Work continues below ground along Second Ave., but is the SAS a true megaproject? (Source: MTA Presentation to CB8, Nov. 30, 2009)
The Second Ave. Subway is not a megaproject. Phase I, the current line under construction, is a 30-block extension of a preexisting subway line that will cost nearly $4.5 billion and take nearly a decade of continual construction to complete. Then, the MTA will have to go back to the drawing board to fund and build Phases II, III and IV. Maybe by the mid-2020s, a subway line will span the entire north-south reach of Second Ave.
For the residents of Second Ave., local subway construction is a nuisance. Station entrances and unsightly ventilation structures make this project seem larger than it is, and a walk along Second Ave. does nothing to dispel the notion that building even part of a subway line is a major undertaking. Yet, the initial investment is small compared to true megaprojects, and the piecemeal approach makes for a project of good size in New York City. That, though, is because the city no longer builds much on a grand scale. Do we actually miss Robert Moses? Do we need someone to wield Moses-like power? Or are we doomed to a century of big-but-mega projects that run over budget and take to long to complete?
In The Times this weekend, Louis Uchitelle explored the end of the megaproject in the United States. With the Big Dig finished, no one is building a truly massive public work. As rapid transit goes, streetcars are the wave of the future. Elsewhere, the Metro in Washington, D.C., finished up earlier this decade, and the last major BART expansion in the Bay Area wrapped in 1997. Uchitelle — who notes that construction along Second Ave. “proceeds unhurriedly” — views this dearth of megaprojects through the prism of the economy:
So what are we missing, exactly? Huge public works — or more precisely, their historic absence — didn’t cause the recession any more than their renewal would quickly draw the country out of it. But their effect on the economy is almost always noticeable if not easily measured. Some economists argue that the continual construction of new megaprojects adds a quarter of a percentage point or more, on average, to the gross domestic product over the long term. Again, cause and effect aren’t clear, but the strongest periods of economic growth in America have generally coincided with big outlays for new public works and the transformations they bring once completed.
If their absence creates a void, particularly in a recession, what can fill it?
His answer is a stimulus focused around megaprojects. He sees a country with high-speed rail stretching from coast to coast and with cities building again. Jebediah Reed at the Infrastructurist is pondered this very question. Why hasn’t America, without a Moses to dictate and bulldoze, to unnecessarily plow over homes, parks and neighborhoods, learned to build megaprojects? New York, in particular, is afraid of putting too much development power in the hands of one person. As the response to the Empire State Development Corporation shows, nearly fifty years after Moses’ reign of terror ended, we as a city still do not trust those who seek to build unilaterally.
But on the Upper East Side, though, we see the extreme response to decades of Moses’ centralized power. We see a project that might suffer from too much community involvement and definitely suffers from a lack of political leadership. Even Phase I, a rather meek northward extension of the Q line, still needs $1.5 billion in funding, and most New Yorkers think that it will open when it opens whenever that might be.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the original IRT line opened in just four and a half years. The city might have been far emptier and less built up than it is today, but things got done. What has happened to those great megaprojects and the drive and political will to build them?
63 comments
Despite his flaws, Moses got stuff built.
That’s always been the problem. His flaws, though, are impossible to overlook, and a trip around the city today still reveals them on a daily basis.
Yes, but with the possible exception of the Triboro, nothing he built was useful.
I use the Belt Parkway regularly to get around Brooklyn and brooklyn/queens trips. I use the Southern State because of its the best compromise between the Northern State (too twisty) and the LIE (18 wheelers + not enough exits) and its convenience to the Belt. The Brooklyn/Queens is a death-trap and cost far too much damage to the area it was built under, but its aneccessary evil considering its the only Bronx/Queens/Manhattan/Brooklyn hub and the amount of traffic on it daily is immesurable. As a kid having a playground built a few blocks from me in Queens was awesome. That playground was commissioned by Robert Moses among over 600 others. I only went to Jones Beach a few times, but its a pretty awesome beach. FAR better than the disgusting ones in Brooklyn. We need a transport czar in the city. Someone who can head up the MTA and make those decisions and take risks instead of pig-tailing to thousands of bureaucrats and community activists all screaming their own different opinions. Or a mayor who would have the balls to do what’s necessary. Or even a competing subway system just like it was a century ago. A man like Robert Moses today couldn’t just stand up and do something just because they graduated from Yale and had good ideas and initiative. We’ve gotten too big of a city and nation for that.
