 21, 2015.
Klein, Peter and Angelica Berrie. A Passion for Giving: Tools and Inspiration for Creating a Charitable Foundation. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2012); ISBN1118023870
Schwager, Jack D. "Richard Driehaus: The Art of Bottom-Up Investing." The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders. New York: HarperBusiness, 1994. 211-229. ISBN0-88730-667-5
Tunnel box allows superior space utilization for freeway and adjoining development, with sound & pollution containment of tunnel ideal for accommodating greater real estate development within close proximity
