Robert Moses, the LIRR, and Transit

[goodnightjohnwayne]

One thing it does reiterate is that Moses hated the idea of public transportation.

By the era of Robert Moses, most of New York City's current transit infrastructure was largely complete, and had been completed by the private sector. The general public hated elevated lines, grade level freight lines and even street car lines. Roads were very obviously needed, and Robert Moses served the existing needs of his era, using the political levers of power that were available in that era. If Robert Moses had been a contemporary or Robert Fulton, he'd have been in the steamboat business, or if he'd been a contemporary of Vanderbilt, he'd have been railroad magnate, or a few decades later, a traction magnate. In the middle of the 20th century, the private sector was in decline, government was growing and the automobile represented the future of transportation - circumstances which explain the rise of figure like Moses. Robert Moses was product of his time, but by the standards of any era, he got a lot done.

[ThirdRail7]

This thread is already in the bag, so I might as well add to it.

The narrows bridge was not designed to handle trains. Sure in his mind this made sense as at the time there were still substantial car float operations and railroads were in decline, but can you imagine CRSA being able to take trains over there via the north shore line? Thankfully the bridge can be retrofitted if they ever do decide to put a rail track over it. Would probably cost around 3 billion though. You'd need to replace the hangar cables, put new saddles in at the top of the towers, and probably add a 3rd main cable on either side. then you'd need to build the approaches and the actual rail deck itself.

GWB is able to handle an additional deck for rail, but you'd need to somehow connect it to the west side line. There is a bit of a height difference there!

Are you talking about the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge? If you are, what makes you think someone would retrofit it to accommodate trains? That bridge had a specific purpose. It was built so people from Long Island and New England wouldn't have to travel through Manhattan to get to NJ and points south. It was built in tandem with the Throgs Neck Bridge to act as a bypass.

[amtrakowitz]

Sounds like a rumor to me. Any newspaper articles?

I found this quote from Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker:

One Day and Zimmerman alternative, for example, was to lay tracks down the expressway center mall from Marathon Parkway into Corona, leave the expressway at Flushing Meadows Park, cut across its northeastern corner to link up with the Long Island Rail Road and follow that line (which "has ample capacity to accommodate" the added traffic) to Times Square. The total cost of building such a line -- the total cost of the additional forty feet of expressway right-of-way, of bridges at grade separations, of electric substations, of eleven large, modern passenger stations with parking garages at the eleven major avenues intersecting with the expressway within that seven-mile stretch, of every piece of modern rapid transit equipment desirable -- would be only $20,830,000.

So presumbably the LIRR tracks would run down the center median until around Flushing Meadows Park, where it would cut across/through/around the park and join up with the LIRR's Port Washington branch around the current Mets-Willets Point station area, and then run into the city from there.
The book also said that there were similar plans to extend the IRT down the center median and have it hook in to the present-day 7 train around the same spot.

As far as newspaper articles, Mr. Amtrakowitz, I don't have any now, but I'll look for some on my way to work tomorrow morning.

Thanks very much; that's more than enough.

Seems like this got relegated to the same status as the PRR's original plans to enter Manhattan via a new railroad traversing Staten Island and Brooklyn, branching off the original main line at Rahway NJ.

[Ridgefielder]

By the era of Robert Moses, most of New York City's current transit infrastructure was largely complete, and had been completed by the private sector.

Pretty much the entire IND system- the current A, B, C, D, E, and F lines in Manhattan was built by the city in the 1920's & '30s. Hence IND for "Independant." And the other Manhattan subway lines-- the IRT and BMT systems-- were built by a rather complicated series of public-private partnerships. They were never wholly "private" in the way that, say, the New Haven or the Pennsylvania were.

If Robert Moses had been a contemporary or Robert Fulton, he'd have been in the steamboat business, or if he'd been a contemporary of Vanderbilt, he'd have been railroad magnate, or a few decades later, a traction magnate.

