440 Enhancements, Holland Tunnel Additional Tubes, West Street/11th & !2th Avenue Boulevard Tunnel

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.

High Finance & Infrastructure Development

Imagine one is a part of some entity involved with finance, such as investment firms, private equity, etc.

Should not such entities be concerned with the horrific lack of regard for some rather serious planning?

And I do not mean the "Regional Plan Association".  Sure it has presented some well needed thoughts, though severely inadequately developed.  Such as its proposals for underground versions of the highly needed east west links, as the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and the Cross Brooklyn Expressway- both indisputably required, yet lacking in a fuller outlook, as well as refinement.  Just look at the way they were planned, to provide vital connections, WITHOUT the REQUIRED new capacity for what they would connect.  Everyone knows both the VZN Bridge and the Holland Tunnel & Williamsburg Bridge are at capacity if not over.   Yet neither the CBE nor the LME would have simply connected to these crossings, with at best, a single added two lane outbound tube alongside the Holland Tunnel.  And worse, the LME was to accept traffic from both the BQE/LIE, as well as a Bushwick Expressway, carried upon the antiquated Williamsburg Bridge, plus an expressway spur connecting to the Manhattan Bridge!  Talk about a westbound traffic trap!!!!  And of course these underground roads lacked full encasement, with open air ventilation and echoing noise.  QUITE BAD!   Disagree with the outright "de-mapping" as that would fail to protect the corridors from stupidly placed development while refusing to purchase needed space over the long term (granting residents time to continue their lives before having to vacate).  But it was indeed a wise thing to have not gone ahead with these vital highways as then being planned.  Especially when one considers such RPA foolishness of showing renderings of new decks/tunnel caps in Williamsburg atop the BQE WITHOUT shoulders.  NOT GOOD!

So, where are any efforts, publicly accessible for developing a better designed expressway network for the NYC Metro Region?

The Regional Plan Association made the news way back in 1997 with a panel at their weirdly too short annual conference in Manhattan, held in the morning but not extending far afterwards.  That panel highlighted the efforts of area community activists in promoting the idea of a new expressway TUNNEL along the axis of the Gowanus Expressway.  And simultaneously there was the proposal for a straight line tunnel extension northward - the Cross Downtown Brooklyn Tunnel - to bypass the BQE segment to the west with the cantilever with the connections with the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the bridges.  Accordingly this western segment would be reduced from 3 to 2 lanes in each direction, with the new straight lane tunnel with 2 lanes in each direction.  Yet there appears to be no plan on what happens at the northern end, let alone anywhere else, like the Prospect Expressway.  Obviously we need a broader plan.

So where are any such efforts?

Regional Plan Association could have followed up with subsequent panels at its annual half a single day conference.  Yet in the past 20+ years, nothing (unless I missed something more recently).

And where is high finance?

Well, of course funding anti highway nonsensical propaganda.

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-pseudo-progressive-crusade-to.html

 

Where are the likes of City Journal?

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2016/02/manhattan-institute-panders-to-princess.html


And how about the local "activism" to essentially preserve an elevated expressway in order to create new waterfront development that is less of an extension of existing neighborhoods, and way more just another new urban enclave like BPC?!


https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-conversation-with-shill-for.html


Should not the world of high finance be instead supporting MAJOR EFFORTS to develop and construct a more modern and comprehensive transport network?  Would not Wall Street "investors" be favoring a massive upsurge in infrastructure development encompassing tens upon tens of billions of construction efforts?


Speaking from experience, I myself created the "Takoma Park Highway Design Studio" idea to further such efforts, to present new plans to the general public regarding Washington, D.C.'s atrociously incomplete and inadequate expressway system (which I address in my blog "A Trip Within the Beltway").  I contacted one of that area's supposedly public oriented private planning groups, and was visited by a pair pf their representatives.  The younger of these two appeared interested, but the older one abruptly ended the meeting taking the other guy with him.


https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2013/03/ending-defeatism-in-lower-new-york.html

The High Finance CONTEMPT could not be any more obvious:


https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2023/10/how-battery-park-city-authority.html

Sheridan Expressway Opponents Screwed Up

 

 

An organized campaign to supposedly tear down the Sheridan Expressway promoted a great lie.

