Robert Moses, the LIRR, and Transit

[25Hz]

I didn't like ARC, but this project needs to get done. I'm with Chuckie on this one, and I think everyone knows how I feel about Chuckie. Otherwise, it's time to take cars of the lower deck of the GW and put trains in (Bobby Moses is rolling over in his grave somewhere).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 129-68.jpg

I can see 2 tracks on top!

[lirr42]

(Bobby Moses is rolling over in his grave somewhere)

If anyone's looking for a great book on Robert Moses The Power Broker by Robert Caro paints a great picture of him and gives lots of detail to all of his works and the development of New York City during his "reign". I'm currently reading it now on my daily commute across Long Island and it is very interesting.

One thing it does reiterate is that Moses hated the idea of public transportation. (Did you know that there was once a plan to build a rail corridor right down the LIE all the way to Riverhead? Moses had his way with that one, though)

[lirr42]

Jeff, just build the 3rd level, the true lower level of the GWB for transit

I knew that! I've got a link somewhere.

Was this the thread you were thinking of? Bellmouth for C Train to GWB George Washington Bridge?

[Ridgefielder]

It's not an Amtrak or a Federal issue...

Seems to me that an infrastructure project that crosses a state line and a navigable arm of the sea, and that directly impacts travel in not just the two states physically being connected but eight other states and one Federal territory as well, is pretty much *BY DEFINITION* a Federal issue.

[amtrakowitz]

(Bobby Moses is rolling over in his grave somewhere)

If anyone's looking for a great book on Robert Moses The Power Broker by Robert Caro paints a great picture of him and gives lots of detail to all of his works and the development of New York City during his "reign". I'm currently reading it now on my daily commute across Long Island and it is very interesting.

One thing it does reiterate is that Moses hated the idea of public transportation. (Did you know that there was once a plan to build a rail corridor right down the LIE all the way to Riverhead? Moses had his way with that one, though)

For someone who allegedly hated "public" transportation, the person in question had no qualms about spending public money. One project that went unbuilt and would have been useful is the Mid-Manhattan Expressway (the proposed elevated highway over 30th Street connecting the Lincoln and Midtown Tunnels).

I heard nothing about a Long Island Expressway railroad. Details?

[JCGUY]

The Caro book is basically a 500 page vendetta gainst Moses. It is highly influential among the left, but it's basically a period piece. It was written as a reaction to Moses' tenure and does not forsee the 40 plus years of infrastructure stagnation that would occur after his exit. There is an unintentionally ironic quote at the end of the book, probably intended to assuage this exact fear, but time has left it hollow. The quote is along the lines of "We'll still build, but not in that Moses way". Of course, pretty much nothing has been built post-Moses, and this statement becomes a boomerang at the author of the book, for those willing to recognize it.

Caro's thesis is simple and plays to many of the posters on this site: roads are bad. There are very few ills that can't be traced to roads in Caro's world. If there's a lousy neighborhood and a road nearby, well then the roads caused the problem. Long Island should have remained a bucolic farming community and summer home area, and would have, but for those darn roads.

Imagine a middle class area in a forgotten borough of New York. Imagine that neighborhood buldozed for a bridge landing with a six lane north-south interstate truck highway rammed through it. Then imagine the area further scarred by a six lane east-west interstate truck route further bisecting the area. Then, to top it off, imagine the whole poor neighborhood ringed by a parkway feeding the bridge and interstates. Can you imagine the poverty, the "asthma", the social dislocation this would cause? Now take a look at a map of Bayside, Queens. If you guys hit the lottery maybe you could buy a place there some day.

[Jeff Smith]

Jeff, just build the 3rd level, the true lower level of the GWB for transit

I knew that! I've got a link somewhere.

Was this the thread you were thinking of? Bellmouth for C Train to GWB George Washington Bridge?

The link might be in that thread. It was to another web-site on NY area highways and bridges, I think.

[Jeff Smith]

I didn't like ARC, but this project needs to get done. I'm with Chuckie on this one, and I think everyone knows how I feel about Chuckie. Otherwise, it's time to take cars of the lower deck of the GW and put trains in (Bobby Moses is rolling over in his grave somewhere).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 129-68.jpg

I can see 2 tracks on top!

Just the photo made me dizzy! It would have to be a rollercoaster train.

[Jeff Smith]

The link from the aforementioned thread.

No mention of a third deck here: http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/george-washington/

However, the bridge was designed to accommodate a second, truss-stiffened deck that could be added later.

[25Hz]

The Caro book is basically a 500 page vendetta gainst Moses. It is highly influential among the left, but it's basically a period piece. It was written as a reaction to Moses' tenure and does not forsee the 40 plus years of infrastructure stagnation that would occur after his exit. There is an unintentionally ironic quote at the end of the book, probably intended to assuage this exact fear, but time has left it hollow. The quote is along the lines of "We'll still build, but not in that Moses way". Of course, pretty much nothing has been built post-Moses, and this statement becomes a boomerang at the author of the book, for those willing to recognize it.

Caro's thesis is simple and plays to many of the posters on this site: roads are bad. There are very few ills that can't be traced to roads in Caro's world. If there's a lousy neighborhood and a road nearby, well then the roads caused the problem. Long Island should have remained a bucolic farming community and summer home area, and would have, but for those darn roads.