It’s nice that you have a car to go to Jones Beach with. All the people using buses couldn’t – Moses built the overpasses too low for buses to pass through.
It’s also nice that you grew up in a neighborhood Moses didn’t designate as a slum. Of Moses’s hundreds of swimming pools and playgrounds, only two were in Harlem. This isn’t because people didn’t live in Harlem in the 1930s; it’s because the people who did live in Harlem had the wrong skin color.
Well, I was born in 1989. So its not like I was around to know about it. My dad grew up in the Bronx and he was directly affected by it. And Moses developments affected the Italians in Bay Ridge. Jews (my dad) in the Bronx. So no. It had nothing to do with race. Moses had no love for Jews even though he was one at one point, and same with the Irish and Italians. He was just an a$$hole. Pure and simple. I did a research paper on him and read 1200 goddamn pages on him. I think I know his developments a bit more than you do. But who cares about his personal opinions? Its not a popularity contest. Point me one other city with as many playgrounds for such a large urban density like New York. You can’t find it. And there wasn’t many parks or playgrounds commissioned by Moses in all of Manhattan in comparison to Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. Space constraints contributed to that fact. Harlem was heavily developed during the 30’s, and the whole goddamn country was racist! You can’t possibly single out Moses for that decision when a Black man couldn’t even board a bus properly during that time period.
Most people living in the boroughs have cars. Its just fact. That’s not the point. The point was that his projects are heavily used and are important to the economic ecosystem that impacts the whole NYC area INCLUDING Long Island whether you like it or not. LI’ers contribute to the city’s GDP, do they not?
Most people living in the boroughs have cars.
The only borough where more than 50 percent of the residents are vehicle owners is Staten Island.
Anyway, you’re conflating Good Moses and Bad Moses. They guy who built the parks was mostly Good Moses. The guy who built roads with no regard for neighborhood or public transit is Bad Moses. That’s a simplification, of course, but it’s generally a rough sketch.
His projects may be heavily used and they may be important to the area’s economy, but at the same time, they are still choking and limiting the area’s economy from fulfilling its potential. As you’ve studied Moses extensively, you should be able to recognize that too.
Maybe you should watch something other than Rick Burns New York documentary, it’s obviously poisoned your mind. Read other books about Robert Moses than the one by the Adam West batman lookalike, which was published 35 years ago in the middle of the city financial crisis when it was easy to blame Moses for everyone’s problems. Maybe you have the dirge sounding music that played everytime Burns started talking about Harlem stuck in your head. Then take a look around the city at what was achieved, things for the public benefit. Who can you and your bleeding heart liberals blame for the decline and the inability to get anything done in the city now? Moses has been out of power 41 years now, who’s your scapegoat now?
The MTA figured something out, buses go there and have been as long as I can remember.
http://www.mta.info/libus/jones_beach/jbcs.htm
The reason why he says this is because it supports his continued attacks on lack of public transport and his anti-car/Moses tirade. It’s boring to read, especially when you know there is a lot more to the story’s reality than Robert Caro’s book and Rick Burns effectively quoting him verbatim during the episodes 6 and 7 of the NY documentary (you may as well have had him narrating, they had him talking so much).
Actually, I’m pretty sure the big dam projects up near Niagara Falls were useful — and some of those were in fact Moses.
Are you kidding? I think it was a lot fuller back then. Sure there might not have been fiberoptic cables running underground and fewer skyscrapers, but according to the census, the population of Manhattan peaked in 1910 at 2.3 million. It was the subways that allowed people to leave the central city and move to the suburbs.
As far as I can tell, it seems like public works programs are really just about ten times harder to do these days than they were back then.
Are you kidding? I think it was a lot fuller back then.
