Well, you know the types that ride mass transport. So did Moses. One good way to keep areas 'exclusive' is to limit access.

Are you sure you're not thinking of the Southern State Parkway?

^Could be...I was citing the Robert Caro book from memory which is a dangerous game to begin with. Thanks.

From the section in the book on the LIE: "...If Moses wouldn't build rapid transit on the Long Island Expressway, planners pleaded, at least let him build it with lanes for buses. Moses refused even to consider the suggestion...."

I might have been Jedi mind-tricked into thinking the overpass snafu was the LIE when I reread that passage this morning without going further. It's a big frickin' book.

Let me pour a bourbon and try and find the right passages.

Well at least he's dead.

Here's the thing.

Without him building these roads in the first place, would we have ever had the expanded development of the surrounding burbs to the extent they are now?

I am not validating the design. I believe they are quite ugly scars cut through vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. The question would be, would any other figure have had the power and push to put ANY form of conduit through the already densely populated boroughs?

It would have been better, at that time, if they had someone who would have build an inderground set of commuter tubes through these areas (when labor and cost of materials was so much cheaper), but what can you do?



Back to the original question though. What would NYC have been like w/o these ugly arteries? Would it have grown so readily after the wounds healed?


(BTW, what is with this Architectural back patting? I think SOM is trying to get its hand into something that it knows will be needed in the future (infrastructure expansion and repair) and that the only way an Architect can do that is by convincing people that everything would be ugly w/o them.)

The definition of a great investment is one that returns a higher profit than more standard ways of investing money. High speed rail is almost always a money loser.

To your other point, the reason using high speed rail is expensive is that it has to charge a lot to cover it's expenses. Unliess they get huge operating subsidies, they can't charge fares low enough to keep them filled.

Actually all the Northeast routes break a profit , the Acela is an Amtrak Cash cow....... Subsides to Transit and Rail would be less if everything was upgraded , like Bridges , signals , switches , stations , some lines wouldn't need subsides at all if these things were to happen. Of course the lines that aren't used that much would still need subsides , but you can reduce that.

The key would be to find a way to make teh system more durable and efficient, not necessarily faster in terms of velocity.

You make delays and signal problems less recurrant, you get a faster system. You can also start putting trains running closer together if the system was better at keeping things in line.

Lastly, spending more on a proper design, something that will last 100 years with no significant repair needed, would definitely reduce overall cost. With our inefficient and underfunded maintainence systems, any reduction in the REQUIRED maintenance would invariably lead to reduced cost in the long run as these tasks are ignored, short shrifted or improperly executed.


Question, compared to a roadway, what would be the net cost to return on ahigh speed rail along a major corridor? You can't tell me that a 4x2 highway is less expensive to maintain than a rail line...... (especially with all the bridges, intersections and overpasses....)

OK, maybe you can, but I would be surprised.....

You should separate intracity and intercity transportation.

NYC, and those cities that existed before the automobile, expanded quite nicely with mass transit before cars took over.

The question would be, would any other figure have had the power and push to put ANY form of conduit through the already densely populated boroughs? The problem wasn't the method of Moses; it was his vision of cities.

Back to the original question though. What would NYC have been like w/o these ugly arteries? Would it have grown so readily after the wounds healed? Easy enough to answer. You don't have to go back too far to see what NYC was before expressways.

As far as intercity transport, you really can't fault anyone for highway construction. America outside of cities was still very rural, and railroads were in decline. Auto companies were a major component of the economy. A national highway system was the way it was done at the time.

As far as railroads turning a profit, the question should be asked: Does the interstate system, including construction and maintenance, actually turn a profit? Even if it doesn't turn a profit on a ledger, it has to be acknowledged that it's a component of productivity. So in the big picture, it is profitable.

My complaint is that we are not looking at a national high speed rail system with the same energy that we tackled the highway system over half a century ago.

I know what you are saying Zip, the only question comes back rather simple as is seen with other municipalities.

Towns seem to thrive only where people can get to them easily. The rail system worked well, but how far out, and how solid a development would have been possible without the roadways? Without the belt, cross island and others? Queens and Brooklyn are some of THE biggest and most uniformly densely populated boroughs I have seen, but even then, the further you get from a Highway or Train station, the less dense the population becomes. I wonder how much of an expansion would have occured from their previous levels if roadways were not built, if it would resemble more likebuds along the branches of the railway than a uniform spread of people.



Odd second observation. Due to the initial development during the 1800's and 1900's, many NJ cities grew up around the train stations. Almost ALL good town centers are in towns with these stations with access to the city. All others were either sparsely or newly populated with no real center.

In the land of the Highway Exit and Suburban SUV, it is odd that the most desired cities ($$) are the ones that started from that original rail transport.