 

They were hardly going to tear down anything- to tear down referring to something already standing up- namely the unsightly spiteful elevated portion of the Sheridan and its continuation as the elevated Bruckner.

 

NONE of their plans would tear that down.

 

The only thing they accomplished was converting the Sheridan's northern segment, which runs along the surface to a boulevard, meaning adding traffic lights to an expressway.

 

Such activism's centrally directed narrative falls apart from a look at the topography of the area of this Sheridan boulevard, along the surface with a hill sloping up to the west- ideal for constructing a deck over the surface Sheridan. Such a deck would be the way to extend the street grid from the west eastwards to the lower Bronx River waterfront, to best connect existing neighborhoods to that waterfront.

 

But such activism always seems to work instead for those seeking waterfront areas that are more as enclaves, such as Battery Park City with its circuitous street layout temperate from the inland street grid.  Sort of explains much of the opposition to Westway (which would have instead extended the street grid), making new development more as an extension of an existing neighborhood), why Westway opponent Marcy Benstock favored Battery Park City, and while such activism in the Mott Haven area of the Bronx to the south of Yankee Stadium, favors keeping the divisive elevated 6 lane Deegan expressway hemmed in with new urban waterfront enclave development.   What the Deegan instead needs is an underground replacement with needed extra capacity and full shoulders, which is build able in stages by using the adjacent lightly developed commercial properties for constructing a box tunnel, transferring the traffic, demolishing the existing Deegan and there building the second direction tunnelway.  But the greedy sobs at the top just want to erect luxury enclave development instead, keeping the elevated highway as a barrier to keep out others.

 

Such a policy to fail to explore innovative cut and cover designs of out obsolete design expressways means keeping the awful Brucker-Sheridan viaduct, and as well expending it with new elevated ramps into Hunts Point, further overshadowing the lower Bronx River.

 

If activists were actually looking at the situation themselves, instead of following a script likely devised at Fordhan University School of Urban Planning, they would have already drawn up plans for replacing the elevated Bruckner-Sheridan with a tunnel, including a tunneled (rather than elevated) link into Hunts Point, and build at least an underground connection with the Bronx River Parkway.  Remove and replace the Sheridan-Bruckner viaduct with expressway tunnel, cover over the railroad, and facilitate new buildings alongside.  Alas, activists allowed themselves to be lulled into a false sense of contentment with a false and misleading narrative that accomplished really nothing.

PIRG's Continuing Reactionary Opposition to Freeway Network Expansion

Places ideology over needs via opposing seriously needed road projects,
such as widening I-95 in Connecticut, and a Tunnel in Pasadena, California
to establish a continuous I-710   

http://uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-2

The report lists a series of highway projects which it deems as questionable, based more upon ideology against any highway capacity expansion projects than an understanding of local and regional needs.

Two particularly egregious examples of this is their opposition to widening I-95 in Connecticut with one additional lane in each direction from its existing 3 lanes in each direction configuration that it was originally built with during the 1950s, and to the idea of a tunnel to eliminate the I-710 gap in Pasadena, California as the least locally impactive method, following the past rejection of conventions surface and cut and cover designs.

About Connecticut I-95

Connecticut I-95 is that state's sole grade separated open to mixed traffic highway in the densely populated  20 mile wide band along the coastline along the Long Island Sound, with the nearest such parallel highway I-84 being some 20 miles inland, with the 2 lane per direction Merit Parkway (closed to trucks and commercial traffic) some 4 miles or so inland the sole such other grade separated highway option between, and is paralleled by the Northeastern railroad corridor that carries rail cars from New York to Boston.

