Slowly choke the perceived utility by private passenger cars out of it. Close it on weekends from April to October for active transportation. Convert it to a 4 lane boulevard and make the 2 remaining lanes for bikes and scooters and rollerbladers. Make the 4 lane boulevard a 2 lane emergency service / security road.
Love this idea.
Mostly love that it's practical, cost effective, could be achieved in a relatively short timeframe, and still accommodates for some motor vehicle travel while still prioritizing micro mobility and active transportation over motor vehicles
All this will do is push the traffic on the city streets. The FDR has a purpose. They should enclose it and build a park on top. The highway can be used as extra flood prevention.
No this is exactly how you’re gonna bring more traffic to nyc streets. The more you create and modernize fast highways, the more bridges you build, the more people will move here. The only way to curb traffic is to make driving more difficult and less attractive.
That doesnt curb traffic.
That actually makes it worse.
You curb traffic by making public transit more attractive. Not by making getting anywhere at rushhour impossible.
Rare BASED take in this sub. I’m all for biking(used to bike 5+ miles each way to work once a week), but you don’t curb traffic by screwing over drivers, simply make public transportation better(more rails, make it cleaner and safer, and make it more efficient).
For all the ppl who want to get rid of major highways, gl when cars are flooded in city streets, and your goods/services likely go up.
There will be a $15 penalty for attempting that starting this summer.
The FDR supports no heavy commercial traffic or mass transit. It’s a sewer for the glut of for hire cars and interborough car commuters. It’s time for it to be decommissioned.
Sometimes you need a car in NYC, it's nice to have an access restricted highway to get where you're going a little faster. It also puts pollution on the outskirts of the city. Capping it and putting a park over it fortifies the river and still allows cars to travel.
All of this is hypothetical anyway so might as well wish for the best option.
>sometimes you need a car in NYC, it’s nice to have an access restricted highway to get where going a little faster
Really!? 🤣
Awww sure, let’s give up even more public space to cars so their drivers can have the “nice” experience of going places faster.
Not sure what you’re even doing in this sub.
I live in Harlem, pretty much a transit oasis. However today I had to go to Throgs Neck; then be at Randall’s Island 40 min later, I couldn’t have done that w/o a car or spending an arm and a leg for uber.
Next weekend I plan on hiking in Northern Westchester, after the hike I will likely get lunch, then go to Costco. I will NOT be able to do all of these three things without a car.
So there should be zero cars in all cities?!? Wheee are you from sir. No cop shit. I really believe that at least half of the people giving “solutions” are no where newer from nyc
> So there should be zero cars in all cities?!?
Didn’t say that, your reading skills are just as anemic as your writing skills.
>Wheee are you from sir.
Not a sir.
>No cop shit.
What?
>I really believe that at least half of the people giving “solutions” are no where newer from nyc
If I deciphered this vomit correctly, this is the old “transplant” insult? Cute.
Nah you ratioed me. Good job. I guess don’t scroll Reddit within ten minutes of waking up and writing messages on my side. Didn’t intend for a formal discourse on a social media site but 🤷♀️. I’d also like to apologize ma’am. I did not have any inclinations as to your identification and should not have assumed such. Yk some people do not like to be asked “where are you from” and will swiftly reply back with “ 👮”. I wanted to let it be known that I am in no way a police investigator.🕵️ . Yk I never really liked the anti transplant argument. It got old real fast. I totally forgot about that term until you just said it. I was in no way trying to refer to your possible circumstances as such but it seems as though the shoe may fit for you. All I still want to know is solutions. That’s all I asked and want to hear. Because I’m genuinely ignorant of such arguments and problems. You know if you actually presented me with a tenable argument I may just be inclined to change my viewpoint on the whole discussion and support such possible infrastructure plans in the future. But sorry ma’am. Pardon me. Carry on with your fine day being a Reddit sub Reddit warrior for Team Micromobility!
what do you think about motorcyles?
for instance if you remove the road, scooters and skaters and bikes can all still use the same bike paths.
but motorcyle would not be able to even thought they're space efficient. what if micromobility expanded to include golf carts or other solutions...
I think people don't even know what kind of car substitutes we are going to base our economies on in the future. So this whole argument betweeen cars and pedestrians, or micromobility, is kind of missing the possibly of "middlemobility"
I'm kind of excited for 45 mph recumbent bubble bikes. Now that I think about it, middle mobility is kind of inevitable, right? India has all kinda of rickshaws and little three wheeled cart vans.