When the subways were being constructed, much of the area through which they traveled was undeveloped as compared to today. The population of Manhattan was concentrated around the southern half of the island, and much of the land up to 145th St. was relatively less crowded than it is today.
Yeah, and they somehow managed to build the West Side IRT, East Side IRT, two IRT tubes to Brooklyn, the Hudson & Manhattan Terminal (& tubes), the Broadway (Manhattan) BMT line, and the Nassau St. Loop BMT line (current J-M-Z), a set of BMT tubes to Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges. In *lower Manhattan alone*.
The streets must have been torn up pretty much every year, don’t you think? And this was all built with cut-and-cover *underneath operating El lines*.
You are forgetting the elevated lines in Manhattan , Bronx, and Brooklyn. Those were built much earlier. There’s a big coorelation between urban density and mass transit. There’s also a large coorelation between public investment and economic growth. Subways are public investment. Immigrants stayed in the city during the 1900’s because the subways. Immigrants couldn’t afford a horse. So they need both urban density and cheap transit. Competition between the two lines led to cheap fairs and fast transportation. With an increase of the labor force came an increase in economic investment. The skyscraper boom started right after WWI, which was occuring during the Subway boom. You gonna tell me the two aren’t highly coorelated?
Yes, I’m gonna tell you the two aren’t highly correlated. The US has had the same real growth rate for about 140 years, through periods of large infrastructure investments and periods of small infrastructure investments.
Ok, then what about Portland? Vancouver? (its Canada but who cares?) Real Growth is bollocks. IT doesn’t account for too many variables in a large, diversified ecosystem like the US. Immigration rates fluctuate between cities. States. Even Countries. Public investment spurs economic growth when just looking at the top 10 growing cities in the world. Population growth is a different matter.
toronto is building a 5-mile subway extension near york u. they just broke ground. it’ll start service in 5 years. 6 stations. $2.6 Billion. Trains every four minutes. no biggie.
Two things have changed since the era of Moses. The process has changed, to make it harder for big projects to be rammed through without oversight. Robert Moses never had to do an Environmental Impact Statement. If he were still around, he could not do his projects as quickly. There is much more red tape now. Much of it exists to prevent a Moses from doing the same kind of damage.
Second, there is much more distrust of public investment. Relative to GDP, the federal and state governments spend MUCH less on public works today than they did when Moses was active. Even in relatively Democratic states, like New York, Republican opposition to higher taxes makes even modest investment programs difficult to pass. The federal government has been cutting taxes almost continuously for three decades.
Other things that have changed:
— Government spends far more on social and welfare programs than it used to. That crowds out the funding available for infrastructure.
— Safety standards have improved. Society accepted a certain number of deaths in the building of the first subway. Today, we’d rightly be horrified by that kind of death toll. But safety does add time and expense to the project.
Actually, government doesn’t spend that much more (inflation-adjusted!) on social and welfare programs than it did in the 1930s, and huge projects were built in the 1930s. People seriously overestimate how much is spent on social welfare in the US.
The accounting’s trickier, but arguably the government spent a great deal even in the 1900s, when you realize that Central Park and the water system were considered social and welfare programs.
We do spend a lot more on wars and the military since the WWII and since the Cold War started. A *LOT* more. Half a trillion a year as of now. That crowds out spending *and* expertise (because it sucks up ‘heavy industry’ expertise).
China is building megaprojects, as are other developing nations, as did Europe and the USA when we evolved from agrarian to urban industrialized cultures. NYC doesnt need to build another subway system, just supplement and improve our existing one, along with integrating it into all the other existing urban transportation systems.
Providing Subway service along the entire length of the Bayridge Freight Branch through Brooklyn & Queens, and likewise along the LIRR Montauk Line from LIC to Jamaica would be the equivalent of a ‘megaproject” without the massive expense & dislocation. The JFK Airtrain was touted as a megaproject, but the only thing ‘mega’ was the price and inconvenience. Reactivating LIRR the Rego Park Line directly to JFK would have cost less and provided a one seat ride from Penn Station to the airport.
