Skip to content
Do you have adblock enabled?
 
If you can read this, either the style sheet didn't load or you have an older browser that doesn't support style sheets. Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the page.

(Gothamist)   NYC launches study to 'reimagine' the Cross-Bronx Expressway so it can be better. Subby, who's gotten so many flat tires over the years because of potholes will save them some time: Nuke it from orbit   (gothamist.com) divider line
40
    More: Obvious, The Bronx, New York City, Urban decay, Freeway, federal Department of Transportation, Cross-Bronx Expressway, two-year study, City  
•       •       •

1130 clicks; posted to Main » on 28 Dec 2022 at 7:19 PM (12 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



40 Comments     (+0 »)
View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest
 
Some Junkie Cosmonaut
2022-12-28 7:29:06 PM  
It'd likely fuse the road surface some and sorta kinda fix potholes that way.  Just make sure it's an airburst so you don't go putting a crater in there somewhere
 
Telephone Sanitizer Second Class
2022-12-28 7:39:31 PM  
A♭ Traffic Jam
Youtube RS5yeSXzVbc
 
jvl
2022-12-28 7:50:42 PM  
So you're saying you use it constantly and would like it destroyed?

I'm confused.
 
El_Dan
2022-12-28 7:52:21 PM  
Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.
 
Flushing It All Away
2022-12-28 8:13:34 PM  
Just leave it. The cost and complexity to try and reroute the damn thing would be absurd and would probably ruin the Bronx even further.

It's the only way right now to get from Jersey to Long Island without driving through Manhattan.
 
Kit Fister [TotalFark]
2022-12-28 8:15:46 PM  

El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.


The next big trend: WFH people taking over small towns and turning them into enclaves.  They could be themed, like all the D&D nerds could turn theirs into one giant, constant ren-fair.  The motorheads could turn it into the parking lot of Indy. The foodies could turn it into a smaller version of France. Just sayin.
 
Kit Fister [TotalFark]
2022-12-28 8:16:42 PM  

Flushing It All Away: Just leave it. The cost and complexity to try and reroute the damn thing would be absurd and would probably ruin the Bronx even further.

It's the only way right now to get from Jersey to Long Island without driving through Manhattan.


I didn't realize it was possible to ruin the Bronx even more. And, people leaving Jersey is exactly why we should tear it down. Not reroute it, to be sure, but tear it down.
 
docilej
2022-12-28 8:18:49 PM  
"They say no one's ever beaten the Van Wyck, but gentlemen, I tell you this - I came as close as anyone ever has. And if it hadn't been for that five-car pile-up on Rockaway Boulevard, that numbskull would be on a plane for Seattle right now instead of looking for a parking space downstairs."
---Elaine Benes (June 26, 1991)
 
waxbeans [TotalFark]
2022-12-28 8:21:59 PM  

El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.


Imagine if we put work in middle and not top of our lives; and put Earth at the top of our Stewardship?  But hay you'll keep doing the money money bling bling baller baller 🤷‍♂🙄
 
pdieten
2022-12-28 8:24:31 PM  

El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.


Until there's no way to deliver Cheetos and Mountain Dew to your local grocery store.
 
El_Dan
2022-12-28 8:27:19 PM  

waxbeans: El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.

Imagine if we put work in middle and not top of our lives; and put Earth at the top of our Stewardship?  But hay you'll keep doing the money money bling bling baller baller 🤷‍♂🙄


Never going to happen, and if at any point it appears that that is going to happen, it's going to be a bunch of rich people benefiting from the appearance of virtue and everyone else getting screwed.
 
NakedApe
2022-12-28 8:52:13 PM  

Kit Fister: El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.

The next big trend: WFH people taking over small towns and turning them into enclaves.  They could be themed, like all the D&D nerds could turn theirs into one giant, constant ren-fair.  The motorheads could turn it into the parking lot of Indy. The foodies could turn it into a smaller version of France. Just sayin.