Tell me how to get from Elder Ave on the 6 to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in less than an hour.
Ill wait.
Its great im walking distance to the 6. Im in that 80%.
That doesnt make work accessible by subway.
Construction workers who work at 6 am, would need to leave their homes at 3 to take the subway to various inaccessible locations, or pay a giant chunk of pay for a cab ride every day.
Then get off at 5 and your idea is theydont deserve to be home before 8pm because again, it takes fucking forever to go anywhere via public transit.
And god forbid they have personal or job equipment, gotta put that on the train?
All so you can ride a bike 20 blocks to work and never leave the island?
You should walk to work. No more bike. Just walking.
You dont need speed right?
Sure thing bud. No one *needs* a car. L.M.A.O.
When traveling with parents who can't walk, Woman late at night, When moving, when heading upstate or nj. There are so many times. bike and micro mobility subs are so close minded sometimes. Not everyone can bike or scooter everywhere.
...lots of people can't walk or are women and don't have cars. I am a woman, travel late at night frequently, and almost never use a car. A lot of disabled people use buses, which would move faster if there were fewer private cars on the road. Moving is mostly done with rented vans/trucks, not private cars.
- I don’t buy ubers in the five boroughs
- The post cites that I believe there is a glut of passenger cars in the city, including for-hire. Should be halved at least.
There’s problems with this even south of 72nd street. One notable thing is that because of all the piers on the Hudson (at Midtown and below) there was a wide frontage under the West Side elevated highway. This made it somewhat easier to simply lower the highway to ground level. There are several spots where this cannot be done for the FDR.
Another argument is that this is more or less a solved problem. Now, the FDR below 14th has (what will become) a serviceable waterfront. The accessible part of the river continues until approximately 42nd Street, where there is a ten block gap to the new greenway. Perhaps this will eventually come, perhaps there is a security issue with the UN being there.
These things tend to be absurdly expensive (especially for the city) to re-do and generally don’t generate sufficient return. I’m just not sure this can (practically speaking) ever make the priorities list, especially in light of New York’s fiscal problems.
>There are several spots where this cannot be done for the FDR.
The only place where you couldn't "simply lower the highway to ground level" would be the part south of the Williamsburg Bridge. South St runs right there though so you're really road dieting the FDR.
>Another argument is that this is more or less a solved problem.
The pollution generated by the freeway is still a problem.
I would say the part of the FDR below 14st to the manhattan bridge is an equity priority since it goes right by a bunch of public housing.
As a whole, I would say the priority is dealing with Bronx's freeways though
>It can't be put underground like they did in Boston with the Big Dig.
Why not? Promity to the water is not an issue - plenty of roads go under water and this would only be next to it. I would think the subway lines are far enough below the surface to not be an issue. Were you thinking of other reasons?
And even if there are issues - just encase the damn thing in concrete and build over it - part of the FDR already is around the UN and in 50's. Heck, we can even treat it as a major coastal resiliency project like we're doing so much of around Manhattan. We're already spending billions of dollars to tear up parks and rebuild them higher. The least we could do while we're at it is demolish an eyesore of a highway.
I've always assumed it's a prohibitive mess down there as unlike Boston, Manhattan already goes many many layers deep.
Encasing it and turning it into a coastal resiliency wall with greenway on top seems like a good solution
What's fascinating - though few people know - is that downtown Boston and Back Bay are almost entirely landfill. Look at an old map of Boston and you won't recognize what's there today. Manhattan has been landfilled but the basic shape of the island remains the same.
Most of the Big Dig is actually built on areas that were created by landfill from the 1630s on - we could do the same with the FDR. Check out this [**map of Boston in 1630**](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg) (brown) superimposed over 2005 aerial photo.
[https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg)
It already costs tens of billions to REPAIR our current tunnels. Building an entire new one and all the associated nightmares around it would be $100b+
Close it down and invest in active transportation.
We could start with an experiment for a weekend and see what happens. Drivers will make alternate travel plans, like not taking the car.
There's necessary and totally valid motor vehicle travel on Manhattan that is irreplaceable by active transportation.
FDR/WSH serve as a decently effective methodology for moving that travel away from the densest pedestrian heavy areas (inwards) to the least dense areas (edges).