I-84 would be the physically easiest to widen, but is the furthest from the densely populated coastal area.

The Merit Parkway is significantly closer to I-95, but is politically difficult to widen owing largely to its iconic bridges which would have to be realistically either reconstructed or twinned, and would still not be suitable for large trucks.

The parallel railroad should be upgraded to permit improved rail service. 

But I-95 should still be widened.

Favoring one mode of transport should not mean neglecting capacity improvements to the other.  Highway and rail can relive each other to varying degrees more than they can altogether substitute for one another.  Rail is more adaptable to absorbing longer distance trips, while highways are more suited to many other trips owing to the time savings of direct door to door service.  Expanding both provides for future growth and increased human activity within a given developed area thus somewhat relieving pressures to expand development into more pastoral rural areas.

I-95 in Connecticut should ideally it should be 12 lanes with a 3/3/3/3 or so separate carriageway configuration, akin to that of much of the New Jersey Turnpike, at least from the New York line to past New Haven, as it would accept and distribute traffic to the sole east-west interstate highway just south of the N.Y. line in Westchester County (and conceivably from a bridge and or tunnel crossing of the Long Island Sound to existing Route 135 in Long Island)- I-287.

As such a "duel barrel" configuration would have relatively high right of way requirements, a more feasible option would be widening it from a 3/3 to a 4/4 or 5/5 configuration, designed with a long term staging plan for parallel carriageways, with segments built in spots where more needed and more physically practical in an outboard configuration, designed to be later made continuous with added segments that would tuck underground beneath the existing carriageways to reduce local impacts.  Such a staging would be financially more practical, with the design including the road substructure to permit the later excavation of the underground segments without having to tear out the road.

To further reduce impacts, portions of this widened I-95 should be designed to accommodate various decked segments, with local overpasses made wider to include better pedestrian and bicycling connections, and with some provisions for future air rights development.  Perhaps certain elevated I-95 segments, as that in New Haven could be reviewed for reconstruction in a fashion via enclosures through new buildings, with access ramps reconstructed via a center rather than a side loader configuration for better accommodating vehicular and local pedestrian traffic.
 
To help relieve Connecticut I-95, particularly from I-287 in New York to past New Haven, the eastern portion of Westchester I-287 should be widened to at least a 5/5 configuration to I-684, which itself should be widened from 3 to 5 lanes in each direction.

About CT I-95
http://www.nycroads.com/roads/ct-turnpike/

About Pasadena I-710

This is a longstanding gap in the highway network in need of filling.

It initially resulted form the physical reality that the area of Pasadena, California is largely older more historically significant architecture built well before the mass freeway era, and from poor planning decisions to permit mass real estate development construction in a band to the west, particularly without any consideration there for the idea of doing such atop a cut and cover-box tunneled freeway.

Past plans for a conventional surface cut freeway through the long established Pasadena residential neighborhoods would die political deaths owing to popular revulsion over the demolition and/or moving requirements.  Likewise with later plans for a tunnel via the cut and cover method for that would have likewise involved surface displacement though without such permanently, particularly if the existing buildings were replaced or re-situated atop.

Subsequently, the official planning has turned to completing the I-710 missing link via a tunnel that would be moled (IOW drilled or bored) hence not disrupting the surface for almost all of its length, with the exceptions being for its relatively brief cut and cover transition segments at each of its ends, and for any ventilation components.

Current planning is for either one or two tunnel tubes, each with 2 levels, each with 2 lanes and a shoulder, providing a total of 4 or 8 lanes in total.

The 710 Tunnel project is a vitally important project for Pasadena and for the Greater Los Angeles area, for providing local relief for 710 traffic that must now detour to local streets or to parallel regional freeways as I-5, 170/101, and I-405.  It would be about 4.9 miles long, connecting freeway stubs each with 3 or 4 lanes per direction.  It is estimated to have construction costs of $3.2 to $5.6 billion, and would receive funding from tolls of about $15 for trucks and $5 for most other automobiles while providing savings in time as a relatively continuous high speed route.