These days, it seems justification for grand projects is more about real estate speculation than for actual systemwide improvements benefitting the city and region by making it easier for the entire population to get around. Puny (in the context of the entirety of NYC’s transport system) stub-end extensions like SAS, ESA and 7 West add little overall transportation efficiency, but do provide ribbon-cutting opportunities to grandstanding politicians, and allow politically connected developers to use public funds to add value to their individual private projects.
What if we built a completely new subway system directly beneath existing lines? Stations could be bigger, wider, and safer, and the older tunnels could be used for pedestrian concourses, HVAC, utilities…of course, no one would ever foot its construction cost.
This isn’t actually possible. Tunneling under existing tunnels adds to cost; bigger and wider stations add to cost as well.
Peter, the Rego Park line would’ve gone straight to Howard Beach. It would still need that transfer to the terminals. And the AirTrain was a good project if only for connecting the terminals. In developed countries, airports don’t try to get people from terminal to terminal on unreliable shuttle buses.
Alon – True enough, but the AirTrain often doesnt actually get you into the Terminals, either. Ive often had to off the train and drag baggage through several crowded lanes of traffic because the stations are across the street from the terminals themselves.
And Airtrain is a stand-alone system not integrated into the rest of the regional rail network, connected to neither Manhattan or even to the LIRR at Jamaica.
I wonder why the Bay Ridge freight line isn’t converted into a subway. It connects to almost every line under the sun and already travels to 3 boroughs. There’s only 1 track now, but its large enough to support 2. I used to play ball on those tracks because it was so safe to w, a friend. Any train passing always went at like 10 mph and was the noiseist thing I’ve ever heard and travels once a day to transport LIRR trash. Its pretty useless right now. There’s no excuse not to convert it. Same with the Staten Island freight line that’s a natural extention to the current line with minimal fuss. It might give the MTA a justifiable excuse to make the SIRR entirelly non-free.
I think you’ve overlooked New York Third Water Tunnel. The project is huge, it’s expensive, it’s supremely important, and it’s in year 39 of its 50 year construction schedule.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildi.....water.html
And it started 39 years ago. It doesn’t really fit the bill of a new megaproject. Still, it also is going to cost just $6 billion. That falls under the big-but-not-mega heading.
Really? 50 year construction schedule? I know it is a massive project, but half a century seems like a ridiculously slow pace, especially if today’s modern tech is taken into account.
Ben,
Where did you get the slides from the CB8 meeting?
From the MTA. They’re not up yet on the SAS website but should be soon.
Here you go.
Presentation to Community Board 8
There is a Mega Project underway in NYC and it has been since the 60’s: Water Tunnel #3. This is a huge project, bringing a whole new aqueduct from the northern reaches of the NYC reservoir system, connecting the three existing reservoir systems and providing relief for the existing pipelines. This has been a huge tunneling undertaking, which helped the NYC sandhog traditions and skill sets survive the dearth of other tunneling projects. Without Water Tunnel #3, there would be no sandhogs left in NYC for when these big projects come along.
I don’t think that what these projects need is a supreme overlord with dictatorial powers. What we need is competent IN-HOUSE staff at these agencies, with the funding to support the staffing levels necessary to accomplish these projects. Out sourcing is more expensive and hurts the long term viability of the engineering knowledge base to support huge projects like this. Many of the engineers that designed the original IRT stayed on afterward to provide engineering support for maintenance and to apply the lessons from the earlier projects to the new projects.
In the 80’s and 90’s there was a huge downsizing of in-house engineering staff at many state agencies, as part of a unilateral cost cutting measure. NYS OGS Design & Construction Group, the state agency responsible for designing and supervising the construction of state buildings used to be over a 800 people as little as 15 years ago. Much of those activities have since been outsourced to unaccountable private firms and in-house staffing has been reduced to 400. All private sector work necessitates a profit. Profit is made 1 of two ways, cutting costs (and frequently corners) OR increasing the cost passed on to the consumer. Either way, the tax payers suffer.
Also, the biggest drains on our government budgets are Law Enforcement, Prisons and Military spending, not social welfare programs.