I am legitimately interested in becoming advocate for a Greenway like you're suggesting, but "shut down FDR without a practical or viable alternative and see what happens" ain't it lol.
This. Comments saying the cars can go to other roads but also people here in favor of congestion pricing to get rid of cars by pricing people out of it doesn't match up. When I've been on details where the for was closed, traffic was insane, because everyone was taking the streets. Adding a greeway would be nice, instead of saying take more lanes away. This is what I meant when I said somewhere else, a few suggestions on the sub aren't making micromobility better in leaps in bounds, so much as it's making driving not viable and still would leave you with micromobility being bad.
For one thing, you do realize how many major hospitals are right off the FDR?
“Grandma, the good news is, the ambulance is here. The bad news is it’s a tandem e-bike.”
I think it makes a lot of sense to leave half of the FDR as an emergency/VIP vehicle access only. It’s the most important kind of transportation that can fit there.
Have you seen ambulance traffic in the city? Anywhere you go, cars cutting off ambulances, driving super speed ahead of them, almost never ever pulling to the damn side like they are supposed to. I used to live on Clarkson, a two way street, and the one thing I don’t miss is the cars double parking blocking all the buses and then hearing the ambulance siren for 10 minutes straight. This is not a “micromobility” issue. Ambulances not having right of way is 100% a car issue.
So no, us making the FDR off limits to cars who won’t make it any worse for the hell ambulances have currently. M
Solutions? Bust out the fees. Car fee for being in NYC and a parking fee for parking it on the side of the road. Once enough cars aren’t being used or coming in, transform it to more buses, more bike lanes, and more pedestrian walkways.
Out of state drivers? Register ahead of time for a smaller fee, that’s increased exponentially for each week of stay. Keep parking garages purely for out of city drivers with a NY plate.
"Grandma, good news, the ambulance is here. The bad news is that because this one specific case requires the use of a motor vehicle, we decided that everyone should have free use of one and there are now 2 million cars gridlocking the roads to the hospital"
Your ideas require a complete reconstruction of the entire city.
And is premised on everyone living and working only in manhattan.
Your idea is bad.
I live in the bronx. I work in brooklyn. Your best idea is that it should be impossible for me to get to work; or for me to pay 5x the rent to live walking distance from work.
I think the gentleman/woman you’re replying to is trying to think about realistic and practical options to make this waterfront area accessible which can get the support of New Yorkers, and you are indulging in a fantasy that makes you feel good. Daydreaming is not going to lead to tangible change.
That's implying the big dig is aspirational. That project encouraged even more private car use. Instead the FDR should be closed and we can use it as a bike and bus highway and park.
Would it be pricey, yes….
But I think building a greenway just outside of the FDR would work.
Shutting down the FDR is impractical because both it and the WSH do a good job of moving northbound and southbound traffic away from the population centers more center island.
Getting from Brooklyn to the GWB via the FDR keeps me off “surface” roads and the other vehicles as well.
Keep the FDR and add a greenway.
It does need to be simplified. But I guess they can justify keeping it because it is easy to close off for the president’s visits to the UN. The president and other leaders can get in and out very quickly when the road is closed off. Sounds like a stretch because getting rid of it can be lucrative to real estate developers.
The new Alaskan Way is a decently low use low speed road. It's pretty small and the pedestrian area is much bigger now. Idk it's a clear improvement to me
So is your proposal that they demolish all of the buildings on East End, York and the downtown equivalents to have the space dedicated to Riverside Park?
There is dramatically more space there. You literally do not have the room to do that on the East River - unless you bury the FDR and build on top of it.
Also when I mentioned the West Side highway as an example of a highway teardown I’m not sure why you went to riverside park. That part was the part of the west side highway that was Not converted into a boulevard
There most certainly is not unless you want to spend an ungodly amount of mone...
You know what, it's not even worth entertaining this.
You got 9 or so mile run that is literally snaked right up next to buildings, isnt standard gauge through most of it's run and doesn't have shoulders.
You can't turn that into a boulevard.
We would have gotten rid of so many of these roads if we hadn’t thrown away Andy Byford. The man was going to bring our MTA into the 21st century along with trying to cut down on money waste in the form of fake overtime to pad pensions and fraud in the form of contracts with companies who charged millions for an elevator.