LA's north-south freeways are particularly badly congested largely owing to the east-west mountains to the north separating LA from the San Fernando Valley, blocking the construction of capacious parallel routes via the local street grid.

A continuous 710 is particularly important for the port of Long Beach, with 710 already a major truck route.

LA's transportation problems also stem from a lack of a comprehensive passenger rail network, caused by the foolish decision to rip out its rail car transit system during the mid 1900s.  And 710 completion opponents may well be right in their prescription for various additions to the region's sorely in need of expanding rail transit system.  But they are wrong in outright opposing the 710 completion project for a drilled tunnel link, and would be better in asking for a broad transportation planning vision for rail and highways, perhaps one via splitting the 710 project into stages with the initial construction of a single double decked tunnel tube with the extra funds diverted to the transit projects before the future construction of an addition tube or tubes.

Perhaps there might be better economy to replace the double-decked 2x2 tube design with a larger diameter accommodating a 2x3 lane configuration?  Or perhaps one featuring the former to accommodate trucks, accompanied with a lower height version of the latter for accommodating most other vehicles?  Such would provide a total of 10 lanes with 4 for trucks and 6 for smaller vehicles, and should be evaluated together with options for staging either 2x2 or 2x3 double level tunnels so staged to ultimately provide 2 or more separate tubes.

With the LA region so starved for north-south cross mountain road capacity, throwing away any capacity for future additions, whether via highway or via railway should be viewed as criminal.

PIRG would do so much better by eschewing its reactionary ideological opposition to future highway capacity expansion to a more balance view that would instead debate how projects should be staged, permitting some highway expansion together with rail transit additions, rather than simply the latter.

Likewise, various DOTS need to include the idea of future staging into their basic designs allowing future capacity additions with minimal demolition of existing construction.   For instance, the recent I-405 widening project should have been designed to accommodate future capacity additions, if not for continuous outboard or elevated carriageways, should have taken advantage of any space for access into parallel tunnelways, either directly beneath the existing mainline with the necessary substructure to permit excavation beneath without having to rip out the road/and or for such as a moled tunnel.  Consideration of such staging should likewise not reflect the narrow transit only ideology prevalent in PIRG, via not excluding designs to help facilitate adding a future transit line.

Pro I-710 Tunnel Site
http://www.710coalition.com/

Anti I-710 Tunnel Site
http://www.no710.com/

Wikipedia I-710 article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_710

Another doctrinaire production against urban freeways ignoring basic design and routing issues

Norquist- "it's hard to design..." "grade separated' highway's don't belong in cities- anymore then multi-level structures- have everything on a single level, like a ranch house.

He's with the organization Congress for New Urbanism, cloaks a more doctrinaire stance against urban freeways initially via discussing such that are elevated- from their web site:

America's twentieth century highway building era included elevated freeways which cut huge swaths across our cities, decimating neighborhoods and reducing quality of life for city residents. This massive concrete infrastructure had devastating effects on urban economies. It blighted adjacent property and pushed access to basic amenities further out. With the Federal and State Departments of Transportation confronting shrinking budgets and cities looking for ways to increase their revenues, it is an ideal time to offer less expensive, urban alternatives to the reconstruction of urban expressways.

New York City, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Seoul, South Korea have confronted this problem by replacing elevated highways with boulevards, saving billions of dollars and increasing real estate values on adjacent land. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) believes that teardowns offer an attractive option for cities struggling with aging highway infrastructure. The strategies are proving themselves in adding value and restoring urban neighborhoods decimated by highway construction.