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(1) We live in an age of enforced “consensus”. You can’t build anything more elaborate than a bird feeder without clearing it with a million different clamoring interest groups.
(2) Power goes to those who prevent building, rather than those who build.
NYC should take advantage of new tunneling technologies to build cross river/sound/harbor roadway tunnels to get regional through traffic off of city streets and highways. NYC has become one huge geographic barrier to regional commerce and social interaction. A person in Essex County, NJ is essentially cut off from commercial and social relationships with a counterpart in Brooklyn (and vice versa) even though the two are just a few miles apart. I know we are supposed to hate cars these days, but when I see 2 hour backups on GW Bridge approaches on Sunday night, filled with people who wanted nothing more than to see their family and friends over a few precious weekend hours, I get upset that we’ve built zilch in the last 40+ years.
Or they can build railroad tunnels and have people avoid highway traffic entirely… remember, all of those congested highways you see were built because the local road overlords promised that new highways were all that was necessary to take traffic off the older highways.
“…the original IRT line opened in just four and a half years. The city might have been far emptier and less built up than it is today…”
Not necessarily. Clifton Hood once described parts of Lower Manhattan as “more crowded than Calcutta”. To build the IRT, practically by hand, through this dense crowd, congested traffic, old elevated lines, and all that infrastructure in the soil, must have been a herculean undertaking.
“Or they can build railroad tunnels and have people avoid highway traffic entirely… remember, all of those congested highways you see were built because the local road overlords promised that new highways were all that was necessary to take traffic off the older highways.”
That’s a great idea! I can take my kids, and my stuff for the day, and walk a couple miles to the train station, take a train, transfer to another train, then a third then take another couple mile walk, and lickety split get from my house in Syosset to my sister’s in Danbury! I won’t even mind the January cold! This is also a great idea for garndparents visiting their grandkids!
Seriously, there are millions of trips that will happen by car or not at all. The people in this region are well aware of (and use) trains when they make sense, but very often they simply don’t work for reality-based travel plans. It’s a pity we can’t get a road network together that recognizes this fact.
In countries where the trains are run competently, like Switzerland, transfers aren’t a big deal. They’re timed and cross-platform, and people don’t mind them even in January weather. In other countries, like Hong Kong, people live perfectly fine with one tenth the car ownership rate of the US – even though July temperatures are hellish. And, in no country other than the US do they demolish neighborhoods wholesale to make way for your suburb-to-suburb superhighways.
It beats taking your kids in a car, driving through the Bronx and giving the residents (none of whom own cars) asthma, circling around Danbury for 20 minutes looking for parking, and then walking a couple miles to the actual destination.
This kind of thinking summarizes the problem with transportation in this country. Suburban sprawl and real estate development interests prevented density. It’s too bad you can’t practically use public transportation on Long Island, and that it’s a choice “when it makes sense.” Instead, you must drive a car that irreversibly pollutes the earth everywhere you take it, while enriching nations like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela by filling it with gasoline. Please try to get over the love affair with cars.
Or, you can drive to the Syosset train station, and your sister can drive to pick you up at the Danbury train station! Ride in the heated trains! Relax! One transfer — at the comfortable and attractive Grand Central!
If the trains are run at all competently, it’s faster than driving!
Actually, for the 1-2 mile journeys at either end, if they weren’t so expensive, you would normally take a taxi!
I like your “big picture” posts.
Even if Megaproject Czars were appointed in our cities, states, and national level, he/she would be hamstrung by lack of funding. Moses had a good source of money from bridge and tunnel tolls along with subsidies. Now that Obama is expanding military spending and foreign aid (instead of contracting or eliminating it like I hoped he would), the only way cities might be able to fund themselves could be something like congestion pricing. [crosses fingers]
I love it. Now that Obama did such and such, blame him for the way things are. The guy’s been in office for 10 months. How did he ruin everything so quickly?
10 months at any job long enough to do plenty of profoundly forward-thinking as well as staggeringly fool-hardy things. Just sayin’.
