Re-Think New York City La Guardia Airport Expansion Into The South Bronx Proposal

An intriguing idea to expand La Guardia Airport with expanded runways achieved by new landfill displacing Rikers Island, with a new set of entryways in the Port Morris area of the South Bronx, accompanied by upgrades to the passenger rail system- all well and good.

http://www.rethinknyc.com/

Would establish new supplemental entryway to La Guardia in the South Bronx, thus traffic from the north would no longer need to cross the Triborough or Whitestone Bridges, with access to the rest of the airport via a dedicated rail loop

 

 Would expand runway capacity via new landfill displacing Rikers Island

 Would connect with all three northern radial Metro North Railroads, thus travellers from the north could arrive by any of the three Metro North railroad lines.   

The train station would include a new stop for Amtrak.

Includes the idea of a new convention center replacing Javits Center.

That's an idea that builds upon late 1800s and early 1900s planning proposals to develop this Port Morris area, such as an 1883 proposal for a new convention center, and latter with the idea of continuing the denser development seen in Manhattan further forth, for which the New York, Westchester & Boston railroad, which opened in 1911 had anticipated.

The Re-Think NYC site notes:

The area north of the convention center would be built at an urban scale.  To the west is the Bruckner Expressway, which prevents connection between Port Morris and neighborhoods to the west.  We would bridge this divide through a proposed new "ambassador" building on the west side of the Bruckner at 142nd Street, which would allow people to enter on that side of the expressway, but the building would also serve as a bridge over the Bruckner that would connect to the entire complex.

This proposal needs further work regarding the highway network, particularly as the Bruckner segment along this area is an unsightly elevated freeway- hence placing a building atop it in this configuration would be ungainly.

Should ultimately include a complete replacement-reconstruction of the southern Bruckner Expressway- an unsightly elevated highway.

http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=5476#.VsE2t_k9-So

What To Do About The Bruckner Expressway:

This elevated freeway, with 3 lanes in each direction is unsightly, locally divisive, lacks shoulders, lacks access ramps to this proposed airport entryway complex, and is under-capacity for accepting traffic from the northbound Willis Avenue Bridge from Manhattan.

It does provide a fantastic view through the windshield for travellers heading south.

To the west it is paralleled by a 4 lane wide southbound surface Bruckner Boulevard.

To its east it is paralleled by a 2 lane wide northbound Bruckner Boulevard with buildings, from its southern end to 142nd Street, where the railroad then meets it to run immediately alongside.  That railroad is at a lower grade.

Ideally there should be a new line of buildings designed to reconnect Port Morris with the neighborhoods to the west in the place now occupied by the elevated freeway structure, which should be torn down, with new parallel freeway roadways, with either both directions within new cut and cover tunnel(s), or with the northbound direction in a new cut and cover tunnel, and the southbound direction elevated as the roof of a new line of buildings.

Because the existing elevated freeway must remain in operation throughout the construction project, the first stage would be constructing a new cut and cover freeway tunnel beneath the surface road to the west.

As the Re-Think NYC proposal envisions demolishing the buildings already along the Bruckner's eastern (northbound) side, it could likewise construct a cut and cover tunnelway there as well.  To the north of 142nd Street, this could be done via the existing railroad right of way with the tracks relocated eastward, and with this rail corridor planned to be decked over.  The historic New York, Westchester & Boston RailRoad Station at the north side of Hunts Point Avenue should not be demolished but rather propped up with new supports and retained either in its exact same location or slightly re-indexed eastwards.

 http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22862

http://dev.forgotten-ny.com/2001/03/abandoned-railroad-stations-of-the-bronx/

Each of these cut and cover tunnels should ideally be at least the of 4 full width lanes plus shoulders.  This might involve some building removal on a brief section of the north side in addition to that one the south side already envisioned by the Re-Think NYC proposal.  This should likewise be designed to tie into the existing 4 lane short tunnel for Bruckner Boulevard traffic beneath the Bruckner Expressway-Deegan Expressway interchange with the approach to the Triborough "RFK" Bridge.  That tunnel should be lengthened both to the south-west to Brown Place, with local street access and a gentler curve displacing the gasoline station there.  And it should be extended to the north-east, with at least one full lane joining into and continuing via an additional lane of the reconstructed Bruckner Expressway.

