NYC Roads

[D-Dey65]

With the amount of money and time its taking them to put a Subway line under 2nd Ave in Manhattan, I doubt they will be burying any existing EL lines in the Bronx.

And with people in the Bronx so accustomed to the El lines, I think they'd have an uproar against the MTA for trying it even if they did have the money. I'm not kidding. I think they'd raise holy hell against the MTA the same way they did with the Cross Bronx, and any potential expressways that could've relieved the Cross Bronx.

Speaking of the MTA vs roads, I just found out while searching for the neighborhood that the Yukon Bus Depot was in that the Eltingville Transit Center was built in the right-of-way for the truncated end of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway. So now I can add the MTA to my shitlist for screwing up the roads of New York City.

[empirestate]

Speaking of the MTA vs roads, I just found out while searching for the neighborhood that the Yukon Bus Depot was in that the Eltingville Transit Center was built in the right-of-way for the truncated end of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway. So now I can add the MTA to my shitlist for screwing up the roads of New York City.

How's that? It's not like the road was truncated because they built a bus depot, was it? Like, "oh shit, there's a bus depot here; guess we better stop building this road!"


iPhone

[D-Dey65]

How's that? It's not like the road was truncated because they built a bus depot, was it? Like, "oh shit, there's a bus depot here; guess we better stop building this road!"
iPhone

No, of course not. They just decided they were going to build the bus depot where they wanted to put the road.

[cl94]

How's that? It's not like the road was truncated because they built a bus depot, was it? Like, "oh shit, there's a bus depot here; guess we better stop building this road!"
iPhone

No, of course not. They just decided they were going to build the bus depot where they wanted to put the road.

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

[D-Dey65]

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

That's it, and they still should've and could've used it for it's intended purpose.

[MrDisco99]

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

That's it, and they still should've and could've used it for it's intended purpose.

That ship had sailed 30 years ago.  Better to make it into something else useful than leave it vacant.

[empirestate]

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

That's it, and they still should've and could've used it for it's intended purpose.

Perhaps, but the reason they didn't is not because the MTA put a bus station there. I'm just trying to follow how you get from that to the MTA "screwing up" the roads, that's all. The road got screwed up, THEN the MTA put a bus station there, not the other way around.


iPhone

[cl94]

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

That's it, and they still should've and could've used it for it's intended purpose.

That ship had sailed 30 years ago.  Better to make it into something else useful than leave it vacant.

Agreed. The remainder is a park that is designated "forever wild". Nothing is going in there.

[D-Dey65]

Perhaps, but the reason they didn't is not because the MTA put a bus station there. I'm just trying to follow how you get from that to the MTA "screwing up" the roads, that's all. The road got screwed up, THEN the MTA put a bus station there, not the other way around.
iPhone

They still have most of the ROW, and they still have the bridges, at least for Arthur Kill Road and Richmond Avenue. They should've revived the project.

Agreed. The remainder is a park that is designated "forever wild". Nothing is going in there.

Really? Because I saw an unfinished housing development where the road could've gone.

[empirestate]

Perhaps, but the reason they didn't is not because the MTA put a bus station there. I'm just trying to follow how you get from that to the MTA "screwing up" the roads, that's all. The road got screwed up, THEN the MTA put a bus station there, not the other way around.
iPhone

They still have most of the ROW, and they still have the bridges, at least for Arthur Kill Road and Richmond Avenue. They should've revived the project.

That's fine, but I still don't see where the MTA comes in?

[D-Dey65]

That's fine, but I still don't see where the MTA comes in?

Well, they built it in the northeast-bound lane. You've got admit it gets in the way of a revival. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been built. I'm just saying they could've chose a better spot.

These are two of the issues I was talking about in this thread. You can't solve traffic problems by thwarting road improvements.

[empirestate]

That's fine, but I still don't see where the MTA comes in?

Well, they built it in the northeast-bound lane. You've got admit it gets in the way of a revival.

I suppose it would get in the way, though probably not insurmountably so. But is that what you were saying? I thought you said that by building the station, the MTA had "screwed up the roads of New York City" because the station was preventing the completion of the parkway. But as we pointed out, the completion of the parkway had actually been prevented long before, and by totally unrelated factors.

