NYC Roads

[Beltway]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."

There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

[Alps]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."

There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

[Beltway]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

[Alps]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

Read the thread. $11 billion.

[Beltway]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

Read the thread. $11 billion.

OK, where are the plan and profile views of the preliminary design(s)?

[ixnay]

New topic;
Today I was looking at some Wikimedia Commons images of street clock in New York City, when I decided that perhaps I should make a new category for the one on 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which happens to be on the corner of the Midtown New York Hilton. I discovered that along 6th Avenue there are a bunch of cosmetics stores and other shops with one big lobby leading to the sidewalk in the middle. What does this have to do with NYC roads, you ask? All those shops used to be the driveway. Just another effort by NYC to make it more difficult for drivers to get around in the city.

BTW, I didn't make that category for the sidewalk clock yet.

You mean 6 Av went on a lane diet?  When was that?

ixnay

[Alps]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

Read the thread. $11 billion.

OK, where are the plan and profile views of the preliminary design(s)?

I didn't design them, don't ask me.

[ixnay]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

Read the thread. $11 billion.

OK, where are the plan and profile views of the preliminary design(s)?

I didn't design them, don't ask me.

I didn't.  The question was directed at D-Day65.  But I still believe you, Alps.

ixnay

[Beltway]

Google "gowanus expressway tunnel" and click "Images."
There are plenty of maps of how this might be done, on a conceptual level.

I can draw you any number of conceptual tunnels that are too expensive to build.

Has any actual preliminary design(s) been worked up and with preliminary cost estimates?

Read the thread. $11 billion.

OK, where are the plan and profile views of the preliminary design(s)?

I didn't design them, don't ask me.

The comment was addressed to anybody who is reading this, and to the article itself.

It is frustrating when these articles estimate a project cost to two decimal places, but don't provide any conceptual plan view of that design.

[D-Dey65]

New topic;
Today I was looking at some Wikimedia Commons images of street clock in New York City, when I decided that perhaps I should make a new category for the one on 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which happens to be on the corner of the Midtown New York Hilton. I discovered that along 6th Avenue there are a bunch of cosmetics stores and other shops with one big lobby leading to the sidewalk in the middle. What does this have to do with NYC roads, you ask? All those shops used to be the driveway. Just another effort by NYC to make it more difficult for drivers to get around in the city.

BTW, I didn't make that category for the sidewalk clock yet.

You mean 6 Av went on a lane diet?  When was that?

ixnay

Not Sixth Avenue, but the Hilton (although I wouldn't put it past NYCDOT to cut back some lanes on 6th Avenue either). You can't drive underneath to pick up or drop off hotel guests anymore.

[Duke87]

All those shops used to be the driveway. Just another effort by NYC to make it more difficult for drivers to get around in the city.

You mean 6 Av went on a lane diet?  When was that?

Not Sixth Avenue, but the Hilton (although I wouldn't put it past NYCDOT to cut back some lanes on 6th Avenue either). You can't drive underneath to pick up or drop off hotel guests anymore.

That's not an effort by NYC to do anything. That's a private property owner deciding to change how their private property is used.

Probably a sound business decision, really. The rent they can collect from having that store there is most likely significantly greater than any revenue loss resulting from not having a dedicated driveway for guest dropoff.

I do note though, that the city has compensated for this by taking the curbside lane on 6th Ave that used to be a taxi stand and turning it into a "hotel loading zone" instead.

[ixnay]

All those shops used to be the driveway. Just another effort by NYC to make it more difficult for drivers to get around in the city.

You mean 6 Av went on a lane diet?  When was that?

Not Sixth Avenue, but the Hilton (although I wouldn't put it past NYCDOT to cut back some lanes on 6th Avenue either). You can't drive underneath to pick up or drop off hotel guests anymore.

That's not an effort by NYC to do anything. That's a private property owner deciding to change how their private property is used.

Probably a sound business decision, really. The rent they can collect from having that store there is most likely significantly greater than any revenue loss resulting from not having a dedicated driveway for guest dropoff.

I do note though, that the city has compensated for this by taking the curbside lane on 6th Ave that used to be a taxi stand and turning it into a "hotel loading zone" instead.

You're making more sense now.  When/if I have the time/energy I'll GSV down 6 Av to see for myself.

ixnay

[D-Dey65]

Private property perhaps. But you've still got the same issues with the removal of a lot of parking lots and parking garages.