That this organization slips in Portland - involving the essentially surface level Harbor Drive -- with these other cities referring to *elevated* freeway removal, is but a hint of this agenda, hinted at by its cry for 'less expensive' alternatives against the broader political prioritizations- e.g. Pentagon, domestic surveillance and the drug war/cigarette-pharm criminal mercantilism, while of course neglecting the freeway benefits altogether rather then attempt any true cost benefit analysis.

This video does the same thing: its start with showing elevated freeways with unattractive underside environments, before then showing below ground level and surface freeways as examples to of its freeway elimination program.

It cuts to a man talking about the freeways in Buffalo, N.Y., particularly that which blocks the view and/or access to the waterfront, as the video then cuts to a shot of the below ground level Kensington Expressway. Its a project I don't yet see on his organization's web site, but which is being nonetheless so targeted by various entities, such as this. Accordingly this expressway built as an uncovered -- but for some cross streets -- trench via the right of way of the previously there existing Humbolt Parkway -- has already been proposed by local community groups to be reconstructed with a lid- essentially as a cut and cover tunnel beneath a new linear park to essentially restore the Humbolt Parkway. NYSDOT has two basic proposals, one for such a linear park somewhat elevated, the other for such as street level, with the existing trench deepened, as the clearances are deficient by about one meter, for accommodating larger trucks.

The Reclaiming Our Community Coalition is proposing that a cover be built over a portion of the Kensington Expressway complete with trees, shrubs and flowers. This project would restore the visual quality and natural environment of the Humboldt Parkway neighborhood by recreating Humboldt parkway over the section of Route 33 from east Ferry Street to the Best Street exit. This project would promote an aesthetically pleasing physical connection across the existing below-grade expressway, reuniting communities. In implementing this project, it should be noted, there would be no impact on existing traffic patterns.

In sum, this project would restore the treasure envisioned by Olmsted. A majestic tree-lined parkway would be restored which would improve the looks, health and benefits of the neighborhood. Specifically, with regard to looks, it would: return the beauty and elegance of the parkway; change the aesthetic perception of the community; and affect the curbside appeal thereby encouraging investment and attracting potential home-buyers. Regarding health, it would improve air quality and impart all the benefits of trees and green space. And, in terms of benefits, it would: stimulate the repair and improvement of existing structures economically, which would appreciate property values in a real way; stimulate commercial interests in the community, monetarily restoring needed vitality; highlight the City of Buffalo as the city of solutions for improvement; and show the community’s children the possibility of a better way of life.

Retaining the trench for a new tunnel would place the least amount of vehicular traffic directly in front of the houses facing this Humbolt Parkway-Kensington Expressway corridor- a factor leading to its support. The Norquist freeway removal doctrine of conversion to surface level boulevards is being promoted here - filling in the existing already paid for trench excavation -- for the sake of instead here placing an 8 lane surface boulevard.


http://www.nmgonline.org/Tools/Status/frontend/item.asp?type=0&size=0&lngDisplay=0&jPageNumber=1&strMetaTag=


“Having through traffic not have to slow down through town should not be a priority for the City of Buffalo,” Norquist says. “It hasn’t done Buffalo any good to have that criterion. If the objective of the expressways was to eliminate congestion, they worked perfectly, because congestion is not a big problem in Buffalo—not just traffic congestion but money congestion, people congestion. Everything’s been decongested because of this narrow objective of fighting congestion.”

An expressway, he says, is a rural form that doesn’t belong in the city. Few European cities have expressways within their city boundaries. Vancouver, which has some

Read more: http://artvoice.com/issues/v9n9/bury_this_big_mistake#ixzz1MaDvctDD

Norquist is being quite disingenuous- confuses rural form with urban form how many rural freeway have such retaining walls?

Norquists ends by dismissing the concept of grade separation- a dismissal that would include Washington, D.C.'s traffic circle under-pases, as that beneath DuPont Circle.

That 'greens' would support the travesty of filling in already paid for ground cuts, while altogether neglecting the issue of ramp design - aka center rather than side loader access ramps - belies an ideo-idiotology favoring depopulation over innovation - speaks volumes about what the so called environmentalist groups are really all about; a disgusting elitist contempt for commoners.