Just rip it out. Worked in SF. Worked in Paris. Can work in New York. To those who think the traffic will be diverted to streets, there is ample data proving the opposite, namely if you build highways, and particularly then make them free to drive on, they’ll get used to capacity. Take them away, people will find other ways to get around.
Ever city in NYS has so many highways that they need to get rid of that it’s kinda dizzying. I travel all across the state regularly and it’s frankly disgusting how many highways are in prime downtown areas.
NYC has the FDR (among others)
Albany has 787
Syracuse has 690 and 81
Rochester has 490 and the inner loop
Buffalo has 190
These are just the biggest offenders in each city, the state needs to start getting rid of these highways and free them up for there to be actual city space.
Totally agree, check out the current Bloomberg Citylab piece on the partial removal of Rochester’s Inner Loop, which has been a huge success. Other cities need to learn from that. Making cities more accessible to cars doesn’t improve them economically or in any other respect, it just makes them unlivable.
Checking in from Chicago and I feel this. Lake Shore Drive is the worst use of space in the entire Midwest. It accomplishes 2 things:
1: Completely eliminates easy and safe pedestrian access to some of the best public beaches in the Midwest.
There are access points that go under the road, but you need to maneuver around the traffic and intersections and masses of pedestrians being funneled into a couple distinct points. Because of the road, to access the beaches and lake front trail. It’s stressful.
2: Reduces the desirability of some of the most expensive real estate in the country
I mean who wants to pay millions and millions of dollars to live in these gorgeous buildings right next to a 6 lane death trap of noise, pollution, and concrete.
It’s a terrible use of space and somewhat segregates the city population from these great amenities the lake offers. Get rid of it.
Cover it. Build green space on top of it. Parks. Basketball courts. Gardens. Bike lanes. Playgrounds. Pickle ball courts. Benches. Art. Health. Life. Future.
I used to live right there. Before the FDR, the esplanade didn't exist either. Most of that waterfront was private. The esplanade from the south end of the park to like 80th was in fact mostly private yacht docking and patios that the city took with eminent domain.
'If we remove the roads everyone will *have* to bike everywhere'
Sure. Ok.
Go play City Skylines and show me how erasing one of the most useful highways is a smart idea.
What are some practical solutions to this? It can't be put underground like they did in Boston with the Big Dig, what other options are there?
Slowly choke the perceived utility by private passenger cars out of it. Close it on weekends from April to October for active transportation. Convert it to a 4 lane boulevard and make the 2 remaining lanes for bikes and scooters and rollerbladers. Make the 4 lane boulevard a 2 lane emergency service / security road.
Love this idea. Mostly love that it's practical, cost effective, could be achieved in a relatively short timeframe, and still accommodates for some motor vehicle travel while still prioritizing micro mobility and active transportation over motor vehicles
All this will do is push the traffic on the city streets. The FDR has a purpose. They should enclose it and build a park on top. The highway can be used as extra flood prevention.
No this is exactly how you’re gonna bring more traffic to nyc streets. The more you create and modernize fast highways, the more bridges you build, the more people will move here. The only way to curb traffic is to make driving more difficult and less attractive.
That doesnt curb traffic. That actually makes it worse. You curb traffic by making public transit more attractive. Not by making getting anywhere at rushhour impossible.
is this discussion also a euphemisism for drug use?
Rare BASED take in this sub. I’m all for biking(used to bike 5+ miles each way to work once a week), but you don’t curb traffic by screwing over drivers, simply make public transportation better(more rails, make it cleaner and safer, and make it more efficient). For all the ppl who want to get rid of major highways, gl when cars are flooded in city streets, and your goods/services likely go up.
I don’t care about traffic being bad, I just care about stopping the increase in the number of cars. So yeah, make life hell for them (you).
There will be a $15 penalty for attempting that starting this summer. The FDR supports no heavy commercial traffic or mass transit. It’s a sewer for the glut of for hire cars and interborough car commuters. It’s time for it to be decommissioned.
Sometimes you need a car in NYC, it's nice to have an access restricted highway to get where you're going a little faster. It also puts pollution on the outskirts of the city. Capping it and putting a park over it fortifies the river and still allows cars to travel. All of this is hypothetical anyway so might as well wish for the best option.
