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
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.
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?!
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.
I-684 Tunnel, with restored NYWB RR, in the north end of New Rochelle (in my own neighborhood), from the Stratton Road HISTORIC/LANDMARK "Quaker Ridge" Station to the Heathcote Bypass.
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