Trump on U.S. Decline

Interview with Donald Trump
Our Infrastructure Paralysis- Portender of Our Ultimate Defeat By China

The U.S. is vital to the Western World, yet is being seriously undermined by its Infrastructure Paralysis

Vital to the U.S. are its major cities, particularly Washington D.C. and New York.

The New York Metropolitan Region is vital.

We need to recognize it- improve the infrastructure particularly the roads.

Yes roads, including railroads and not excluding roads- that is not excluding grade separated highways. We need both. Screw this adversarial shit.

We need to improve the northeastern railroad corridor between Boston and Washington D.C., increasing speeds at least by an additional 75 to 100 mph for 150-220 mph train service better connecting the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, D.C. super-region, relieving our airports of much of the super shuttle New York to Washington, D.C. flights, and freeing up space for longer flights, while reducing the emissions of higher altitude CO2 emissions to lower level emissions from whatever we burn to generate the electricity, assuming we don’t use some form of nuclear, hydro-power or a better value bio-fuel as Hemp or Algae.

We need to fix the Washington, D.C. interstate highway system- shit if they object, make ‘em a state to justify calling these ‘interstate’ highways- done in a more updated, environmentally friendly way with the maximum use of existing cleared corridors and a heavy use of tunnels or ‘cover-ways’. Just look at my prototype alongside my towers beneath the recently under construction Riverside Drive southern extension. That proves the lie that freeways don’t belong in cities; rather we need more, done in this fashion, as tunnel beneath surface roads. Forcing all of the vehicular traffic upon a single grade is so suburban – thing of ranch houses – and how the now trendy doctrinaire stance against urban freeways pushed through such Jesuitical entities as the “Congress on New Urbanism” which can’t even describe the semi-underground Route 34 Freeway stub in New haven, CT correctly, was applied frequently against urban railroads particularly prior to the project constructing the current Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, N.Y. and covering over its yards to the rear with new development that ranks amongst the city’s most prestigious area. We can smoothly glide I-95 inside the Beltway as God intended by the conveniently located electrical power transmission line corridor some 250 feet already in width to a cut and cover reconstruction of the Washington D.C. Red Line Northern Railroad, into the proposed Grand Arc as proposed in that feisty Washington, D.C. freeways blog, “A Trip Within The Beltway”, silently alongside Catholic University of America, just as the future West Side Highway Tunnel shall pass quietly beneath Riverside Drive next to my towers, protecting their property values as any such spectacular area must mandate. A Washington, D.C. “Big Dig” -- really no more a discredited *concept* than anything else constructed under shoddy, good old boys’ club (fraternity order) no bid contracting! --  is imperative. Are the new urbainist types who pretend that highway don’t matter, and that an otherwise multilayered urban environment can not possibly extend to grade separation for vehicles (and don’t give a sh*t about road design such as that blinders-wearing 'guru' Jane Jacobs who would rather that highways be environmentally invasive) , would all be okay with such shoody contracting and constructing for light rail and transit oriented real estate development. Jeez.

So are major improvements in and around New York City.

First and foremost (asides from the northeastern corridor high speed rail passing through the area), we NEED that tunnel, the Cross Sound Tunnel, connecting Long Island and Westchester and I-287, proposed by developer since about 2005, and providing the first new link to the island since the completion of the Throgs Neck Bridge in 1961- a fire beneath its mainland bound island onramp in 2009 attesting to the serious need for at additional crossings to and from Long Island, at least to Westchester I-287 and at least an additional crossing to Connecticut, plus one tunneled via the existing LIRR Bay Ridge railroad right of way as an encased tunnelway – existing neighborhoods must have these new highways as ‘cover-ways’ as should places like Catholic University of America and my west side towers – to a new tunnel crossing beneath New York Bay bypassing Staten Island and connecting to I-78 in New Jersey hence way better connecting Newark and JFK airports.