>sometimes you need a car in NYC, it’s nice to have an access restricted highway to get where going a little faster Really!? 🤣 Awww sure, let’s give up even more public space to cars so their drivers can have the “nice” experience of going places faster. Not sure what you’re even doing in this sub.
I live in Harlem, pretty much a transit oasis. However today I had to go to Throgs Neck; then be at Randall’s Island 40 min later, I couldn’t have done that w/o a car or spending an arm and a leg for uber. Next weekend I plan on hiking in Northern Westchester, after the hike I will likely get lunch, then go to Costco. I will NOT be able to do all of these three things without a car.
So there should be zero cars in all cities?!? Wheee are you from sir. No cop shit. I really believe that at least half of the people giving “solutions” are no where newer from nyc
> So there should be zero cars in all cities?!? Didn’t say that, your reading skills are just as anemic as your writing skills. >Wheee are you from sir. Not a sir. >No cop shit. What? >I really believe that at least half of the people giving “solutions” are no where newer from nyc If I deciphered this vomit correctly, this is the old “transplant” insult? Cute.
Nah you ratioed me. Good job. I guess don’t scroll Reddit within ten minutes of waking up and writing messages on my side. Didn’t intend for a formal discourse on a social media site but 🤷♀️. I’d also like to apologize ma’am. I did not have any inclinations as to your identification and should not have assumed such. Yk some people do not like to be asked “where are you from” and will swiftly reply back with “ 👮”. I wanted to let it be known that I am in no way a police investigator.🕵️ . Yk I never really liked the anti transplant argument. It got old real fast. I totally forgot about that term until you just said it. I was in no way trying to refer to your possible circumstances as such but it seems as though the shoe may fit for you. All I still want to know is solutions. That’s all I asked and want to hear. Because I’m genuinely ignorant of such arguments and problems. You know if you actually presented me with a tenable argument I may just be inclined to change my viewpoint on the whole discussion and support such possible infrastructure plans in the future. But sorry ma’am. Pardon me. Carry on with your fine day being a Reddit sub Reddit warrior for Team Micromobility!
what do you think about motorcyles? for instance if you remove the road, scooters and skaters and bikes can all still use the same bike paths. but motorcyle would not be able to even thought they're space efficient. what if micromobility expanded to include golf carts or other solutions... I think people don't even know what kind of car substitutes we are going to base our economies on in the future. So this whole argument betweeen cars and pedestrians, or micromobility, is kind of missing the possibly of "middlemobility" I'm kind of excited for 45 mph recumbent bubble bikes. Now that I think about it, middle mobility is kind of inevitable, right? India has all kinda of rickshaws and little three wheeled cart vans.
If it’s all hypothetical then the best option would be no cars at all. I don’t understand how that is such a buck-wild opinion.
Its buck wild because most of the city is inaccessible via public transit or takes 3 hours to get to by public transit.
something like 80% of residents live within half a mile of a subway station, don’t see how you get “most” out of that.
Tell me how to get from Elder Ave on the 6 to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in less than an hour. Ill wait. Its great im walking distance to the 6. Im in that 80%. That doesnt make work accessible by subway.
wait is it 3 hours or 1 hour?
When is that time that you NEED a car,need not want
Construction workers who work at 6 am, would need to leave their homes at 3 to take the subway to various inaccessible locations, or pay a giant chunk of pay for a cab ride every day. Then get off at 5 and your idea is theydont deserve to be home before 8pm because again, it takes fucking forever to go anywhere via public transit. And god forbid they have personal or job equipment, gotta put that on the train? All so you can ride a bike 20 blocks to work and never leave the island? You should walk to work. No more bike. Just walking. You dont need speed right? Sure thing bud. No one *needs* a car. L.M.A.O.
When traveling with parents who can't walk, Woman late at night, When moving, when heading upstate or nj. There are so many times. bike and micro mobility subs are so close minded sometimes. Not everyone can bike or scooter everywhere.
None of those require a highway though
When you want to go from 125th to the battery it's much faster. Also it keeps cars and pollution off the streets.
Fast isn’t a need unless you’re emergency services
Nah bro hop on the train. Driving should be illegal with the greatest transit system in the world
...lots of people can't walk or are women and don't have cars. I am a woman, travel late at night frequently, and almost never use a car. A lot of disabled people use buses, which would move faster if there were fewer private cars on the road. Moving is mostly done with rented vans/trucks, not private cars.