Once the new cut and cover tunnels are in place, the elevated Bruckner should be demolished, and replaced with a line of new buildings.  Optional would be the idea of an elevated roadway upon its roof; as the purpose of that would be to continue the tradition of the southbound vista through the windshield, this might done only for the southbound direction.  A variation of this would be to have an arial tunnel within one of this structure's upper levels, ala the "Choppway" proposal a few years ago for the replacement of Seattle Washington's elevated double decked Route 99 Freeway.

http://crosscut.com/2008/09/frank-chopps-megaduct-comes-out-hiding/

However, because of the need to retain the existing elevated freeway throughout the reconstruction, this project would have to include at least one cut and cover tunnel on one or both sides of the existing structure- a basic design configuration furthermore favored by the practicalities of establishing on ramp and off ramp access.   Also, the construction could be staged to add an additional cut and cover carriageway between the two new outboard tunnelways once the existing elevated Bruckner is removed.

To the north, the new cut and covers could do wonders for removing the blight of the existing roadways at the mouth of the Bronx River, for both the continuation of the Bruckner and for its connections to the Sheridan.  

Such a cut and cover tunnel Bruckner Expressway reconstruction should extend to Boynton Avenue, thus eliminating the elevated berm segment to the west, meeting the existing Bruckner corridor where the freeway is at ground level, and has the option of transitioning to the service roads to access the Bronx River Parkway.

Such a cut and cover connection for the Sheridan should extend to Westchester Avenue, which is build-able via re-indexing the adjacent railroad to the east.  Further north, portions of the Sheridan should be decked over taking advantage of the topography of the hill to its west to better connect that area with the Bronx River waterfront, such as between E 172 and 173rd Streets.

The new Bruckner Expressway would of course have greater capacity than the existing 3 lane in each direction facility.  The new set of outboard cut and cover tunnels with 4 lanes apiece flanking an inner set with 2 lanes per direction built after the demolition of the elevated structure would provide an upwards of12 lanes, thereby accommodating continuous on lanes for traffic from the northbound Willis Bridge and to and from the new airport access ramps.  Of this, 8 lane would continue to surface at Boynton Street, with a lane apiece to and from the service roads, the remaining 6 lanes with the 6 lane surface Bruckner Expressway, and 4 lanes to the north for the Sheridan.  Providing this extra capacity would allow more traffic to be underground, thus allowing for a more pedestrian friendly Bruckner Boulevard.

With this thought, the project should include such ramp connects into the Hunts Point Market.

Other Ideas:

With the additional of such a significant amount of landfill displacing Rikers Island, another idea comes to mind- what about taking advantage of that to create new roadway crossings between the Bronx and Queens?  

With the Triborough "RFK" Bridge heavily used, even though the "Re-Think NYC" plan would divert some of its traffic by no longer requiring its use from the north to access La Guardia Airport, it would be prudent for long term planning to ultimately seize the opportunity provided by the landfill for the new runway space.

Regarding highways, two ideas come to mind:

- extending the Bronx River Parkway

- extending the Deegan

The logical place would be the area of the Grand Central Parkway-Brooklyn Queens Expressway interchanges.  

Not simply as the junction of these two highways, both of which are heavily used.  

But because that's the location of a rail corridor that has already been studied and proposed as the location of a new interstate highway running roughly north-south between the two roughly parallel highways of the BQE and the Van Wick Expressway.  As planned during the 1960s it was to be known as the Interboro Expressway, and would connect directly with  the contemporaneously planned Cross Brooklyn Expressway.