Robert Moses would most certainly *not* have been a Commodore Vanderbilt if he were alive in the 1860's. He was a political appointee his whole life, joined the NY City government as a "Reform" Democrat at the time that Reform was synonymous with large-scale social engineering. If he was around in the 1860's he'd have been more likely to be Boss Tweed or (more charitably) Samuel Tilden.

Again, not Moses. It was LaGuardia who was responsible for tearing down the east side els.

The Third Avenue IRT was torn down in 1955-- 10 years after Mayor La Guardia left office and 7 years after he died.

Nope, New York City's near bankruptcy and decline belongs to the administration of Mayor John Lindsay, a well intentioned liberal blue-blood who was a complete failure, but entirely well meaning in his ineptitude.

New York started heading downhill after the end of the Second World War. The tax base eroded as industry and population moved to the suburbs and the policial class-- of both parties-- failed to rightsize the City government to handle the changed circumstances. You can blame it on every mayor from La Guardia to Abe Beam-- and every governor from Tom Dewey to Hugh Carey, too.

[Jeff Smith]

This thread is already in the bag, so I might as well add to it.

Never fear, Under..., er, Moderatorman is here!

[mtuandrew]

This thread is already in the bag, so I might as well add to it.

Never fear, Under..., er, Moderatorman is here!

Hey, look, we got a present! Wonder what's inside... *shake shake shake*

[Patrick Boylan]

I was channel surfing a long time ago and remember part of a PBS show whose lecturer, I wonder now if it was Caro, seemed to have researched his stuff pretty well, but who also seemed to lean towards anti-Moses. Whether that was prejudice, pandering, or a reasoned result of his research I'm not sure.
One segment about the Cross Bronx Expressway mentioned 1 possible route would have meant demolishing n residences, but also meant demolishing one of the powerful Bronx buscompany's depots. The other route, which was the one chosen, involved demolishing n*y residences. It was clear to me that the lecturer meant that Moses either was financially involved in the bus company or caved in to the powerful Bronx bus company's influence. The idea that any transit company post WWII wielded much influence in general, or that anybody wielded much influence against Moses, don't seem reasonable to me.
Something the lecturer never mentioned was how many residences would need to get demolished, and what would happen to bus service, if the existing bus depot got demolished, since they'd have to replace it somewhere else. He also didn't mention how many other businesses would have gotten disrupted with that possible route.

[Ocala Mike]

I started my NY State civil service career working for an agency that was created by Robert Moses, the Jones Beach State Parkway Authority, from 1972-1978. I worked out of the headquarters at Belmont Lake State Park, Babylon, NY, just at the time when Moses' influence was largely gone, and the Authority was about to pay off its bonds and be absorbed directly by the state.

One of my administrative duties involved responsibility for the archives located in the building's basement, and I can assure you that 90% of the stuff down there consisted of Moses' work papers, plans, blueprints, files, etc. going back to the 30's. When, around 1976-1977, the bureaucrats from Albany came down to take over the Long Island parks and parkways, I was tasked with the job of removing all of Moses' stuff for destruction.

To this day, I am glad that I refused to do it, even though it meant my eventual transfer to another state agency (best thing that ever happened to me). I'm sure the stuff all went up in smoke right after I left.

Basically, I have mixed feelings about Moses, but the roads and bridges he designed 80 years ago are still the mainstay of NYC's commuting traffic arteries today.

[BuddCarToBethlehem]

Basically, I have mixed feelings about Moses, but the roads and bridges he designed 80 years ago are still the mainstay of NYC's commuting traffic arteries today.

I travel to Nassau County a lot, and I will say the LIRR is pretty convenient, a bit slow because there seems to be station every 1 1/2 to 2 miles (at least on the Babylon branch). First time I saw it; I was reminded of the D.C. Metro's Red Line in Maryland and the T's Red Line south of Boston. Because I saw those first, I always think of the LIRR as an extended subway system like D.C. or Boston.