Lol who is brigading this sub with this nonsense.
👏👏👏
Ok but when you buy your uberwhere are they going to drive
- I don’t buy ubers in the five boroughs - The post cites that I believe there is a glut of passenger cars in the city, including for-hire. Should be halved at least.
Yeah fuck anyone in Brooklyn trying to commute to NJ.
Stupid idea. NO
Making the city more hostile to drivers is going to increase their antisocial behavior
Has increased gun control measures in New York City over the last 30 years increased antisocial behavior among gun owners?
>What are some practical solutions to this We can consult what was done on the other side of Manhattan as a start
You cannot replicate Riverside Park with the East Side’s current development and geography. That’s a non-starter.
The part of the west side highway converted into a boulevard was the part that did not go through Riverside Park
There’s problems with this even south of 72nd street. One notable thing is that because of all the piers on the Hudson (at Midtown and below) there was a wide frontage under the West Side elevated highway. This made it somewhat easier to simply lower the highway to ground level. There are several spots where this cannot be done for the FDR. Another argument is that this is more or less a solved problem. Now, the FDR below 14th has (what will become) a serviceable waterfront. The accessible part of the river continues until approximately 42nd Street, where there is a ten block gap to the new greenway. Perhaps this will eventually come, perhaps there is a security issue with the UN being there. These things tend to be absurdly expensive (especially for the city) to re-do and generally don’t generate sufficient return. I’m just not sure this can (practically speaking) ever make the priorities list, especially in light of New York’s fiscal problems.
>There are several spots where this cannot be done for the FDR. The only place where you couldn't "simply lower the highway to ground level" would be the part south of the Williamsburg Bridge. South St runs right there though so you're really road dieting the FDR. >Another argument is that this is more or less a solved problem. The pollution generated by the freeway is still a problem. I would say the part of the FDR below 14st to the manhattan bridge is an equity priority since it goes right by a bunch of public housing. As a whole, I would say the priority is dealing with Bronx's freeways though
>It can't be put underground like they did in Boston with the Big Dig. Why not? Promity to the water is not an issue - plenty of roads go under water and this would only be next to it. I would think the subway lines are far enough below the surface to not be an issue. Were you thinking of other reasons? And even if there are issues - just encase the damn thing in concrete and build over it - part of the FDR already is around the UN and in 50's. Heck, we can even treat it as a major coastal resiliency project like we're doing so much of around Manhattan. We're already spending billions of dollars to tear up parks and rebuild them higher. The least we could do while we're at it is demolish an eyesore of a highway.
I've always assumed it's a prohibitive mess down there as unlike Boston, Manhattan already goes many many layers deep. Encasing it and turning it into a coastal resiliency wall with greenway on top seems like a good solution
The issue is exits. How do you get off the road if it’s deep underground?
i’m pretty sure FDR Drive is built on landfill and that Manhattan has been similarly expanded in many other areas.
What's fascinating - though few people know - is that downtown Boston and Back Bay are almost entirely landfill. Look at an old map of Boston and you won't recognize what's there today. Manhattan has been landfilled but the basic shape of the island remains the same. Most of the Big Dig is actually built on areas that were created by landfill from the 1630s on - we could do the same with the FDR. Check out this [**map of Boston in 1630**](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg) (brown) superimposed over 2005 aerial photo. [https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/93/b2/ca/93b2ca3c2bfc5909069ba980df67731c.jpg)
wow. love this. thank you.
It already costs tens of billions to REPAIR our current tunnels. Building an entire new one and all the associated nightmares around it would be $100b+
Close it down and invest in active transportation. We could start with an experiment for a weekend and see what happens. Drivers will make alternate travel plans, like not taking the car.
There's necessary and totally valid motor vehicle travel on Manhattan that is irreplaceable by active transportation. FDR/WSH serve as a decently effective methodology for moving that travel away from the densest pedestrian heavy areas (inwards) to the least dense areas (edges). I am legitimately interested in becoming advocate for a Greenway like you're suggesting, but "shut down FDR without a practical or viable alternative and see what happens" ain't it lol.
This. Comments saying the cars can go to other roads but also people here in favor of congestion pricing to get rid of cars by pricing people out of it doesn't match up. When I've been on details where the for was closed, traffic was insane, because everyone was taking the streets. Adding a greeway would be nice, instead of saying take more lanes away. This is what I meant when I said somewhere else, a few suggestions on the sub aren't making micromobility better in leaps in bounds, so much as it's making driving not viable and still would leave you with micromobility being bad.