Companies don’t invest in Public Transit. Transit can be profitable if applied correctly. The developers could build stations ontop of large condominium complexes that would increase reveneue for the system. Think of a small city in each major stop. They contain shopping and mixed real estate and rentals and even hotels. This would of been a good idea before the real estate bubble exploded. But other profit measures can be made that would be used in addition to the subway revenues. The example above is done by the MTR Corporation in Hong Kong where they fund their subway system with shopping centers and housing complexes and skyscrapers.
An insidius plan would be to start a venture in city transport across the country. Short-term gains from building these infrastructures can be seen. Its the long-term that kills profitable public transport. They could generate a profit for a short while and eventually sell off the property to the city built once profit cannot be amassed from it. I honestly think that’s the only way mass public transit can be realized all over the country and NYC. But its pretty evil, in that the goal is to never really keep these properties and hope the city will buy it from you once an inevitable bankrupsy is reached.
I know I have been banned for telling the truth, but, Kabak, you have to start thinking. Look what you did again. You repeat the trash the MTA feeds you. 4.5 billion my arse. Think, Kabak, think. Those crooks had it pegged at 3.8 billion in 2000. Think. How many stations and substations and entrances and the tunnels etc. It can’t be less than 6 billion, probably more like 6.5 billion. So the unfunded part is at least 3 billion, not 1.5 billion. I know you won’t publish this, but you must try to show some integrity. I don’t why you won’t actually do some useful journalism. Look at your discussants; not one of them says anything important. You don’t have to print my stuff. But learn from me and your site may end up having some meaning after all.
You really need popular support for an inspired, unified vision and a referendum where people can approve the plan along with new taxes. I think politicians and planners are often scared of big projects. You have to step on so many toes to get something big built, it offers better job security to do nothing. Robert Moses didn’t just have power, he also held no elected office. This isn’t a coincidence. Remember, voters approved BART in San Francisco, high speed rail in California, Fastracks in Denver, light rail expansion in Dallas, new taxes for transit in LA, bonds for the SAS, etc., etc., etc.
If the five boroughs of NYC were presented with a truly great plan for system expansion on a big scale and got matching funds from the feds, I think we could be persuaded to vote for that. Let’s not forget the immense scope of what’s currently happening even without a big coherent vision: SAS, ARC/THE, ESA, 7 extension, Fulton/WTC hub. What’s the sum of all these projects? It’ll be close to $40 billion, almost $20 billion in a few square miles of midtown Manhattan. I think it’s interesting to note that the biggest problem with these projects (fragmentation, lack of vision or coordination) is their biggest benefit (many sources of revenue: PA pays for WTC hub, NYC for 7 ext., MTA for ESA and Fulton St, NJ Transit for ARC.) When these projects (excluding the SAS) start to wrap up in a decade, I think we will finally see some resources being devoted to big projects outside the core. Because the MTA is controlled by the state and has to beg to them all the time, the only government agency that could realistically get a citywide system of improvements off the ground is the city itself. Train to Staten Island? Circumferential subway? The city can make all this happen if it really wanted to and it has the clout to leverage the funds from the feds.
All these local projects can never be as impressive as the Interstate system, or a potential Interstate High Speed Rail network, but the lack of federal government direction does not mean things aren’t happening in the US or that the federal government is out of the business of megaprojects forever. It seems more like we are taking a breather. The scope of the Interstate highways was so vast, we are still trying to figure out what we did to ourselves. We have begun to find the answer (high speed rail, city transit, cleaner cars, etc.) but coordinating a huge and expensive plan for a democratic country of about 300 million will take time. People were talking about building interstate highways and Germany did build an impressive network decades before Eisenhower seized on the idea.
I’ve been to both places. In Hong Kong people are stacked like ants (also their subways are run by private companies). I don’t want to live like an ant. In Switzerland, people drive cars. A lot. I’ve lived in Europe and people drive cars there. They use smaller cars to be sure, but they drive cars everywhere. It’s because cars are a more convenient way to get around and make it easier to transport families and ‘stuff’. These are also the reasons why the elites and elected officials who love to tell us to use mass transit, use cars to get around themselves.
