Center Loader vs Side Loader Urban Freeway Access Ramps

Critical to a tamed street environment conducive to this air rights development, are center loader access ramps for the freeway- IOW the ramps to or from the freeway have short tunnels to thus not load by the left hand curb but rather from the middle of a frontage-service road.

This center loader design preserves the curbside for lower speed uses, and can be seen in renderings of the proposed Washington, D.C. I-395 redevelopment project just south of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C.

This design should be a mandatory retrofit for existing urban freeways- at least those built below ground level, as it has been the ramp interface rather than the existence of the mainline freeway itself, that causes the ripple of intimidation for pedestrians and to a degree local vehicular traffic depending upon the design and location of cross-streets.

An example of such as a retro-fit can be found in the recent proposals to construct 'air rights' development atop I-395 (re I-95) in Washington, D.C.

As far as I know, the issue of center rather than side loader freeway access ramps remains unaddressed by transportation planning advocacy organizations, owing to a dogmatic doctrinaire stance against the very concept of urban freeways preventing them from finding let alone appreciating such critically needed design improvements.

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.

I-95 West New Jersey Environmental Affrontry to the Bronx

The Failure to Fill The Gaps is linked to environmental and ethnic (less affluent) bias, with the more affluent areas being able to outright stop a freeway, diverting the traffic burden disproportionately upon less affluent areas.

A textbook example is the failure to complete the missing link of I-95 in western New Jersey from the Trenton area to the vicinity of the southwestern corner of I-287, which makes it less convenient for traffic to use I-287 to go around New York City rather than staying on I-95 via the Trans Manhattan and Cross Bronx Expressways.`

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=110931979218146476547.000464dcac0441ca9e76b

Known as the Somerset Freeway, it was the original planned route for Interstate 95 in New Jersey. Besides offering a direct route between New York City and Philadelphia, it would have also offered a bypass of New York City for those traveling to Upstate New York and New England. The plan was killed in 1982 when it faced fierce opposition from communities along the route fearing sprawl and development. Today the sprawl and development is well in the region nearly thirty years later.

The Hidden Overly Influential Opposition

Back in the day, opposition movements to road projects were on the up and up.  We knew who the opponents were, and we knew of their arguments, such as the I-480 Embaradero freeway blocking the view of the waterfront in San Francisco, or the mis-routed 1964 North Central freeway project in Takoma Park, MD and Washington, D.C.

In response, road planning has evolved, with a far far greater deference to local concerns, leading new proposals to include significant design alterations, such as being underground and or designed to include transit.   Cases in point in New York-  the proposed Cross Sound Tunnel, and the replacement Tappan Zee Bridge project- both involving I-287.  The former is a replacement proposal for Robert Moses' Cross Sound Bridge which was never built- canceled in 1973.  The latter replaces a span built during the mid 1950s with 6 lanes plus a 12 foot median.  Neither the canceled Cross Sound Bridge nor the existing Tappan Zee bridge were designed to accommodate transit asides from buses in mixed traffic.

The concept of tunneling for both links has been studied, and for the Tappan Zee, discarded due to the grade requirements as that crossing involves a high buff on the Westchester side, but adopted for the sound crossing.

The concept of a design for rail transit, not included in the initial 2007 Cross Sound Tunnel proposal was later added by increasing the size of the center maintenance bore.   The new Tappan Zee bridge for years was to include a commuter rail line extending from Suffern New York to Rye NY, latter cut back to White Plains and then Tarrytown.  The method of including rail upon the new Tappan Zee Bridge included placing it in the median between the proposed twin spans, and better yet, a design featuring space for a lower deck= far superior for providing extra space for separate commuter and FREIGHT rail.

NY has NO rail freight crossings of the Hudson River south of Sedkirk just outside Albany.  freight trains must detour 160 miles north then south in order to cross from New jersey into the New York metropolitan

The design with the lower deck would have the best cost benefit ratio, which is essentually why both the George Washington and Verrazano Narrows Bridges were so designed.

The Tappan Zee Bridge replacement designs in 2011 featured the option of the lower deck.

Yet for 2012 the designs were changed, with an EIS that excudes the lowerdeck option from its cost benifot anylysis.

I have been following this project planning for year, and have searched the internet without success to find out about who/what brought this change in planning.  Try searching the interest for Tappan Zee Bridge- lower deck or double deck and one will find nothing asides from my blog posts here at Cosmobile.  My comments left at various transportation and environmentalist organizations as the Tri State Transportation Campaign, which acquiesced, and even encouraged to this bad planning decision, and to "Riverkeeper" go unansweed.

The town closest to the Tappan Zee Bridge is Nyack.

I have been told that the parties involved with scrapping the lower deck on the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement was the celebrity Rosie O Donnel, who had a house in Nyack and formerly of the tv show 'the View'.  Yet nothing so far in any internet search of Rosie O'Donnel, Tappan Zee Bridge, and protests.

Likewise with who ever is getting away with thwarting the proposed Cross Sound Tunnel- despite what has already been noted about this and the concocted former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer sex scandal: aka 'client #9' at a brothel service named 'Emperors Club' from which we never heard about Clients #1-8 and 10+.

This is secreted planning by cloaked elites who KNOW their strident opposition would be laughed at if placed in an open and widespread public light, and is facilitated by a political process in serious need of reform.