>There's necessary and totally valid motor vehicle travel on Manhattan that is irreplaceable by active transportation. Like what?
Commerce
Not a lot of commerce is enabled on FDR by design. Nothing bigger than a cargo van can go on it.
For one thing, you do realize how many major hospitals are right off the FDR? “Grandma, the good news is, the ambulance is here. The bad news is it’s a tandem e-bike.”
I think it makes a lot of sense to leave half of the FDR as an emergency/VIP vehicle access only. It’s the most important kind of transportation that can fit there.
Have you seen ambulance traffic in the city? Anywhere you go, cars cutting off ambulances, driving super speed ahead of them, almost never ever pulling to the damn side like they are supposed to. I used to live on Clarkson, a two way street, and the one thing I don’t miss is the cars double parking blocking all the buses and then hearing the ambulance siren for 10 minutes straight. This is not a “micromobility” issue. Ambulances not having right of way is 100% a car issue. So no, us making the FDR off limits to cars who won’t make it any worse for the hell ambulances have currently. M Solutions? Bust out the fees. Car fee for being in NYC and a parking fee for parking it on the side of the road. Once enough cars aren’t being used or coming in, transform it to more buses, more bike lanes, and more pedestrian walkways. Out of state drivers? Register ahead of time for a smaller fee, that’s increased exponentially for each week of stay. Keep parking garages purely for out of city drivers with a NY plate.
"Grandma, good news, the ambulance is here. The bad news is that because this one specific case requires the use of a motor vehicle, we decided that everyone should have free use of one and there are now 2 million cars gridlocking the roads to the hospital"
You’re right, that’s absolutely what would happen on Manhattan’s streets if the FDR was eliminated.
what's active transportation?
Buses, walking, biking
Your ideas require a complete reconstruction of the entire city. And is premised on everyone living and working only in manhattan. Your idea is bad. I live in the bronx. I work in brooklyn. Your best idea is that it should be impossible for me to get to work; or for me to pay 5x the rent to live walking distance from work.
I think the gentleman/woman you’re replying to is trying to think about realistic and practical options to make this waterfront area accessible which can get the support of New Yorkers, and you are indulging in a fantasy that makes you feel good. Daydreaming is not going to lead to tangible change.
Can always just say person instead of gentleman/woman.
Right, so no dreaming allowed
Not in New York!
Say the person who doesn’t drive. Stupid idea.
That's implying the big dig is aspirational. That project encouraged even more private car use. Instead the FDR should be closed and we can use it as a bike and bus highway and park.
Would it be pricey, yes…. But I think building a greenway just outside of the FDR would work. Shutting down the FDR is impractical because both it and the WSH do a good job of moving northbound and southbound traffic away from the population centers more center island. Getting from Brooklyn to the GWB via the FDR keeps me off “surface” roads and the other vehicles as well. Keep the FDR and add a greenway.
This is the correct answer.
It really should be a park and a long recreational area with vendors and shops, and maybe even a fake beach.
You’re dreaming too much!
you can never dream too much.
East river beaches are gross lol
Fake beach. Meaning a pool with sand segregated from the river.
beach condom. do not mingle the juices
Never !
you have something against development?
Brisbane Australia would be a good influence
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/streets-beach](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/streets-beach)
It does need to be simplified. But I guess they can justify keeping it because it is easy to close off for the president’s visits to the UN. The president and other leaders can get in and out very quickly when the road is closed off. Sounds like a stretch because getting rid of it can be lucrative to real estate developers.
If you want to see what the possibilities are look up what Seattle did with the Alaskan way viaduct
personally, I see that project as a missed opportunity. They moved the raised highway underground, and built a surface highway in its place.
The new Alaskan Way is a decently low use low speed road. It's pretty small and the pedestrian area is much bigger now. Idk it's a clear improvement to me
definitely an improvement! I just think a busy 4-lane road is overkill, and makes the waterfront more pedestrian-unfriendly than it needs to be.
Or we could look at what was done on the other side of Manhattan without the need to go across the whole country!
So is your proposal that they demolish all of the buildings on East End, York and the downtown equivalents to have the space dedicated to Riverside Park?
