Fix for a Hated N.Y.C. Highway: How About an $11 Billion Tunnel?

[Dennis Donovan]

Posting in GD vs the NYS forum since it's an infrastructure story (I'm old enough to remember when infrastructure was actually a concern of the federal govt )

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/nyregion/bqe-tunnel.html

The City Council wants to transform the crumbling Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by building a three-mile tunnel underneath Brooklyn.


The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is deteriorating and could be unsafe for traffic within five years.

By Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Winnie Hu

Feb. 24, 2020
Updated 11:13 a.m. ET

Cities like Boston, San Francisco and Seattle have all done it — razed hulking, unsightly highways dividing the heart of their downtowns, pushed a new roadway underground and turned the space above into an urban paradise.

Could New York be next?

The City Council — and a top mayoral candidate — are looking to pull off a similarly ambitious feat with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a dilapidated Robert Moses-era eyesore of a highway running along the scenic Brooklyn waterfront.

They want to tear down the elevated highway, rather than just patch it, and build a three-mile-long tunnel to replace it. The price tag: As much as $11 billion, according to a new engineering report commissioned by the City Council that is being released on Monday.

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[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. Ban cars. Problem solved. :D

[hack89]

2. Bigger problems created. Nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Higher shoe sales, lower health care costs.

[hack89]

7. Until the public transportation infrastructure is in place

Cars are not going anywhere. And that will dwarf the coast of a tunnel.

[hunter]

5. Our cities might be gradually rebuilt so that cars become unnecessary.

With seven and a half billion people living on the earth (and rising) there will never be enough resources for every adult to own a car.

It's not difficult to imagine cities built with giant parking structures on the periphery for visitors and car rental places. Within the city people would get around on foot, bicycle, and various forms of public transportation.

People living within the city might feel no need to own a car.

I rather resent the fact that I must own a car to be considered a fully functional adult in my city. That's because the city is built for cars, not pedestrians.

One of my nephews lived many years in San Francisco without a car. He and his significant other thought they were tired of the crowds and the expense of urban living so they moved to a less densely populated area. But now they are missing urban living and are planning to move back.

Visiting cities with our own children and their cousins completely changed the way I look at cities. If they have a car they park once in some inexpensive place and then they bounce around the city very fluidly using various forms of public transportation, aided by their smart phones. I remember trips to the city where I've wasted many hours seeking parking, or landed in very expensive parking places.

We don't have to ban cars, but we don't have make car ownership mandatory either.

[csziggy]

6. When my niece lived in Washington DC, she gave up having a car

Not only was parking expensive, getting around was difficult. She took the bus or the Metro all the time anyway, so there was no point in owning a car.

Now that she works abroad most of the time, she simply rents when she visits areas with poor public transportation, such as Orlando. DC, she uses public transportation, same in other cities where it is possible.

I live in the country so I have to have a car (and a truck) but in New York and London I took cabs. (I have mobility issues and am not familiar with public transportation so my husband was worried about me getting in and out of buses and metro trains quickly in crowds. He was taking the Washington Metro when a woman fell in front of him - and and some others helped her up, but that really got him worried for me.)

[hack89]

8. As the digital economy brings even more people to the cities

All of that may happen. But the investment would be massive and politically contentious.

[NutmegYankee]

12. Well, with such simplistic solutions like that.

I’m curious for your solution to global overpopulation.



Obvious

[Prue]

4. My vote is Yes - as a traveler passing through

I'm not a resident so my vote doesn't count but I dread driving it when I pass through.

[maxsolomon]

9. Yeah, Seattle isn't quite to the "urban paradise" stage.

Slow your roll there, NYT. the Alaskan Way Viaduct just came down last Summer.

Right now it's a Construction Zone as they repair infrastructure below the streets.

[Hotler]

10. I wouldn't hold Boston up as an example.

I think it had corruption, poor design and engineering problems which lead to huge cost over runs and time delays.

[edhopper]

11. But in the end

The Big Dig works and the park on top make Boston a better place.