Imagine a middle class area in a forgotten borough of New York. Imagine that neighborhood buldozed for a bridge landing with a six lane north-south interstate truck highway rammed through it. Then imagine the area further scarred by a six lane east-west interstate truck route further bisecting the area. Then, to top it off, imagine the whole poor neighborhood ringed by a parkway feeding the bridge and interstates. Can you imagine the poverty, the "asthma", the social dislocation this would cause? Now take a look at a map of Bayside, Queens. If you guys hit the lottery maybe you could buy a place there some day.

I gotta say, his whole campaign of highways and the 2 worlds fairs bankrupted new york and that is what caused the massive decline into what can only be described as the "hell years".

The west side park is a joke, there are 30 tennis and basketball courts languishing in disrepair. In addition, they should have saved the car float structures 100% intact. Now railcar barges HAVE to go to long island then the contents be trucked into manhattan.

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!

He also tore up the LIRR through that became levittown, something that transportation experts point to as one of the biggest mistakes in LIRR history.

He had all the elevated lines torn down, now NYCTA is struggling to handle people on the lexington ave line while they build the SAS.

I can go on and on and on and on. The guy ruined things for a lot of people for long after he died. Ever wonder why his namesake highway is in buffalo right next to the canadian border? No one in NYC or albany could stand him.

There were dozens of projects that had to be canceled because of his inability to accept public/mass transportation as an important part of a major metro area/region.

Back to the gateway tunnels.....

I think if they knew then what all his planning would cost the city and region, he would have been ignored and we'd likely all ready have these new tunnels and a NYC that looks radically different (and better) than what we are left to deal with today.

[goodnightjohnwayne]

I gotta say, his whole campaign of highways and the 2 worlds fairs bankrupted new york and that is what caused the massive decline into what can only be described as the "hell years".

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.

The west side park is a joke, there are 30 tennis and basketball courts languishing in disrepair. In addition, they should have saved the car float structures 100% intact. Now railcar barges HAVE to go to long island then the contents be trucked into manhattan.

Car floats? That business died due to high costs and the disappearance of shippers.

He also tore up the LIRR through that became levittown, something that transportation experts point to as one of the biggest mistakes in LIRR history.

Again, nothing to do with Moses. Basically, the Central Branch of the LIRR was redundant, as the island is too narrow to justify three branches. The developer didn't want it, prospective homeowners didn't want or expect it and the PRR controlled LIRR didn't want it. Nobody wanted it, and it's just wishful thinking to state otherwise.

He had all the elevated lines torn down, now NYCTA is struggling to handle people on the lexington ave line while they build the SAS.

Again, not Moses. It was LaGuardia who was responsible for tearing down the east side els. Why? Because they were hated by the public. Real estate values actually soared after they were removed, since they made streets dark and noisy. The tragedy is that the 2nd Avenue Subway became the longst running joke in NYC history, instead of replacing the elevated lines in a timely manner.

[amtrakowitz]

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

I would pin it on John F. Wagner Junior, myself; his social programs and increased spending scared manufacturing out of Manhattan back in the 1950s. This is the mayor under which the seeds for the demolition of the New York Penn Station building were sown.

Basically, the Central Branch of the LIRR was redundant, as the island is too narrow to justify three branches. The developer didn't want it, prospective homeowners didn't want or expect it and the PRR controlled LIRR didn't want it. Nobody wanted it, and it's just wishful thinking to state otherwise

Do not agree there. And certainly today, it is anything but redundant; it was technically not redundant when consideration for triple-tracking LIRR's main line to at least Hicksville first arose. But spending on high platforms was just too important for the New York MTA.

It was LaGuardia who was responsible for tearing down the east side els. Why? Because they were hated by the public. Real estate values actually soared after they were removed, since they made streets dark and noisy. The tragedy is that the 2nd Avenue Subway became the longst running joke in NYC history, instead of replacing the elevated lines in a timely manner

He also did away with the streetcars, which made everything at street level dark and noisy.

[lirr42]

...(Did you know that there was once a plan to build a rail corridor right down the LIE all the way to Riverhead? Moses had his way with that one, though)

...I heard nothing about a Long Island Expressway railroad. Details?

Basically there was a proposal in the 1950's to build a high-speed LIRR line right down the center median of the to-be-constricted LIE. Moses shot the plan down in its very early stages, so there were no real plans drawn up and many specifics were left unanswered (i.e. where would it join, how far would it go, etc.) Moses had his way with that one quite quickly. Something like that would be wonderful to have today.

[amtrakowitz]

...(Did you know that there was once a plan to build a rail corridor right down the LIE all the way to Riverhead? Moses had his way with that one, though)

...I heard nothing about a Long Island Expressway railroad. Details?

Basically there was a proposal in the 1950's to build a high-speed LIRR line right down the center median of the to-be-constricted LIE. Moses shot the plan down in its very early stages, so there were no real plans drawn up and many specifics were left unanswered (i.e. where would it join, how far would it go, etc.) Moses had his way with that one quite quickly. Something like that would be wonderful to have today.

Sounds like a rumor to me. Any newspaper articles?

[lirr42]

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.