The Cross Sound Tunnel proposal makes perfect sense environmentally. It a deep drilled design, meaning no continuous surface disruption as drilled deep underground, with the plan being for the cut and cover approaches to be constructed with a staging of the lid or roof early during the excavation, minimizing the visible construction footprint while bringing early the benefits of the new parkland. Initially proposed as a triple tube , the center for maintenance and emergency access, it was subsequently proposed with an enlarged center tube to accommodate a potential railway. Indeed its so environmentally sensible that it wastefully diverts to the east of Oyster Bay increasing the length and hence the costs for no apparent reason other than perhaps an overly powerful entity and or interests where a drilled tunnel is insufficient. No period, just as was said in the years leading up to 1973 when Gov. Rockefellor crumbled on the Robert /Moses proposed Cross Sound Bridge.

The Cross Sound Tunnel was about to receive the public endorsement of NY Governor Elliot Spitzer with the announcement of a financing deal with Bear Sterns- read about it in the LI Real Estate Journal. It appears that this was topped by that silly sex scandal they used as the reason or lets be extra frank- excuse they used to stop the tunnel- jesus he was client number nine at an outfit called the ‘emperor’s club’ yet what did we ever get to hear about clients one through eight, and ten?!

What a scam. We need to investigate who were the – lets be extra frank again – assholes, stopping a seriously needed and environmentally friendly transportation link as this. Think about it, anywhere, people had to experience surface road construction, or if tunnel, still much surface disruption during the construction, at least in spots anyway. Here the project is virtually entirely drilled deep moled without the surface disruption. Yet these self indulgent wealthy assholes get to block that- even when weirdly routed out of the way?

Likewise with the neglect of our existing antiquated arterial net as the northern connections into and through the City, the Brooklyn Queens, Major Deegan and Bruckner-Sheridan Expressways.

If I were Governor or President I would do everything to bring these highways up to spec, with full 12 foot lanes, shoulders and some improvement design-wise with the tunnel- just look at the future West Side Highway Tunnel beneath Riverfront Drive alongside – towers. The BQE needs that tunnel recently proposed and now dropped hopefully as a political slant to attract Obama’s attention for some funds.

The Kosciezko Bridge replacement is good though is shy at least a lane or two in each direction, and greater mitigation on the form of covering the BQE is mandated in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg.

And we need to improve the roads to the north, including the lack of a “subway” line to the terminals at LaGuardia Airport; improve the approaches to the Triborough/”RFK” and in the Bronx.

Do something way more useful in this decade for the Bronx and areas within as Mott Haven- that waterfront industrial wastelands area south of Yankee Stadium has tremendous potential with the Deegan Expressway in a new Cincinnati Fort Washington Way open roof tunnel with the roof being concurrent and future real parkland and or real estate development along a waterfront that become more than a localized enclave rather than one such hemmed in by the existing inadequate and divisive 6 lane 1939 vintage spec Triborough approach/Deegan.

Likewise we should ultimately do something about the elevated Bruckner; perhaps underground its northbound direction while maintaining its monumental through the windshield vista southbound upon a prettier viaduct. Also we need a more elegant solution connecting with the Sheridan with air rights development alongside a restored Bronx Riverfront. Ultimately they should extend the Sheridan along or even under 177th Street to connect with the Bronx River Parkway with an extension as once planned to CoOp City, though with much of it encased in cover-way to protect the adjacent neighborhoods and land values. Likewise and more into the future, such an approach could be used for an expressway along and beneath the Bronx River Parkway corridor connecting to a Mt Vernon east-west arterial and ultimately I-87 with a design solution providing greater useable park-space.

