I-684/I-687 "NYW&B" plus Upstate Gateway- further developed

My earlier article:

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2023/12/ny-requires-constructing-revived.html

 

The need for a modern expressway extending northward from the Co Op City area 233rd Street ramps is indisputable. The route would of course follow the old "NY, Westchester & Boston" RR corridor, and it would definitely INCLUDE the entire segment from the northern end of the "Dyre Avenue" IRT, into downtown White Plains within a a reconstructed Westchester Mall, with an extension to Westchester County Airport. The restored RR would include architecturally faithful "NY&B" stations at Sanford Street, East 3rd Street, and Columbus Avenue for a transfer to the Metro North in Mt Vernon, and at Wykagil in New Rochelle, with a new underground Heathecote Junction station in Scarsdale, likely with some new mixed use buildings in the style of downtown Scarsdale.  Having lived nearby, I can see the idea of a restoration of the Marx Estate Mansion, as an integral part of a redevelopment featuring military campus scale residential condominiums - with a first right of refusal for existing residents displaced, with sufficient units to offer as well to newcomers - akin to the Marx Mansion architecture.  And my intuition tells me that others already have this vision.  I can NOT be the only person seeing that potential.

 

It would exclude the branch through Pelham.

 

It would be an exact restoration of the original alignment, EXCEPT for the segment from near Pine Brook Boulevard, in Scarsdale, and in White Plains except for a few hundred feet south of the Westchester Mall. And it would exclude the "Quaker Ridge" station at 556 Stratton Rd- a historic landmark in a marshy low lying wetter area. 

 

The expressway would start at I-95, with connections to Route 1. 

 

It would be underground, encased and filtered cut and cover along the western side of the IRT, with a elevated, styled northbound segment to the east that enters the aforementioned tunnel, remaining fully underground to the vicinity of East 3rd Street, and either going under or over the Metro North (depending upon feasibility), before transitioning to an aerial tunnel extending northerly, alongside the restored "NYW&B" within a enclosure mimicking the style of the old elevated stations that were demolished by the 1950s. 

 

Both expressway and RR would enter an enclosed underground segment just south of Wykagil, where we would have an underground station and concourse, with a lower level for a transfer to the start of an all new RR line that branches off with I-687. This would be fully underground, passing in a cut and cover tunnel alongside Morrison and beneath the Hutchinson River Parkway "hump" where the Wilmont Avenue ramps join that, and continue as cut and cover beneath the front portion of Iona Prep, and continue as tunnel into Eastchester principally through cut and cover within a golf course, to a new train station west of Route 22. 

 

From there, the expressway would emerge upon a new bridge crossing over the Bronx River Valley, with the RR carried in its lower deck, before landing near Central Avenue with a new station in the former Alexanders site. This would continue west, with a tunnel segment along/beneath Jackson Avenue, continuing to a new trans Hudson River Bridge to Alpine, N.J., connecting to the Palisades Parkway corridor to and from the northwest, and with the RR connecting into the existing RR network with improvements. 

 

These pair of expressways together with these accompanying pair of railroads would serve a vital national security need for evacuation from NYC and Long Island, open up the Catskills for significantly greater economic development, while serving as an initial leg of a new transcontinental railroad.

Expanded Kensington Humboldt Parkway Tunnel to Include the Scajaquado Expressway past Agassiz Circle

 

 

We MUST suspend the current project as it now stands.  But not with a surrender but rather an extension, giving Buffalo what it really needs instead of a project that falls short by requiring a wasteful reconstruction at the now as proposed expressway tunnel's northern end, even better than simply extending some of the later excavation within the initial project.

 

First and foremost we must have a decision on how to address the buried Scajaquado Creek concrete culvert.

 

To have the expressway tunnel pass below is a waste as it requires nearly double the depth of the excavation.  And it is best that the expressway tunnel pass atop the underground creek.   With waterway regulations likeliest to preclude some underground spillway waterfalls for simply relocating the under the expressway and its downstream extension, this project requires an all new underground creek tunnel extending in both directions in order to maintain a continuous descending grade.  And as I wrote more recently, we now how new high heat rock excavation to deal with the underground rock that affects this project, along with its extension to include the Scajaquado- new excavation techniques capable of reducing such costs by 30 to 90 percent.  So lets not only extend the project, but improve upon what is already being proposed, with a somewhat deeper cut for more substantial trees, as well as with more fully using the corridor, perhaps by going back to the previous design that was not only deeper, but had a 4th lane in each direction southward to the Science Museum.

