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
