NYC Roads

[Roadsguy]

Verrazzano (incidentally, someone needs to tell Google of the correct spelling)

Has it not updated for everyone yet? I just checked and both the place point and the road segments have the corrected spelling.

[Verlanka]

Any toll paid on the Lincoln, Holland, Midtown, or Battery tunnel should be credited toward the congestion charge

Sounds fair, but it would cripple the program from a revenue perspective. PANYNJ isn't going to share any money with any other agency. Keep in mind the toll has almost doubled over the past 10 years to fund the agency's more money-losing ventures like PATH and the new WTC.

Dosen't PANYNJ charge tolls for other bridges/tunnels around NYC, instead of those four?

[1995hoo]

Any toll paid on the Lincoln, Holland, Midtown, or Battery tunnel should be credited toward the congestion charge

Sounds fair, but it would cripple the program from a revenue perspective. PANYNJ isn't going to share any money with any other agency. Keep in mind the toll has almost doubled over the past 10 years to fund the agency's more money-losing ventures like PATH and the new WTC.

Dosen't PANYNJ charge tolls for other bridges/tunnels around NYC, instead of those four?

Yes, and the Port Authority doesn't run the Midtown and Battery tunnels, either. The point is which crossings connect to the area that would likely fall within the congestion charging zone. There would be no reason, for example, to allow for a rebate on Outerbridge tolls because southwestern Staten Island is a long way away from Lower Manhattan.

[vdeane]

But the Commerce Clause is a LOT broader than you probably think it is. Note also that I don't know whether Congress cited the Commerce Clause in the Verrazano situation. I speculated on that because it's an obvious one, but there are other bases they can use. A common one is to tie something to highway funds–if the state doesn't do a certain thing, the state will lose some portion (or all) of its federal highway funding. The courts have found that to be permissible as long as what Congress demands the state do is not otherwise unconstitutional. For example, Congress cannot demand that a state declare Judaism to be the state religion because that would violate the First Amendment. But Congress can demand that a state not post any speed limit higher than 55 mph because nothing in the Constitution applies there, and the Tenth Amendment doesn't dictate otherwise because the state does not have a right to federal highway funds.

IMO the court overreached on that.  It goes against the entire spirit the Constitution was written under.  The federal government should only be able to apply conditions to funds that relate to how funds get spent, not tangentially related or unrelated things (so design requirements for a project funded with federal highway funds could be set, types of projects, etc., but not things like mandating a 55 mph max speed limit or a drinking age of 21).

Verrazzano (incidentally, someone needs to tell Google of the correct spelling)

Has it not updated for everyone yet? I just checked and both the place point and the road segments have the corrected spelling.

When I type posts on here, Chrome's spell check underlines "Verrazzano" with a red squiggly line.

Yes, and the Port Authority doesn't run the Midtown and Battery tunnels, either. The point is which crossings connect to the area that would likely fall within the congestion charging zone. There would be no reason, for example, to allow for a rebate on Outerbridge tolls because southwestern Staten Island is a long way away from Lower Manhattan.

Heck, now people in the Hudson Valley are trying to get the Tappan Zee Bridge added to the list of places giving a toll rebate.

[Alps]

Mostly we just call it the Verrazano Bridge.........

FTFYAEE (and everyone else). VNB is the accepted abbreviation.

[Alps]

Two finds from the maps exhibit currently at the NYC Transit Museum:
1) The westerly part of Conduit Blvd. had a proposed "Southern Pkwy." inside it. Other than adding a NW-E ramp, it had underpasses of a few roads starting at Liberty before merging into Conduit. The map dated to the 1960s, so I couldn't tell if this predated the I-78 proposal, postdated it, or was a mapo. It would kinda make sense for the Southern Pkwy. (now the part of the Belt along JFK) to head up that way though. Only kinda.
2) There were proposed high-speed ramps to/from the northern Bronx River Parkway to E 180th St. just north of the Sheridan Expwy. It didn't look like these would be directly freeway to freeway, but only a couple blocks off, still increasing the utility of I-895.

[Mergingtraffic]

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-chester-20190425-rl7c5dlwijgyfmvudsrjf42zhi-story.html

Thoughts?

[Duke87]

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-chester-20190425-rl7c5dlwijgyfmvudsrjf42zhi-story.html

Thoughts?

Expect years of drama over this before anything happens.

This a major project in a highly visible location... and one where physical and practical constraints are such that every conceivable alternative will cause major headaches to some large group of people for some nontrivial period of time.