As for the Parkways, they're are great at moving traffic (sans rush hour), but the signage is a nightmare for novices and first timers. Can't tell you how many times I've missed or almost missed my exit the first few months I was traveling out to the island.

[Ocala Mike]

Don't know what the signage is like today, now that everything's under the auspices of the NY State DOT. Back in my day, we had similar issues with signage and, even more, guide rails. Everything on the parkways had to have that "rustic" look, and the guide rails were wooden things that almost invariably would splinter upon impact causing some horrific injuries. I worked for a time in the Legal Dept., and had to assemble many case files for the Attorney General to defend the Authority in lawsuits, and I saw some pretty gory pictures involving people getting impaled by the guide rail in accidents.

[neroden]

While not everything Robert Moses did was bad (the Niagara Power project is generally appreciated), Caro has a point about his negative impact on NYC. If you want to see Moses at his worst, look up the history of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, and then visit that area.

Moses *destroyed* that neighborhood and it's only just beginning to recover. Worse, he knew he was destroying it -- he did it pretty much deliberately, in that case, because he didn't like "those people". And for what? To make more pollution, effectively, and to help people avoid NYC. Hmm.

That's the trouble with having an uncontrolled dictator. Eventually he starts doing stuff like that.

He also made a special point of making sure the Verazzano Narrows Bridge wouldn't accomodate a subway extension to Staten Island (which was already planned). And making sure it wouldn't accomodate pedestrians. And... well, you see, when he did social engineering, he was *aggressive* about it. A power broker with a different attitude would have gone ahead and put a sidewalk on the Verazanno-Narrows -- blunting controversy and increasing utility -- but not Robert Moses.

It was bound to create a backlash. The backlash was very much deserved, but of course it has gone too far. Most states which never had a Robert Moses equivalent also never had the same level of *anti*-construction, *pro*-red-tape reaction.

[BuddCarToBethlehem]

Don't know what the signage is like today, now that everything's under the auspices of the NY State DOT. Back in my day, we had similar issues with signage and, even more, guide rails. Everything on the parkways had to have that "rustic" look, and the guide rails were wooden things that almost invariably would splinter upon impact causing some horrific injuries. I worked for a time in the Legal Dept., and had to assemble many case files for the Attorney General to defend the Authority in lawsuits, and I saw some pretty gory pictures involving people getting impaled by the guide rail in accidents.

Unfortunately, that's too sad to be funny. Never a good idea to put athsthetics ahead of practicality when making public policy decisions.

Today the railings are made galvanized steel or in some sections COR-TEN steel, Mayari steel, regular steel painted brown, or just ordinary steel that's really rusted. I have yet to make an up-close inspection. Some of the overpasses on the Southern State have stalactites hanging from the stone facade. I'm no engineer, but I can only guess that the limestone in the concrete and/or mortar has something to do with that.

However, I will say that the parkway bridges are much prettier than the elevated sections of the Babylon branch. Just looking at the '70's style architecture reminds me of Metropark or BWI stations. I can understand why they elevated the line, but after looking at pictures of it prior to the elevation, the line just doesn't have the same charm, at least in my opinion. It's not like the old Reading lines on SEPTA, espcially the Chestnut Hill lines.

[Ocala Mike]

Unfortunately, that's too sad to be funny. Never a good idea to put athsthetics ahead of practicality when making public policy decisions.

Today the railings are made galvanized steel or in some sections COR-TEN steel, Mayari steel, regular steel painted brown, or just ordinary steel that's really rusted.

Well, again getting back to the philosophy of Robert Moses, I guess aesthetics did trump everything else for him at the time. Remember that the pre-war 35 mph parkways, for him, were designed to transport people out of the city (where they lived) to the LI State Parks (where they played). After the war and the resultant population shift from the city to the suburbs of LI, the parkways necessarily evolved into higher-speed commuting arteries. We were, during the early 70's, in the process of bringing everything into compliance with highway safety standards, including the signage and switching to the steel guard rails.