So, if I understand you now, you mean that the MTA will have screwed up the roads of New York City, if and when it's ever decided to finish that parkway? In that case...

So now I can add the MTA to my shitlist...

...you can't quite add the MTA to your shitlist now; you'll have to wait until a plan is introduced that's hindered by the presence of their bus station.

(And even if that does happen, I think that in a project of the scale of building a parkway, relocating a bus station–or really, just part of the parking lot, it would appear–wouldn't amount to any kind of prohibitive obstacle. Not to the point of earning a spot on a shitlist, anyhow.)

[Duke87]

In what way does the Eltingville bus station block the ROW for Richmond Parkway? Both unused overpasses over Arthur Kill Rd remain intact as does much of the abandoned pavement leading to them. The bus station is entirely to the side of where the road would go and could easily coexist with it if the extension were to be revived.

The parking lot for cars does encroach upon the parkway ROW, but only slightly. You could extend the parkway and only take out one row of parking, leaving the rest of the lot intact.


On that note, this adds an interesting flair to the old "why do people drive on parkways and park on driveways?" question. Depending on how you look at it this may be a circumstance where people park on a parkway.

[Pete from Boston]

You mean the park and ride that opened 10 years ago, 30 years after the parkway was canceled? By that point, there was zero chance it would ever be extended, so how else should they use the ROW?

That's it, and they still should've and could've used it for it's intended purpose.

You are faulting, then, anyone who is not living 40 years in the past, and ignoring the political realities since.  Just to clarify. 

[noelbotevera]

I think that in my head, every inch of ROW is useful. The state might use it again, and if the ROW is gone, then how will the state link ends together?

[cl94]

I think that in my head, every inch of ROW is useful. The state might use it again, and if the ROW is gone, then how will the state link ends together?

They're never going to. Robert Moses is gone. The focus in New York is back to transit. I see a subway tunnel to Staten Island being constructed before a parkway extension is built.

[Rothman]

Was there a change between 2010 and 2012? And were the reference markers installed as part of that change?

I don't know if there was a change, but the reference markers were likely in place beforehand. All of the limited-access parkways in the City have them regardless of who maintains them.

That's what I thought. I've been seeing them on all area parkways since I started visiting the area, and that was long before 2010. So, we're back to "for whatever reason"–that is, we still don't have the answer to why the markers appear on non-state roads; we've simply established that the HRD isn't an example of this.

Correct. What's stranger is that there are none on surface routes maintained by NYSDOT. If we trust the 2014 Roadway Inventory, this includes much of NY 9A north of the Battery Tunnel and sections of Ocean Parkway.

I wonder how many of those reference markers are still being maintained/replaced/installed.  A lot of people around here say that GPS has made them obsolete.  Little surprise to me that the West Side Highway doesn't have them given the expense it would take to put them up.  Probably also a permitting hassle that would be better off avoided as well.

[mariethefoxy]

I think that in my head, every inch of ROW is useful. The state might use it again, and if the ROW is gone, then how will the state link ends together?

Hell has a better chance of freezing over than they build any new expressway in New York City. This is the same administration that lowered the speed limit to 25, installed speed cameras, and has been adding bike lanes and "traffic calming" everywhere they possibly can, theres no way theyre going to finish a highway like that especially through a designated city park.

[Pete from Boston]

I think that in my head, every inch of ROW is useful. The state might use it again, and if the ROW is gone, then how will the state link ends together?

Hell has a better chance of freezing over than they build any new expressway in New York City. This is the same administration that lowered the speed limit to 25, installed speed cameras, and has been adding bike lanes and "traffic calming" everywhere they possibly can, theres no way theyre going to finish a highway like that especially through a designated city park.

Till either Cuomo or Pataki decides to do something, they got one last trick. It's to break the Constitution and shove the expressway down the throats of the people of NYC. No democracy. NYC is dying because of the refusal to build expressways. The state loses money because people are stupid to find out that NYC needs expressways.

Wow, this hostile autocratic streak in you is a recurring theme.  Have you ever lived in a society where government has the kind of power you describe?  Can you show us examples of thriving societies that work this way?

Tell us about this death of New York that's happening during a booming economy with unprecedented wealth, building, and population surges, and near-universal agreement that the city is in much better shape than it was during the crest of highway building in the 1960s and 1970s. 