The irony of the situation is that the triple-cantilever design was itself designed to minimize impact on the neighborhood by building the road into the side of a hill at (what was then) the edge of the residential area instead of just carving a trench through the middle as was more common, and as Robert Moses wanted to do there. It was very forward-thinking for its time.

Unfortunately, that decision to build that complex structure then now begets the lack of unpainful options to rebuild it today. If Moses had been allowed to just build a trench through Brooklyn Heights this would be a much simpler and more straightforward reconstruction project.

[SignBridge]

Very well stated Duke87. Good post re: the irony of how a forward thinking project over sixty years ago has resulted in our having to deal with a more complex problem today. If we're lucky maybe the powers that be will come up with a similar forward thinking solution for the 21st Century. But whatever that turns out to be will undoubtedly be extremely expensive and time consuming, much like Boston's BigDig project.

[Plutonic Panda]

I love this bit

"Chester is the managing director of Rebuild by Design, a lifelong resident of Brooklyn and a proud car owner."

The same crap the new urbanist/pro walkability yet lives in the sprawled our suburbs type try and pull. Always some excuse for their actions. The typical argument "one can own a car and still support mass transit and making cities more walkable"  is always fine for them yet for people like me who own multiple cars and still support the expansion of freeways in many of the same ways the new urbanist might, I can't say that. If I say I also support increased transit and walkability, the argument will always revert to me having to defend freeways and why I support them. Please.

Then there is the ages old mantra of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"  where the NIMBY's come together to oppose any new infrastructure that might bring the realities of living in a metro area of 10 million plus people more prevalent. Who now is on their side? Gasp, the new urbanist. Even more ironic, are the traditional urbanist crowd who care more about skyscrapers and Uber dense development than a new urbanist might. But for their own reasons, props to them for supporting the removal of a freeway that carries how many hundreds of thousands of cars a day and has directly/indirectly moved how many dollars through the economy?

Hopefully the sensible decision is made and this freeway is rebuilt as a tunnel(preferably a minimum of 8 lanes but that's asking too much).

[bluecountry]

Any updates on when the HRD reconstruction is due to be complete?
They said in 2014 it was a 3 year project...

[D-Dey65]

Everybody here knows I took a road trip to NYC in April, but what they don't know was that I crossed the Triborough Bridge to get to Queens and back. The thing is, I used the bridge going into Queens from the Major Deegan Expressway, and coming out of Queens from the Grand Central/BQE, but for some reason the transponders only charged me for leaving.

Was this some kind of glitch? Or some special discount I wasn't aware of? I know I shouldn't complain about only paying for one toll, but I since I believe in a fair game, I'm kind of puzzled.

[vdeane]

Sounds like a blown read to me.

[crispy93]

Everybody here knows I took a road trip to NYC in April, but what they don't know was that I crossed the Triborough Bridge to get to Queens and back. The thing is, I used the bridge going into Queens from the Major Deegan Expressway, and coming out of Queens from the Grand Central/BQE, but for some reason the transponders only charged me for leaving.

Was this some kind of glitch? Or some special discount I wasn't aware of? I know I shouldn't complain about only paying for one toll, but I since I believe in a fair game, I'm kind of puzzled.

I was only charged for one direction over the winter.

[Mergingtraffic]

Any updates on when the HRD reconstruction is due to be complete?
They said in 2014 it was a 3 year project...

I was going to ask the same thing and did it improve operations?

I noticed the button copy signs on Jewel Ave in Queens between I-678 and the GCP have all been replaced.  Are the non-reflective button copy hold overs on the BQE spur still there?
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7649539,-73.8948709,3a,75y,192.27h,94.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEezRejYZO0mf1UUXy86-3g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

These have escaped replacement.

[Alps]

I noticed the button copy signs on Jewel Ave in Queens between I-678 and the GCP have all been replaced.  Are the non-reflective button copy hold overs on the BQE spur still there?
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7649539,-73.8948709,3a,75y,192.27h,94.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEezRejYZO0mf1UUXy86-3g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

These have escaped replacement.

Dang, NOW you tell me about those jewels.

[Beltway]

Given that the concern that led to one-way tolling is now irrelevant, reinstating two-way tolls might be a good idea and might reduce the instances of people driving through the city to avoid the very steep Verrazzano toll. ("Verrazzano"  is the new spelling because that's how the explorer spelled it and the state finally corrected their misspelling last year.)

Interesting.  Is that reflected on highway signs now? 

I just looked up the recommended pronunciations, and they are even more interesting.