For a good historic overview of the previous planing for the Interboro Expressway, see the account by NYC Roads Steve Anderson:

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/queens-interboro/

Accordingly it was canceled by 1973.  As planned during the late 1960s-early 1970s it would have included reconstructing a portion of the existing elevated IRT as a subway with the below ground level freeway.  As I have not seen any detailed plans, I don't know if any of the latter planning included any segments as coverways (cut and cover tunnels), rather than simply as an open depressed freeway.

A revival of the Interboro Expressway has been proposed by Peter Samuel's via his publication TollRoads.

As it is a relatively narrow railroad corridor that is generally below grand level, passing through residential area, it would have to be constructed primarily within a tunnel box, and covered with new linear parkland.

Connecting with a Cross Brooklyn Expressway likewise built primarily by tunnelways, this Interboro Route would provide a valuable link into Brooklyn and towards Staten Island and Long Island.

A could be connected to the Bronx by a curved tunnel contained beneath the Re-Think NYC La Guardia Port Morris facility, directly into the Deegan.  Optionally that could include ramp connects to and from the new Bruckner and the Hunts Point Market.

A tunneled extension of the Bronx River Parkway could connect with the BQE-Interboro-Grand Central Parkway, though its logical connection with the latter as a parkway would be best done in conjunction with a demolition-reconstruction of the western portion of the existing La Guardia complex, owing to the geometry.

Such a connection would thus establish a seem-less link between the southern end of New York's longest Parkway -- the Bronx River - Sprain Brook - Taconic which are all really one freeway from the South Bronx towards Albany -- and the Grand Central - Cross Island - Northern State Parkways.

None of these projects would have to be all built at once or together.

Rather they could be built in stages, starting with the incorporation of their initial segments within the "Re-Think NYC" La Guardia expansion project, and within the reconstruction of the adjoining Bruckner.

Including the tunnel box within the new clearing and landfill would be comparably easy compared to failing to plan them and adding later.  As these would be additions between the existing 8 lane Triborough/"RFK" and 6 lane Whitestone Bridges, they could suffice with a minimum of 2 lanes in each direction apiece.

The Deegan-Interboro Connection would provide a valuable bypass of the Triborough "RFK" Bridge and its antiquated Queens approach.  Of course the Deegan should be rebuilt to full 8 lane specifications, as I have previously written about, and its east west segment from Willis Avenue to at least towards Brown Street, should be decked over.  Serious consideration should be given to reconstructing this freeway further to the east at a lower elevation to be likewise decked over as far as practical for connecting with the Triborough"RFK" Bridge, with new parkland atop, more consistent with the spirit of the 1883 Port Morris planning.

Because of their use of the footprint of the La Guardia expansion project, most of this new tunnel crossing construction would not disturb existing neighborhoods nor traffic.
 

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

Old and New: Elevated and Box Tunnel with Minimal Excavation

NYC Manhattan West Side Highway- Old & New

new box tunnel beneath Riverside Drive boulevard extension

Old= Elevated Viaduct

New= Submerged Tunnel Box

Least expensive when done with no or minimal excavation, as respectively with a tunnel box atop the existing SE Freeway segment between 11th Street and Barney Circle- Pennsylvania Avenue SE, and with an extension of that freeway to RFK Stadium.

Washington, D.C. Barney Circle

Existing SE Freeway and immediate unbuilt extension involving no heavy excavation

Tunnel Box atop existing SE Freeway segment between 11th Street and Barney Circle

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2013/11/wasting-eastern-seeast-leg-freeway.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-se-freeway-plan-benifiting-greatest.html

Harvard Defeats Yale!