You’re definitely the way the majority of this country thinks, and it’s a shame. Believe it or not, there are people who like city living, find it very convenient, and, gasp, raise families in the city – without owning a car. And your assertion that “elites” like cars for your reasoning isn’t saying anything – everyone drives cars in this country. People who rely solely on public transportation are the tiny minority, and the way you and everyone else thinks will perpetuate that.
“It’s because cars are a more convenient way to get around and make it easier to transport families and ’stuff’.”
This is not always true. In terms of convenience, I’ll take a subway over a car any day if it goes straight from point A to point B, it doesn’t matter how much cash I have in my pocket for a cab. The subway is more reliable and often nicer than a cab.
In terms of ‘stuff,’ that just depends on how much there is. If I’m going to IKEA to buy bookshelves, of course I will use a car, it’s cheaper than the delivery fee. If I am going to pick up a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk, I can carry it. If you have kids, unless there are bags and bags of diapers and giant strollers, public transit isn’t a big deal. A family with two kids ages 4 and 6 wouldn’t use their car to go to the Natural History Museum.
If ‘elites’ use cars more often, it’s probably because they are having meetings in the cars which have already been arranged by their secretaries as office policy. Could you really see a Senator meeting with his/her aides on the DC metro? I see more than enough old white guys in suits on the train in the morning to know they know just as well as I that it’s faster to take the 4 train downtown in the morning than a cab.
Hong Kong is just one city and Switzerland is an entire country, yet they both produce almost the same GDP, and I am sure Hong Kong is much more efficient.
It’s not clear Hong Kong is more efficient. One dataset says Switzerland is the most efficient developed country, and the third most efficient country; Hong Kong ranks 6th in the developed world and 13th overall in that data set. Another says that Hong Kong has the lowest per capita emissions in the first world and Switzerland is a close second.
Mind you, Switzerland is efficient for a reason. It has the highest rail ridership in the West, and an economy based on high-value, low-pollution industries.
Actually, Switzerland has the highest rail usage of any Western country… but sure, some people there own cars, so clearly rail doesn’t do anything.
And it’s nice that you don’t like living like people in Hong Kong. Now why should the government build you super-highways, again? (And although the subway in Hong Kong is private, it was only privatized a few years ago – before then, it was run publicly).
In Hong Kong, the subways are owned by the government and run *under contract* by private companies. That’s not “private”, that’s the same as Boston’s commuter rail.
Hong Kong Island is awesomely pleasant — except for the very small size of the residences. Which is why people live in Kowloon. 🙂 Being “stacked” is no problem at all and really quite pleasant given the surplus of escalators and elevators — the extremely small apartments are something else.
In Switzerland, they voted to suppress truck traffic and stop road construction. Sure they drive cars, but *look* at their *rail* systems. For them, rail is more convenient for many, many urban and intercity trips. (Rural trips will always be by road.)
The NYC area needs more trains. But it needs more of everything. We haven’t added highway capacity or connectivity in over 40 years and this lack of building has not led to an exodus to trains, it’s just led to many good people being stuck in traffic. And that’s a real shame. The fact that you can’t realistically put a quarter million cars into midtown Manhattan does not mean that you can’t allow people to move themselves, their families and their freight through a roadway under Manhattan.
The Europeans that you guys idolize are building highways. Right now. as we speak. Google Milau bridge. Or Oresund Bridge. Or A86 Tunnel. The single minded desire to make every trip a transit trip has simply failed this region.
Except that rail ridership has grown 50% in the last 15 years…
No, it hasn’t – it’s led to less car traffic, and less growth in pollution. You don’t want to live in Hong Kong; I don’t want to live in Houston and choke on air pollution caused by other people’s cars.
Oresund Bridge has a rail line on it.
You are a very silly person.
“No, it hasn’t – it’s led to less car traffic, and less growth in pollution.”