 

 

But how do we best configure the details to restore/reconstruct Humboldt Parkway?

 

 

 

 

First, do not saddle it with standard straight line access ramps, as such are incompatible.

 

And do not make it to require having Scajaquado Expressway (Route 198) to Route 33 traffic cross the surface.

Rather, give it such ramps that continue as cut and cover tunnel to turn away to portals nearby, and yes give it a full set of underground connections for 198/33 movements- yes, mandate a heating system to preclude ice.

During the latter part of 2023 I began some preliminary rough design work upon such ramps.

Firstly, eliminate the southbound off-ramp at Ferry Avenue, instead carrying its lane as a 4th southbound lane to the Best Street off-ramp.  And have a 4th northbound lane starting with the corresponding northbound on ramp.  We have the space within the existing corridor, so do NOT waste the potential capacity.

Second, we can add a 33 Kensington Expressway Tunnel northbound off ramp.

 

 

 

And lets have a cut and cover underground Scajaquado Expressway, with underground cut and cover tunnel ramps in both westbound and eastbound directions.

Yes, these are rough, preliminary sketches.

Has anyone else done such work?

I can't be the only person who has done this?

I certainly doubt that everyone is simply going along with the NONSENSE about either maintaining the expressway as is, let alone eliminate it with filling in its short trench that is being touted.

New Heated Micro Tunnel Could Reduce Excavation Costs by 30 to 90%

 

 

The Buffalo NY Kensington Expressway Tunnel/Humboldt Parkway Restoration is being opposed over under certainties of it being subsequently extended north, under a false idea that the parkway's restoration should instead mean flanking it with expressway traffic, requiring wider surface roadways and hence little median space for Olmsted's vision.

The uncertainties of the Tunnel/Parkway restoration north of Sidney Street owe to the obstruction of the Scajaquado Creek buried conduit, a 24 foot wide x 14 foot deep concrete box, next to the overhead pedestrian bridge over the surface expressway.

To have a later project to extend the Kensington Expressway Tunnel, means having to rip out the current project's tunnel to surface ascent/descent transition, while maintaining traffic use of the tunnel.

 

The area is hard rock, time consuming to excavate.  So would we have to close off at least one direction of the tunnel for the number of months to remove the material.

 

But what if, we instead had extended the initial (current) project's expressway tunnel excavation a few hundred feet closer to the buried creek conduit. 

  

By doing so, the transition area would be upon fill material that would take a fraction of the time of removing than hard excavation.  

 

And with the underground space nearer to the conduit, set up a mico tunneling operation, such as this:

https://newatlas.com/technology/petra-thermal-drill-robot/

 

Consider this applied to the Kensington Expressway Tunnel. 

Establish an underground staging area for micro tunneling equipment.

 

Establish and fix in place a plan for the expressway tunnel/buried creek crossing, perhaps to replace 24 ft x 14ft box with a number of smaller diameter pipes to dissipate the water-flow and reduce the depth of expressway excavation, while avoiding a 1/3 of a mile long replacement downstream outlet.

 

Use the micro tunneling to drill bores for the 1400 or so feet northward.  Do this in parallel to excavate, reducing the amounts required for more conventional methods.  Establish an excavation that includes an underground off-ramp not marring the restored Humboldt Parkway, with an underground split to exit to Delavan Avenue that would be used for continuing upon the surface Humboldt Parkway, and a cut and cover tunnel beneath the northbound Humboldt Parkway for a subsequent Scajaquado Expressway Tunnel to a point west of Agassiz Circle).

Also consider:

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2013/12/for-cast-iron-friendly-lower-manhattan.html

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20York%20City?updated-max=2016-02-27T17:13:00-05:00&max-results=20&start=9&by-date=false

Municipal Zoning Is Destroying the Automobile Hobby, except maybe for the wealthier

An earlier piece I wrote on this topic:

https://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2015/04/autombile-enthusiasts-need-to-save-off.html

 

I am a long time car & roads enthusiast (yes, that includes trains, but that is a topic for another post).

I had to sell my 1972 "Lemans" to a friend in 2005, because I no longer had safe storage.  Sure a driveway, but alas only a 2 rather than 3 or more car garage, and with numerous tall pine trees ready and waiting for a storm to cause them to crash down and crush anything sitting in the driveway.