The stoners could turn it into a long narrow Washington Square Park.
 
thornhill
2022-12-28 9:04:09 PM  
Well this will go nowhere.

If the Mayor and Governor had any vision and political clout, they'd pull together all of the Northeast governors to completely reimagine how I-95 crosses the Hudson and goes up to Connecticut. Yeah, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take like 30 years to complete, but consider that 100+ million cars travel over the GW Bridge each year, making it the most used motor bridge in the world. Reducing congestion along that whole stretch and restoring the Bronx will be economically beneficial.
 
Joe USer [recently expired TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-28 9:06:37 PM  
It would be a great highway if it wasn't for those entrance and exit ramps.
 
Crash Test Dumbass
2022-12-28 9:07:34 PM  
Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.
 
EJ25T
2022-12-28 9:09:42 PM  
Before I read the whole headline, I thought "reimagine? What, as a freeway you can actually drive on?"

And I'm from Oklahoma, where shiatty roads were invented.
 
EJ25T
2022-12-28 9:10:30 PM  

Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.


AKA: every single interstate in the US.
 
Joe USer [recently expired TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-28 9:11:08 PM  

Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.


Robert Moses was a prick. His apparent calling in life was to break up neighborhoods.

I'm all for restoration, but at this point, where would it go?
 
Flushing It All Away
2022-12-28 9:15:10 PM  

Joe USer: Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.

Robert Moses was a prick. His apparent calling in life was to break up neighborhoods.

I'm all for restoration, but at this point, where would it go?


This. I'd rather see the city put all its effort into getting the Interborough Express train running sooner than 2035 or trying to complete the LGA AirTrain since AOC was content blowing up the plan because she didn't want to share the route with Grace Meng and the rest of the eastern Queens citizenry.
 
Mad-n-FL
2022-12-28 9:22:29 PM  

Kit Fister: El_Dan: Let's just replace all highways with fields in which butterflies and unicorns can flourish. I work from home so it probably won't affect me.

The next big trend: WFH people taking over small towns and turning them into enclaves.  They could be themed, like all the D&D nerds could turn theirs into one giant, constant ren-fair.  The motorheads could turn it into the parking lot of Indy. The foodies could turn it into a smaller version of France. Just sayin.


Hell, Michigan would like a word.
 
TWX
2022-12-28 9:28:59 PM  
It's a shame that Boston's Big Dig was such a mess, this seems like the exact sort of interstate highway that would be better placed underground.

I hadn't ever read on Robert Moses before seeing the name in this article.  It sounds like he would have continued adding roads and taking away neighborhood acreage to do it until there weren't any neighborhoods left, at least poorer ones or ethnic ones.

This elevated expressway is part of I-95, one of the major Interstate highways.  It would be difficult to justify its blanket removal, even if the traffic patterns for the neighborhoods it crosses wouldn't be harmed (or may even benefit) by its removal.

Years back I read a bit about the history of the Interstate Highway System.  Interestingly I-10 was actually discontiguous as its own roadway through Phoenix, it routed around downtown on the alignment that the regional I-17 still uses on a smaller, earthen-causeway elevated road.  Senator Carl T. Hayden was for some reason against the freeway's completion.  Eventually after his death, the I-10 alignment though Phoenix was constructed for the last mile in a cut-and-cover tunnel that was actually a series of parallel bridges with parkland on the deck.

Unfortunately the low elevation of the Bronx close to sea-level might well make such a tunnel as a replacement to the elevated roadway impractical, or might disrupt the neighborhood even more during its construction than the neigborhood's residents could tolerate.  Once in-place such a tunnel in lieu of an aerial viaduct might well help the neighborhood through the removal of a physical barrier much as the removal of the Boston Central Artery's aerial roadway.  Its removal for and underground cut-and-cover route probably wouldn't result in above-ground neighborhood construction though, unless plans for that were integrated into the project from the outset.
 
pdieten
2022-12-28 9:29:06 PM  

EJ25T: Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.

AKA: every single interstate in the US.