You should get out more. There are hour plus backups on the GWB at 6 a.m. There has been zero reduction in traffic in this area. As a region, train travel makes up a small part of overall trips. Again, I’m not the absolutist here, I like trains, they just can’t do it all. As for pollution. We are in the age of Obama! Our cars will be powered by electricity, no pollution. Cars don’t pollute nearly as much as they did even a few years ago anyway. I can drive with my windows open through the Holland Tunnel and breathe just fine, and this was not the case when I was a young sprout and pollution control techonology was young as well. No need for you to be pessimistic.
“You don’t want to live in Hong Kong; I don’t want to live in Houston and choke on air pollution caused by other people’s cars.”
Houston gets a bad wrap, but they have created a city down there that has acted as a port of entry to the middle class for millions of people. Compare Portland. Anyway, NY will never be Houston, but it would be nice if people could get from Brooklyn to Essex County NJ or Westchester without having to prepare as if undertaking a moon expedition.
As a region, train travel makes up a small part of overall trips.
Eric: I have to disagree with you. In New York City alone, there are 7 million subway trips taken per weekday. MTA Bridges and Tunnels toll booths see just 800,000 per day. Train travel is a huge, huge part of New York City travel. They contribute to very high asthma rates in the Bronx where the bridges are free, and there contribute to a slowdown in our economy by overwhelming our city streets with congestion. There is a reason to be pessimistic.
Actually, Texas has one of the highest inequality rates of all US states, barely behind New York, which is the highest (and ahead of New Jersey). It’s as middle class-free as New York is. The stories you hear about opportunity there are just stories.
The fact that traffic jams exist doesn’t mean that they won’t exist if the city builds more superhighways. In fact the dominant theory in urban planning right now is that of induced demand, which says that highways create their own traffic. A team of planners checked some roads in Lower Manhattan and found that some of them actually create more congestion by existing – their induced demand exceeds their capacity.
Elsewhere, megaprojects are alive and well.
But here we have military spending and wars.
So we are better, right ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....l_in_China
China is investing over $300 billion in high-speed rail through 2020, in a bid to speed ahead of the rest of the world’s train systems.
16,000 miles of new track by 2020, requiring 117 million tons of concrete just to construct the buttresses on which the tracks will lie. Top speeds from Beijing to Shanghai will approach 220 miles an hour, halving the current travel time to four hours. This year China Railway Company plans to hire 20,000 young engineers.
The Wuhan to Guangzhou MU Train route will start to operate on the 26th of this month. The train is the fastest in the world. All the construction and preparations for the route’s operation are in the final stages.
In a trial operation, the speed of the MU Train reached 394 kilometers per hour, the highest in the world. Though the speed during normal operation may be at 350 kilometers per hour, but this newly built high speed railway may still reduce the travel time of Wuhan to Guangzhou from more than 10 to 3 hours.
The total length of Wuhan-Guangzhou high speed railway is more than 1068 kilometers. The railway connects Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong. The total investment is more than 116 billion yuan.
http://english.cri.cn/6909/200.....535039.htm
Robert Cairo- “New York wouldn’t have been a better city of Robert Moses never existed, but it wouldn’t have been worse ethier. It is only fair to say that it would have been a different city”
It’s a fair argument. Robert Moses got things done. He could have been much better- like not split/ruin entire communities or build some mass transit- but he got it done. He tied the boroughs together with huge bridges and vast superhighways (they were “super” at the time, but now their outdated). He had influence on Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center, and other public works projects. Jones Beach, upon opening, broke the mold in crowds and popularity. He was actually better skilled at parks then highways, but he’s the one who got it all done. That is why in general i think Moses was a good man.
On the trains vs. cars debate, a combination of both is needed for a sustainable city. The rich/middle class want/need their cars, the lower class needs trains and mass/transit. Yes, mass transit is more environmentally friendly, but i live IN AMERICA, a society who’s economy is totally dependent on the automobile.
Chinese mega-projects are awesome. Google Chek Lab Kok airport, or the Three Georges Dam. Or all the projects built for the 2008 olympics. They are going through their own “Moses” era, just more modern and Asian. Think about it… the’ve been industrializing, now China’s going through her Progressive Era. Maglevs, airports, huge projects- come to think of it, the entire Middle East and Asia is like the US in 1900, just more modern.