 

In 2016, my Dad, the attorney Warren J. Willinger succumbed to cancer from a botched colon removal surgery, performed October 2015 at NY Presbyterian near the GW Bridge. 

Because of the high living expenses in Mt Kisco, NY, including a 21K annual property tax, Mom and I elected to move to the family second home, a 1600 foot condo unit in the San Elijo hills recent development on San Marcos, California.

At that time, I had to move my partially restored 1970 Trans Am from NY to Ca, and I had to send my recently purchased 1972 "Luxury Lemans 4 door no center side post hardtop, purchased in Texas as well, without its original engine.  A good friend, known since 1980 and long term Pontiac enthusiast, took in these two cars, before later having them transferred to a storage facility near LA.  Having previously owned a 1970 GTO, I had been offered the opportunity to purchase a 1972 Luxury Lemans 2 door hardtop no center side post, as a second hobby car to essentially make into a GTO by adding the appropriate parts. But since building such a "clone" GTO would cost as much as doing a real factory GTO, I declined the offer, having that thought followed by a secondary thought, of building a GTO from an alternative Lemans body style, to with the 4 door no b pillar 4 door hardtop (I also like the wagons, alas not made as a "hardtop").  I was aware of the Pontiac Lemans 4 door hardtops from the brochures, though cant recall ever seeing one on the road, nor anywhere.  So I figure, lets find a 1970, 1971 or 1972 , offered as the standard (ugly door panel) Lemans, and the Lemans Sport (nice GTO style door panels) for 1970-1971.  Or a 1972, weirdly offered ONLY as a so called Luxury Lemans with silly added lower chrome trim that obscures the car's lower coke bottle line introduced for 1969 & 1969, also great cars, particularly the 1969 with swapped in 1968 grills with an added GTO endura front bumper.  

Seeing how weirdly obscure these 4 door hardtop Pontiac intermediates were, I purchased a 1970 Lemans from New Jersey, in May 2019, and another 1972 Luxury Lemans from the northeastern U.S. - in late August or early September 2019, having that latter car shipped to me in San Elijo/San Marcos - a car with severe but highly localized rust damage, and well worth the money to me as a complete running car.


Mom and I were dissatisfied with the small square footage of the condo, and particularly the piss poor respect for building spacings, (others were 30-40 feet but our a mere 22 feet) making it impossible to pull these cars straight into the garage, especially if the left space was occupied.

In May 2019 we start locking about 6 miles to the northwest.  Yuck,  Tiny house lot sizes.  NOT say 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 acre, but 7300 square feet.  By early 2020 we start looking at Temicula (inland empire).  Yuck, same nonsense.  So by late summer 2020 we drive further to Victorville.  Wow, some decent size lots, but ONLY with moon crater dirt roads.  And anything with paved roads is again the same nonsensical bullshit.  And made worse with these builders all choosing to offer the single story houses with ZERO attic space, you known high ceilings with a shallow pitched roof.  And back yards bare;y 30 feet deep.

So I turn to Zillow, and Mom says "NORTH CAROLINA".

WOW!

1 1/3 acres lots.

 

Houses with GOOD architecture, generous roof space. 

But what?  A covenant that says NO "junk" vehicles allowed anywhere upon the property, even indoors.

 

We keep looking.  We find a listing in early December 2020, a house that had been offered and sold that previous October, but the deal failed.

House has a nice detached rear garage, 30 feet deep, pretty through alas a potential tinderbox, and am told that metal garages are not allowed.

I check the county regulations, am allowed to keep unregistered/interoperable cars indoors, and registered cars outdoors upon concrete.  This is actually superior to other places as I have since found, which prohibit any such unregistered cars anywhere on the property, or limit that to only ONE such car, even if indoors (sadly the case in southern Maryland).  I look at other places, and see that the outer shore (Delmarva) is considerably more reasonable.  One may store such cars indoors or outdoors as long as they are shielded from public view.  But quite weirdly, when I expand my jurisdictional search to western Maryland, all I see so far are the ridiculous ban on having more than ONE such car, indoors.

What organization is behind such ridiculous, unreasonable and unjustified statues/regulations?

It reeks as a conspiracy to drive the wasteful scrap-page of our automotive members of the family.