Sometimes I think 21st century people don't realize just how completely over it people of the '50s were with the worn out, broken down, dirty, overcrowded poor neighborhoods of the time.
 
Dafatone [TotalFark]
2022-12-28 9:39:38 PM  

pdieten: EJ25T: Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.

AKA: every single interstate in the US.

Sometimes I think 21st century people don't realize just how completely over it people of the '50s were with the worn out, broken down, dirty, overcrowded poor neighborhoods of the time.


You hear that, impoverished people of the '50s who had no better options? People were over you!
 
Dafatone [TotalFark]
2022-12-28 9:40:20 PM  

jvl: So you're saying you use it constantly and would like it destroyed?

I'm confused.


This is the mindset of just about everyone who has been forced to endure the Cross Bronx.
 
Candygram4Mongo [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-28 9:40:31 PM  
Down with the Cross-Bronx Expressway!

Up with the Cheerful-Bronx Expressway!
 
Flushing It All Away
2022-12-28 9:44:33 PM  

Dafatone: pdieten: EJ25T: Crash Test Dumbass: Can we go back in time and reimagine the Cross Bronx so that Robert Moses didn't use the highway to destroy poor neighborhoods, making the whole area worse for generations? It can't cost that much more than any other solution.

AKA: every single interstate in the US.

Sometimes I think 21st century people don't realize just how completely over it people of the '50s were with the worn out, broken down, dirty, overcrowded poor neighborhoods of the time.

You hear that, impoverished people of the '50s who had no better options? People were over you!


Like it or not, most people don't like the problems that come with poor people living in proximity to them.

Even those who have nothing don't want to live with people who have less. Just look at the housing projects and how people will literally kick their neighbors cars windows in if it means they get an extra 30c from the ash tray.
 
nemisonic
2022-12-28 10:21:08 PM  

thornhill: Well this will go nowhere.

If the Mayor and Governor had any vision and political clout, they'd pull together all of the Northeast governors to completely reimagine how I-95 crosses the Hudson and goes up to Connecticut. Yeah, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take like 30 years to complete, but consider that 100+ million cars travel over the GW Bridge each year, making it the most used motor bridge in the world. Reducing congestion along that whole stretch and restoring the Bronx will be economically beneficial.


Everyone uses the Tappan Zee. Nobody uses the GW bridge- it's too crowded.
 
untoldforce
2022-12-28 10:26:14 PM  
It's unclear why they think that capping the highway will cause air pollution to go away. Tunnels and capped roadways require ventilation, and that air naturally mixes with the environment.

New York City has a very spotty track record with big construction projects. Nearly every piece of infrastructure is falling apart from the subway to the highways to the bridges. Any attempt to fix things results in a billion dollar boondoggle. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

It seems to my untrained eye that every construction project in NY or NJ is rife with corruption, and that's why everything costs so much yet nothing gets done. That's just my $0.02.
 
RickTheVote
2022-12-28 10:45:33 PM  
Ban cars. Done.
 
thornhill
2022-12-28 11:38:57 PM  

TWX: I hadn't ever read on Robert Moses before seeing the name in this article.  It sounds like he would have continued adding roads and taking away neighborhood acreage to do it until there weren't any neighborhoods left, at least poorer ones or ethnic ones.


Probably the most famous nonfiction book of the 20th century is about Moses: The Power Broker. Absolutely a must read. And a large section of the book is devoted to the Cross Bronx, telling the stories of the families evicted from their homes so it could be built over them.

Yes, not only did Moses build unnecessary roads, he favored bridges over tunnels because you couldn't see a tunnel, and refused to build public transportation infrastructure because he thought that only poor people and Blacks used it.
 
oa330_man [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-29 12:34:51 AM  
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, bona fide Electrified, six-car monorail.

Fark user imageView Full Size
 
Mikey1969 [OhFark]
2022-12-29 12:36:09 AM  
That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.
 
Joe USer [recently expired TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-29 1:49:20 AM  

Mikey1969: That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.


Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list?  Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.
 