[D-Dey65]

This afternoon, I was trying to locate this spot along the Cross Bronx Expressway, when I discovered something interesting.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I-95NYC.JPG

I'm leaning towards Highbridge, near where the Washington Heights Bridge merges with I-95, but that's not the issue right now. While I was checking out GSV, I noticed an interesting feature along the Undercliff Avenue bridges.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8445145,-73.9244956,341m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

From here it looks like it may have been a proposed on-ramp that was going to feed into the interchange with the Major Deegan Expressway somehow, but I don't believe that's what it is. I say it's just the south end of the tunnel beneath the intersection of Undercliff Avenue and Boscobel Place for the north and southbound ramps from the Major Deegan to the northbound Cross Bronx.


And hey, since this is my 2400th post, maybe I should throw in a little something to celebrate.

[Alps]

That is definitely just the tunnel portal.

[D-Dey65]

Since I have no chance of seeing a revival of any of the old New York State Routes returning to Manhattan, I'd like to know if there are any photographs out there of those old routes.

[storm2k]

So, question about the TMX exit to Amsterdam Ave at 175 St. Was the exit ramp once a divided ramp that also served to move traffic to the bridge before the TMX was built? I looked at Historic Aerials but the oldest one is from 1954 after a lot of that stuff was built over there.

[Alps]

So, question about the TMX exit to Amsterdam Ave at 175 St. Was the exit ramp once a divided ramp that also served to move traffic to the bridge before the TMX was built? I looked at Historic Aerials but the oldest one is from 1954 after a lot of that stuff was built over there.

Yup, briefly. I believe the 178th St. tunnel came first, even before 179th, and it dates to then.

[D-Dey65]

So, question about the TMX exit to Amsterdam Ave at 175 St. Was the exit ramp once a divided ramp that also served to move traffic to the bridge before the TMX was built? I looked at Historic Aerials but the oldest one is from 1954 after a lot of that stuff was built over there.

Yup, briefly. I believe the 178th St. tunnel came first, even before 179th, and it dates to then.

I also saw the stub of an on ramp leading to the northbound TMX ramp to the Harlem River Drive. I thought that might've had something to do with the 178th Street Tunnels as well, but like storm2K said, Historic Aerials doesn't have anything on that older than 1954.

[Alps]

So, question about the TMX exit to Amsterdam Ave at 175 St. Was the exit ramp once a divided ramp that also served to move traffic to the bridge before the TMX was built? I looked at Historic Aerials but the oldest one is from 1954 after a lot of that stuff was built over there.

Yup, briefly. I believe the 178th St. tunnel came first, even before 179th, and it dates to then.

I also saw the stub of an on ramp leading to the northbound TMX ramp to the Harlem River Drive. I thought that might've had something to do with the 178th Street Tunnels as well, but like storm2K said, Historic Aerials doesn't have anything on that older than 1954.

Yup. I explain that on my I-95 page. https://www.alpsroads.net/roads/ny/i-95/0.html

[SignBridge]

Alps, do you happen to know why the Port Authority designs their BGS's with the right and left sides slanted slightly inward? I first noticed that feature back in the 1960's when the current GWB complex was built and I've never known the reason they do that.

[Alps]

Alps, do you happen to know why the Port Authority designs their BGS's with the right and left sides slanted slightly inward? I first noticed that feature back in the 1960's when the current GWB complex was built and I've never known the reason they do that.

They did that - I don't think they do that anymore. Just stylistic.

[empirestate]

So, question about the TMX exit to Amsterdam Ave at 175 St. Was the exit ramp once a divided ramp that also served to move traffic to the bridge before the TMX was built? I looked at Historic Aerials but the oldest one is from 1954 after a lot of that stuff was built over there.

Yup, briefly. I believe the 178th St. tunnel came first, even before 179th, and it dates to then.

Kind of hard to interpret from the topo maps of the period. The 1947 map shows it as a 2-way ramp leading down to the 178th St. tunnel and/or toward the HRD south, but not to the bridge. By the time of the 1954 topo, the S-curve ramps to the bridge were built and this ramp was one-way feeding into them. In between these two dates, the 1951 aerial at NYC DoITT shows the whole area under construction. So it does look like there was a brief period where it was 2-way, but never to the bridge.

I remember seeing a photo somewhere (probably in this forum) that shows the original configuration, that might shed lots of light on things.

EDIT: Ah, here it is!

The ramp you're speaking up is at top right. Where it splits in the middle of the picture, one leg goes south toward HRD, the other curves to our right toward the tunnel(s). A bit of that masonry wall is still present in the park and can be seen in Google Maps' 3D view. Off in the distance you can see what fed into the stub ramp. The 3 bits of arched viaduct closest in the foreground are now demolished.

[BamaZeus]

If you watch this video from the late 40's, it shows the original ramps on the NY side


https://youtu.be/g2gWRcqmbrU

[famartin]

If you watch this video from the late 40's, it shows the original ramps on the NY side


https://youtu.be/g2gWRcqmbrU

You see at 0:55 how even back then, some people just couldn't drive