[Verlanka]

I noticed the button copy signs on Jewel Ave in Queens between I-678 and the GCP have all been replaced.  Are the non-reflective button copy hold overs on the BQE spur still there?
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7649539,-73.8948709,3a,75y,192.27h,94.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEezRejYZO0mf1UUXy86-3g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

These have escaped replacement.

Dang, NOW you tell me about those jewels.

[1995hoo]

Given that the concern that led to one-way tolling is now irrelevant, reinstating two-way tolls might be a good idea and might reduce the instances of people driving through the city to avoid the very steep Verrazzano toll. ("Verrazzano"  is the new spelling because that's how the explorer spelled it and the state finally corrected their misspelling last year.)

Interesting.  Is that reflected on highway signs now? 

I just looked up the recommended pronunciations, and they are even more interesting.

I believe they said signs will be changed as they come to require replacement and that no special efforts will be made. Makes sense to me–it's just a spelling correction that should have no practical effect on the signs' usefulness for guide information.

[RestrictOnTheHanger]

Everybody here knows I took a road trip to NYC in April, but what they don't know was that I crossed the Triborough Bridge to get to Queens and back. The thing is, I used the bridge going into Queens from the Major Deegan Expressway, and coming out of Queens from the Grand Central/BQE, but for some reason the transponders only charged me for leaving.

Was this some kind of glitch? Or some special discount I wasn't aware of? I know I shouldn't complain about only paying for one toll, but I since I believe in a fair game, I'm kind of puzzled.

Do you have an EZPass?

I used the Triboro to Queens via the Deegan this week and got charged as usual.

[D-Dey65]

Do you have an EZPass?

I used the Triboro to Queens via the Deegan this week and got charged as usual.

Nope. Since I'm only in NYC once or twice a year, and I found out non-New York residents don't get a discount, I decided to go with the toll by plate deal.

In my previous bills I got each toll fair and square.

[Duke87]

Nope. Since I'm only in NYC once or twice a year, and I found out non-New York residents don't get a discount, I decided to go with the toll by plate deal.

It doesn't have anything to do with residency, only with who issues your tag. So long as you have a New York E-Zpass, you get the discount, and you don't need to live in New York to get one.

Thing is, if you sign up online through the NY Service Center and use an out of state address, they'll stick you with a PANYNJ tag, which carries a $1 monthly fee. To avoid this, you need to either borrow the address of a friend or relative who lives in New York to sign up (you can change the address to your actual address afterwards), or buy a tag in person at one of the retail locations in New York that sell them. Either of these methods will get you an MTA or NYSTA tag which gets you the discount but does not have a monthly fee.

[D-Dey65]

Two finds from the maps exhibit currently at the NYC Transit Museum:
1) The westerly part of Conduit Blvd. had a proposed "Southern Pkwy." inside it. Other than adding a NW-E ramp, it had underpasses of a few roads starting at Liberty before merging into Conduit. The map dated to the 1960s, so I couldn't tell if this predated the I-78 proposal, postdated it, or was a mapo. It would kinda make sense for the Southern Pkwy. (now the part of the Belt along JFK) to head up that way though. Only kinda.
2) There were proposed high-speed ramps to/from the northern Bronx River Parkway to E 180th St. just north of the Sheridan Expwy. It didn't look like these would be directly freeway to freeway, but only a couple blocks off, still increasing the utility of I-895.

I've seen Hagstroms maps from as recently as the 1980's (and maybe the 1990's) that include the name "Southern Parkway" along that segment of the Belt Parkway.  Also, I want to know if that NYC Transit Museum exhibit is available all year round.

[Alps]

Two finds from the maps exhibit currently at the NYC Transit Museum:
1) The westerly part of Conduit Blvd. had a proposed "Southern Pkwy." inside it. Other than adding a NW-E ramp, it had underpasses of a few roads starting at Liberty before merging into Conduit. The map dated to the 1960s, so I couldn't tell if this predated the I-78 proposal, postdated it, or was a mapo. It would kinda make sense for the Southern Pkwy. (now the part of the Belt along JFK) to head up that way though. Only kinda.
2) There were proposed high-speed ramps to/from the northern Bronx River Parkway to E 180th St. just north of the Sheridan Expwy. It didn't look like these would be directly freeway to freeway, but only a couple blocks off, still increasing the utility of I-895.

I've seen Hagstroms maps from as recently as the 1980's (and maybe the 1990's) that include the name "Southern Parkway" along that segment of the Belt Parkway.  Also, I want to know if that NYC Transit Museum exhibit is available all year round.

No I'm saying Southern Parkway continued along Conduit. That's new. And the maps exhibit may be finite.

[tolbs17]

I've never driven in New York before, what are the roads like there? Is it too crowded?