Kit Fister [TotalFark]
2022-12-29 8:06:15 AM  

oa330_man: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, bona fide Electrified, six-car monorail.

[Fark user image 235x341]


Ah, I guess it's more of a Baltimore thing anyway.
 
thornhill
2022-12-29 9:55:49 AM  

Joe USer: Mikey1969: That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.

Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list?  Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.


NYC has historically been a leader when it comes to improving quality of life, often over the objections of the business community and car people.

For example, it led the way on banning smoking in public places, especially bars and restaurants. Once they did it, every city council person and mayor in America had political cover to do it in their town.

They were also among the first major cities to permanently close major streets to enhance pedestrian safety.
 
Flushing It All Away
2022-12-29 10:05:04 AM  

thornhill: Joe USer: Mikey1969: That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.

Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list?  Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.

NYC has historically been a leader when it comes to improving quality of life, often over the objections of the business community and car people.

For example, it led the way on banning smoking in public places, especially bars and restaurants. Once they did it, every city council person and mayor in America had political cover to do it in their town.

They were also among the first major cities to permanently close major streets to enhance pedestrian safety.


That's debatable seeing the garbage piles and rats outside of every building in the city on a daily basis.

They tell us, "Oh, we don't have alleys, so we can't possibly have dumpsters!" while walking past literally thousands of parking spots that have been repurposed as "outdoor" seating from restaurants that have annexed the streets in absolute non-compliance from the DOB, DOT, or LPC.

As far as I'm concerned, if we have the space for restaurants to annex and people to park, we have the space for dumpsters in this city. Hell, we're now looking to hire some overpaid consultant to deal with the exploding rat problems.

It's franking horrifying and embarrassing at this point.
 
geekbikerskum
2022-12-29 11:01:27 AM  

Joe USer: Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list? Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.


A lot of people think NYC today is still like it was in the '70s and '80s.  Especially conservatives, because it feeds their narrative that crime is caused by ethnic diversity, Democratic-Party management and policies, and gun control.

These days, the real crime problems are in small, C- and D-list cities, and large towns, where there used to be a solid manufacturing base, or resource extraction, and the factories and mills and mines all closed up and nothing replaced them.

The same thing, really, happened in NYC and cities like it.  All those expensive, exposed-brick yuppie/hipster lofts used to be factories and workshops and warehouses.  NYC and other "A-list" cities started falling into decline when those factories, etc., packed up and left.  (Many of them leaving for the aforementioned C- and D-list cities because lower labor costs and less environmental regulation.)  But the A-listers had things other than manufacturing going on, and/or were able to attract other kinds of business, and rebounded, whereas it'll be very hard for the C- and D-list cities to do so.
 
thornhill
2022-12-29 12:43:31 PM  

Flushing It All Away: thornhill: Joe USer: Mikey1969: That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.

Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list?  Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.

NYC has historically been a leader when it comes to improving quality of life, often over the objections of the business community and car people.

For example, it led the way on banning smoking in public places, especially bars and restaurants. Once they did it, every city council person and mayor in America had political cover to do it in their town.

They were also among the first major cities to permanently close major streets to enhance pedestrian safety.

That's debatable seeing the garbage piles and rats outside of every building in the city on a daily basis.

They tell us, "Oh, we don't have alleys, so we can't possibly have dumpsters!" while walking past literally thousands of parking spots that have been repurposed as "outdoor" seating from restaurants that have annexed the streets in absolute non-compliance from the DOB, DOT, or LPC.

As far as I'm concerned, if we have the space for restaurants to annex and people to park, we have the space for dumpsters in this city. Hell, we're now looking to hire some overpaid consultant to deal with the exploding rat problems.

It's franking horrifying and embarrassing at this point.