While Yale seeks parochialist means for blocking public right of way,
the Harvard community seeks cosmopolitan solutions to actually reconcile human needs.



http://www.cityminustraffic.org/newsite/introduction.htm
http://www.cityminustraffic.org/fgt/model.html

Recycling Right of Ways and other existing swaths

This is the routing philosophy of minimizing the creation of all new right-of-ways that would bisect residential neighborhoods affect parkland corridors, via maximizing the use of existing right of ways and other cleared swaths for constructing grade separated new highways. Such existing right-of-ways would include: existing roads: particularly where an existing arterial has spawned adjacent strip development, lining the arterial with a generous zone of parking lots- railroad-industrial corridors: where a RR has spawned an adjacent strip of industrialized properties, including such paved areas as loading docks, bus stops and parking lots, including those for utility vehicle storage. power line and other utility line right of ways: Because this design philosophy is meant to minimize dislocation and preserve public resources, it would not *necessarily* use what are known as "highway reservation corridors", if doing so meant employing wooded corridors which -- due to approval of real estate development projects -- become the sole neighborhood woods, as everything else is taken for subdivisions and local, non grade separate surface roads. Though portions of such "highway reservation" wooded corridors may be sufficiently wide, the narrowness or other factors regarding other portions might make a detour preferable, even if requiring the removal of houses, particularly those recently built when this potential conflict would tend to became more obvious. Because such existing right of ways and other linear brownfield properties are limited in number and nature, preserving them for future use is essential. This does not mean that they must lay fallow, but rather that planning assign them such uses that avoid significantly increased future costs, allowing an evolutionary development over a time span of at least several decades that avoid the haphazard placement of expensive and immovable structures, especially residences, including those directly in the path, and those close enough to an existing structure -- such as a freeway retaining wall -- to increase the cost of its future replacement. Such uses would include multi-model transportation transfer points: e.g. sidewalks and pavement relating to mass transit access, bus bays and road, drop off (kiss & ride) areas, open air markets, town square type areas, along with movable and lower cost structures, such as kiosks, public information/service booths, movable vender stands and lower cost retail structures (perhaps with a 25 year amortization). This would utilize land, even providing revenue, while preserving design flexibility for future generations. By preserving existing corridors and protecting them from misplaced real estate development, we use land more efficiently, ultimately allowing its use for multiple purposes, and reducing or eliminating the need for paving through much in the way of wooded suburban highway reservation corridors, hence making it more likely they will forever remain as wildlife corridors. By preserving urban brownfields in particular, we preserve potential for future projects to improve the transportation and greenspace networks via burying railways and highways beneath new linear promenades for bringing communities closer to each other locally and regionally with shorter more direct routes.

Historical Examples: Larchmont (Westchester County), New York I-95 New England Thruway: where the use of the previously acquired wooded corridor for the not-to-be-built Pelham-Port Chester Parkway, would take a detour through the parking lots along the Metro North New Haven RR line which previously served as the railbed for the defunct New York Westchester and Boston RR (1912-1937), with a 1930s parkway bridge now amidst a city park. Washington, D.C. I-66 North Leg West segment of the Inner Loop: new open depressed swath paralleling Florida Avenue-U Street, versus a cut and cover tunnel beneath K-Street Brooklyn, New York Cross Brooklyn Expressway: new swath paralleling Bushwick Avenue (I-78), versus double decked elevated or triple decked depressed atop or within the existing 50 foot wide LIRR Bay Ridge RR right of way (I-287 or I-878)

Examples of Why: http://icc370.igc.org/bigtree.htm

Build a Sandpoint, Idaho Tunnel

A Google search on expressway tunnel led to discovering this.

The group, which promotes the concept of putting portions of the highway beneath the city instead of in the creek, formally asked ITD's director and chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board in April to acknowledge that an objective alternatives analysis is compulsory and needs to be redone with a more transparent public review process. More ...

This is a proposal to tunnel a highway beneath a city, as an environmentally preferable alternative to a surface road around a city's waterfront.

"Tunnels of this size, type and depth are quite common, and have been successfully constructed in many developed areas around the world," Stephen Mauss, vice president of Hatch Mott McDonald, said in a July 19 letter to Potter.

Hatch Mott McDonald has constructed some 1,500 miles of tunnel here and abroad, including the tunnel beneath the Detroit River that links the U.S. and Canada and parts of the famed London Underground.