[noelbotevera]

Hmm...

The freeways have been crowded for more than sixty years at this point. now the streets. now everywhere else.
The MTA has gone bust and is totally corrupt.
Holy abandoned buildings, batman!

Yet they still refuse to build roads. I'm still waiting for hell to freeze over. by that point NYC's gone.

[Pete from Boston]

Holy abandoned buildings?

You need to spend a little time studying recent New York history before weighing in like this.  In 1980 the city looked like armies had cleared whole neighborhoods of their population, leaving empty blocks to burn and collapse. 

I recommend you pick up a copy of Camilo José Vergara's The New American Ghetto.  It will show you time-lapse documentation of unthinkable levels of abandonment and decay in New York that have not existed in your lifetime.  Or go to Detroit today, and imagine that in New York.

Really, you can't be faulted for having a short perspective, but educate yourself about what you're talking about.  Your eyes will be opened.

[TravelingBethelite]

I think that in my head, every inch of ROW is useful. The state might use it again, and if the ROW is gone, then how will the state link ends together?

Hell has a better chance of freezing over than they build any new expressway in New York City. This is the same administration that lowered the speed limit to 25, installed speed cameras, and has been adding bike lanes and "traffic calming" everywhere they possibly can, theres no way theyre going to finish a highway like that especially through a designated city park.

Till either Cuomo or Pataki decides to do something, they got one last trick. It's to break the Constitution and shove the expressway down the throats of the people of NYC. No democracy. NYC is dying because of the refusal to build expressways. The state loses money because people are stupid to find out that NYC needs expressways.

Wow, this hostile autocratic streak in you is a recurring theme.  Have you ever lived in a society where government has the kind of power you describe?  Can you show us examples of thriving societies that work this way?

Tell us about this death of New York that's happening during a booming economy with unprecedented wealth, building, and population surges, and near-universal agreement that the city is in much better shape than it was during the crest of highway building in the 1960s and 1970s.

I have to say, he's giving me a Soviet Union under Stalin vibe. But then again, that's not what he was doing with his power. Anyway, to keep this road-related, we're lucky we have the roads in NYC that there are. There's a reason there's so much public transportation in the city and the metro area.   

[empirestate]

Hell has a better chance of freezing over than they build any new expressway in New York City. This is the same administration that lowered the speed limit to 25, installed speed cameras, and has been adding bike lanes and "traffic calming" everywhere they possibly can, theres no way theyre going to finish a highway like that especially through a designated city park.

Would you mind specifying which administration you mean? I can't tell from your examples alone, as some of them have occurred under a couple of different mayors recently. And I can't think offhand whose was the last administration under which a new expressway was built, so I'm having trouble following your connection to current policy.


iPhone

[ixnay]

Hell has a better chance of freezing over than they build any new expressway in New York City. This is the same administration that lowered the speed limit to 25, installed speed cameras, and has been adding bike lanes and "traffic calming" everywhere they possibly can, theres no way theyre going to finish a highway like that especially through a designated city park.

Would you mind specifying which administration you mean? I can't tell from your examples alone, as some of them have occurred under a couple of different mayors recently. And I can't think offhand whose was the last administration under which a new expressway was built, so I'm having trouble following your connection to current policy.


iPhone

Was it Beame in the mid '70s with the West Shore Expressway (NY 440) on Staten Island?

ixnay

[cl94]

Hmm...

The freeways have been crowded for more than sixty years at this point. now the streets. now everywhere else.
The MTA has gone bust and is totally corrupt.
Holy abandoned buildings, batman!

Yet they still refuse to build roads. I'm still waiting for hell to freeze over. by that point NYC's gone.

Even with the gripes about the MTA, it's still the best public transportation system in the western hemisphere and one of the best in the world. You can get almost anywhere in the Tri-State with trains and buses. Braess' paradox would likely apply in this situation. With the increased capacity you'd see more cars on the road which would make traffic worse because people that currently know to take public transportation everywhere would start to drive more. You can joke about the Cross Bronx needing 10 lanes, but expressways and parkways would still be congested if everything ever planned was built with 10 lanes and it might even take longer to get everywhere.