Having worked in City Council in one of the largest American cities and completely rewritten its private waste hauling laws, I can tell you from expert experience that dumpsters are hardly a panacea, and in fact, result in the same problems and are actually worse. Dumpsters are only emptied once or several days a week while the trash bags put out in NYC are collected the next morning. Thus with dumpsters, you have food waste the attracts rats sitting there for days. And when a dumpster fills up, the users just pile the garbage bags on top of it and you have overflowing dumpsters. The solution is simply to ban all "non-grindable" food waste from being put out for trash collection -- and while that may even be the law for restaurants in NYC -- such a law and then actual enforcement would result in a showdown with the food service industry, and that's why we cannot have clean cities.

And as for space for people to park, there should be zero on-street parking. As Donald Shoup demonstrated more than 15 years ago, not only are cities just giving away precious real estate, but on-street parking causes gridlock and increased vehicle emissions because when on-street parking is less expensive than a parking lot, you're incentivizing people to "circle the block" looking for a parking space rather than just going straight to a lot. And then as we've all seen, when someone is pulling out of a space and someone behind them wants it, that person will come to a complete stop while they wait for the car to leave, shutting down a lane of traffic. If they suck at parallel parking, then the lane shut down drags on for minutes more.

American tourists who go to Europe always marvel how bike and pedestrian friendly the cities are, and come home boasting about how they ate a ton and didn't gain any weight because they walked 8 miles a day; one of the main reasons for that is that most major cities began eliminating a substantial amount of their on-street parking starting in the late 1990s and converted them into bike lanes and/or wider sidewalks. (If you look at photos of Western European cities from the 1980s, you can see that they were then just as car centric as we continue to be today.)

And lastly, abundant on-street parking also encourages city dwellers to own cars. Going back to NYC, having lived in the UWS, one reason why so many people there, for example, hold on to their cars for weekend trips is because Riverside Dr. is essentially a massive, free parking lot.
 
Kit Fister [TotalFark]
2022-12-29 4:43:56 PM  

thornhill: Flushing It All Away: thornhill: Joe USer: Mikey1969: That New York really does seem like a utopian paradise. Rats, garbage piled on the streets, potholes so large they puncture tires, and so regular that people lose multiple tires to them.

Yeah, NYC does have its flaws.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

But not crime at least. So, where's your city on that list?  Still the small city theft capitol of the US, I see.

NYC has historically been a leader when it comes to improving quality of life, often over the objections of the business community and car people.

For example, it led the way on banning smoking in public places, especially bars and restaurants. Once they did it, every city council person and mayor in America had political cover to do it in their town.

They were also among the first major cities to permanently close major streets to enhance pedestrian safety.

That's debatable seeing the garbage piles and rats outside of every building in the city on a daily basis.

They tell us, "Oh, we don't have alleys, so we can't possibly have dumpsters!" while walking past literally thousands of parking spots that have been repurposed as "outdoor" seating from restaurants that have annexed the streets in absolute non-compliance from the DOB, DOT, or LPC.

As far as I'm concerned, if we have the space for restaurants to annex and people to park, we have the space for dumpsters in this city. Hell, we're now looking to hire some overpaid consultant to deal with the exploding rat problems.

It's franking horrifying and embarrassing at this point.

Having worked in City Council in one of the largest American cities and completely rewritten its private waste hauling laws, I can tell you from expert experience that dumpsters are hardly a panacea, and in fact, result in the same problems and are actually worse. Dumpsters are only emptied once or several days a week while the trash bags put out in NYC are collected the next morning. Thus wit ...


We get it, you're both arrogant and hate cars.
 
Some Junkie Cosmonaut
2022-12-29 5:23:00 PM  

Kit Fister: We get it, you're both arrogant and hate cars.


Fark user imageView Full Size
 
Displayed 40 of 40 comments

View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest

Redisplay/refresh comments
This thread is closed to new comments.

Continue Farking

If you like these links, you'll love

TotalFark

More Farking, less working

learn more | sign up
On Twitter

  1. Links are submitted by members of the Fark community.

  2. When community members submit a link, they also write a custom headline for the story.

  3. Other Farkers comment on the links. This is the number of comments. Click here to read them.

  4. Click here to submit a link.