Under the proposal, through-town traffic entering Sandpoint from the Long Bridge would descend below ground near the intersection of Superior Street and First Avenue. Traffic would emerge from the 2,250-foot tunnel near the city's former high school at Pine Street and Euclid Avenue, well within striking distance of U.S. Highway 2. More ...

West Portal - 5th Avenue Tunnel

cross section

East Portal

City of Sandpoint Idaho
Citizens for a Sandpoint Tunnel

Build a Cross Sound Tunnel

across New York's Long Island Sound
connecting I-287 with Route 135

Suggested Tunnel Configuration for I-287 Cross Sound Tunnel connecting Westchester County and Long Island, N.Y.


This would connect existing I-287 with Route 135 in Long Island.



It would be drilled over 100 feet beneath the underwater surface.

Is being proposed by Polimeri International, a family owned Garden City, LI based development company.

It would be built with private funds, and charge a toll of $25 for passenger automobiles and an upwards of $100 for trucks.

It would be a useful evacuation route- a concept that the government has paid lip service.

N.Y. State Senator Carl Marcellino (R- Syosset) has announced hearings to be held on this proposal.


Daily News article
The Cross Sound Link Project

Build a Cross Brooklyn Tunnel

From NYCROADS
by Steve Anderson

Of all the boroughs in New York City, Brooklyn is the least served in limited-access highway mileage vis-à-vis population. Sometime in the future, the Cross Brooklyn Expressway proposal may be resurrected as an Interstate corridor for use by passenger cars and commercial traffic. The new Cross Brooklyn Expressway should utilize the right-of-way along Conduit Boulevard, Linden Boulevard and the LIRR Bay Ridge branch to the Gowanus Expressway (I-278). This project should be done in conjunction with the conversion (and completion) of the Nassau Expressway into a controlled-access facility, and possibly be integrated with the long-proposed plan for a rail tunnel between Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Bayonne, New Jersey. Strong consideration should be given to its construction as a tunnel facility. (The Saunders-Herrenknecht proposal for the Tappan Zee and Oyster Bay-Rye tunnels, which calls for dual-level tunnels for vehicular and rail traffic, may serve as a model.)

Adopted from misc.transport.road

If New York City planning were more comprehensive with pursuing environmentally advanced designs for projects combining highways and rail, the discussion for this much needed Cross Bay Rail Tunnel to Brooklyn would include a vehicular link to New Jersey, with an eastern extension across Brooklyn to Kennedy Airport.

Like the Cross Brooklyn Expressway proposals of the 1960's, this would employ the right of way of the LIRR freight tracks. Unlike these earlier proposals, this new highway would be designed to not tower over neighborhoods, nor take lengthy swaths from existing neighborhoods, nor increase localized air pollution, nor even be something that could accurately be said as dividing Brooklyn locally. Rather than building a high viaduct over the railroad, or a below ground roadway lined with new buildings (at the expense of homes), build this Cross Brooklyn Expressway as an encased, multi-level, multi-model road tunnel with electrostatic precipitator filtration technology, built beneath a new linear park for much of its length.

This railroad corridor is wide at its western segment, approximately 250 feet wide with a single rail track, and its eastern segment traverses vast industrial areas. In contrast, the middle segment is only about 80 feet wide, and is immediately abutted by residential areas that may not permit widening. Indeed, this width is too narrow for a conventional expressway layout, thus requiring a multi-level underground facility. This would perhaps entail three separate decks, one deck for expanded passenger and freight rail service, and two decks for each expressway carriageway.

A full underground segment for this narrow middle segment, and the area along Linden Boulevard would be required for noise abatement.

The project should connect directly to a new Cross Harbor Railway/Highway Tunnel to I-78 in New Jersey, with new parallel roadways to at least the New Jersey Turnpike. Such a tunnel is currently planned, inexplicitly only with rail.

It would be perhaps the nation's most needed new evacuation route from a major metropolitan area, with the greatest re-use of existing industrialized right of way.

Cross Brooklyn Expressway right of way tour- Old NYC
Cross Harbor - Cross Brooklyn Tunnel (non-multi-model rail only version)