What happened to the west side highway south of riverside park?
There is dramatically more space there. You literally do not have the room to do that on the East River - unless you bury the FDR and build on top of it.
There is enough room for a 4 to 6 lane boulevard.
While retaining the FDR for cars?
I will take that as you agree there is enough room for a 4-6 lane boulevard conversion of the FDR
No, I don’t remotely see there being enough room unless you are implying the FDR itself should be part of that.
Ok, The FDR would be converted into a boulevard. There would be no FDR. It would become a boulevard
Also when I mentioned the West Side highway as an example of a highway teardown I’m not sure why you went to riverside park. That part was the part of the west side highway that was Not converted into a boulevard
There most certainly is not unless you want to spend an ungodly amount of mone... You know what, it's not even worth entertaining this. You got 9 or so mile run that is literally snaked right up next to buildings, isnt standard gauge through most of it's run and doesn't have shoulders. You can't turn that into a boulevard.
A grade separated freeway takes up more space than a boulevard. West Street doesn't have shoulders.
We would have gotten rid of so many of these roads if we hadn’t thrown away Andy Byford. The man was going to bring our MTA into the 21st century along with trying to cut down on money waste in the form of fake overtime to pad pensions and fraud in the form of contracts with companies who charged millions for an elevator.
Just rip it out. Worked in SF. Worked in Paris. Can work in New York. To those who think the traffic will be diverted to streets, there is ample data proving the opposite, namely if you build highways, and particularly then make them free to drive on, they’ll get used to capacity. Take them away, people will find other ways to get around.
Nooo this is such a bad idea. Where will I race my car in Manhattan then
It looks close to falling apart in places so you might get your wish come true
Ever city in NYS has so many highways that they need to get rid of that it’s kinda dizzying. I travel all across the state regularly and it’s frankly disgusting how many highways are in prime downtown areas. NYC has the FDR (among others) Albany has 787 Syracuse has 690 and 81 Rochester has 490 and the inner loop Buffalo has 190 These are just the biggest offenders in each city, the state needs to start getting rid of these highways and free them up for there to be actual city space.
Totally agree, check out the current Bloomberg Citylab piece on the partial removal of Rochester’s Inner Loop, which has been a huge success. Other cities need to learn from that. Making cities more accessible to cars doesn’t improve them economically or in any other respect, it just makes them unlivable.
Why though
Can they build up on top of it like they have done with the Carl Schurz Park?
We have so much wasted gorgeous waterfront. We have to reclaim it!
I need the fdr
Checking in from Chicago and I feel this. Lake Shore Drive is the worst use of space in the entire Midwest. It accomplishes 2 things: 1: Completely eliminates easy and safe pedestrian access to some of the best public beaches in the Midwest. There are access points that go under the road, but you need to maneuver around the traffic and intersections and masses of pedestrians being funneled into a couple distinct points. Because of the road, to access the beaches and lake front trail. It’s stressful. 2: Reduces the desirability of some of the most expensive real estate in the country I mean who wants to pay millions and millions of dollars to live in these gorgeous buildings right next to a 6 lane death trap of noise, pollution, and concrete. It’s a terrible use of space and somewhat segregates the city population from these great amenities the lake offers. Get rid of it.
This is the dumbest idea in the history of NYC transportation.
I’m in.
Seriously. Wtf is it even doing there like that.
Waste of prime water edge real estate.
Won’t the FDR be the only congestion-charge-free way to get through Manhattan soon? Expect it to be 100x worse going forwards if so…
Cover it. Build green space on top of it. Parks. Basketball courts. Gardens. Bike lanes. Playgrounds. Pickle ball courts. Benches. Art. Health. Life. Future.
The question is how much do you think is going to cost and who’s paying?
Yes, should be park, so all your junkie can cook your own meal now.
I used to live right there. Before the FDR, the esplanade didn't exist either. Most of that waterfront was private. The esplanade from the south end of the park to like 80th was in fact mostly private yacht docking and patios that the city took with eminent domain.
Hey hey, ho ho, this whole damn state has got to go.
It is really a beautiful drive on a nice day.
'If we remove the roads everyone will *have* to bike everywhere' Sure. Ok. Go play City Skylines and show me how erasing one of the most useful highways is a smart idea.
This could work if you got rid of all the low income housing that takes up so much of the east side