But more immediately, we do that we need to uncork the I-95 bottleneck with the premature lane drop at the interchange with the Pelham Parkway by extending the 4th lane at least to the Hutchinson River Parkway with a longer merge lane, or further to Co-Op City, with some minor geometry work. Longer term should have any future work on the I-95 New England Thruway to eventually accommodate the additional lanes through New Rochelle, with the depressed segments further mitigated as cover-ways. Likewise with the Deegan, brought up to date with a minimum of 4 lanes in each direction through the Bronx, with the area around Fordham Avenue and further north particularly as cover-ways to better connect the area regionally and locally.

We need to relieve the Cross Bronx Expressway, starting with a new link connecting the Cross County Parkway via respectively short and long tunnels flanking a new Yonkers-Alpine New Jersey Bridge, with the latter long tunnel connecting to a northern extension of the New Jersey Turnpike

We likewise need to expand east-west rail connectivity- it would be criminal for NYSDOT to abide by building the replacement Tappan Zee without the lower deck featured in one of the two remaining official options under consideration.

Likewise we need additional capacity. To the north by twinning Bear Mountain Bridge with a set of drilled tunnels to supplement that hairy ride on the eastern side. To the south by the new Yonkers-Alpine Bridge, at least two new passenger railroad tunnels into midtown Manhattan, the 4th tube of the Lincoln Tunnel, at least two additional sets of parallel tubes to the Holland Tunnel, plus the new multi-model Cross Harbor I-287/I-78 Highway-Railway Tunnel connecting Brooklyn directly with New Jersey. This is all long overdue.

The political elites alas don’t give a shit, even after 911 which is exceptionally galling.

Look at how NY State officials botched and crumbled the idea of a West Side Highway Tunnel alongside the WTC which at should be designed at least to provide a seemless connection with the Brooklyn Battery and Battey Park Tunnels. Yet NYS DOT never came up with a truly such adequate proposal instead pushing these short assed shallow tunnels precluding a new downtown underground pedestrian concourse, now instead we get a “Freedom Tower” with a trade off of its 20 floors being essentially un-rented space.

Indeed, look how they folded on Westway during the 1980s.

Like it was all an excuse to distract the masses, showing the “progressives” and “environmentalists” as fools.

Likewise with “limited government”/”conservative assholes who identified the great waste of money as Westway but were okay with spending billions for that cigarette market protection racket of a drug war, prisons, courts, “treatment” and other assorted bullshit. ‘Fiscal conservative’ Lew Lerhman was such a Knights of Malta suck up assh*le.

Beware any politicians.  Whether, Knights of Malta, Opus Dei, Phi Crappa whatever college fraternity, or directly rather than indirectly Masonic, such as Al Sharpton, without understanding it as something than mere personal advancement.  It's not good to so neglect our infrastructure life-lines -- which is what roads are.


2012 - April 1 - South Mall Blogger
http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/04/2012-april-1.html

Disconnect with Logic

"...convert the Vine Street Expressway back into an ordinary city street"?!?!

Timothy B. Lee

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/11/15/the-case-for-tearing-down-urban-freeways/

The really disruptive freeways are the ones that divide urban neighborhoods from one another. Philadelphia’s Vine Street Expressway, a below-grade freeway which provides East-West traffic through the heart of downtown Philadelphia, is a good example. Not only does it damage the fabric of urban life north of downtown, but its chronic congestion means that it’s often not much faster than driving on ordinary city streets.

If money were no object, the best solution would be to put the expressway underground in the style of Boston’s Big Dig. But assuming that’s not in the budget, I think the next-best option would be for planners to admit their predecessors’ mistake and convert the Vine Street Expressway back into an ordinary city street. City streets take up less land than freeways, so the government could likely sell the extra land off to recoup some of the costs of the project.

"...convert the Vine Street Expressway back into an ordinary city street"- as its already is below grade, thus already underground level and hence already an existing clearing beneath city street level and hence grade separated and thus not a city street.

The correct answer would be to cover the Vine Street Expressway, with parkland and or air right real estate development.