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^Well, as I mentioned earlier, the huge "post-Panamax" container ships coming in now are EXACTLY the reason the Bayonne roadway needed to be raised. If not, they will go to other eastern ports that can accommodate them.
However, that has nothing to do with the Hudson, as you pointed out. The container ships are going to Port Elizabeth and Port Newark, not Manhattan.
I feel the same way. We should have rail all over the place in the northeast. Our trains should be faster and it should be easier to get to destinations by rail.
We used to build stuff in this country.
China will own us all and take over the world.
We *did* have rail service all over the northeast. Post WWII between federal/local government strangling the RR's and consumers switching to automobiles ROWs were abandoned and or RRs went bankrupt.
Now of course everyone wants to put back what is gone, but local residents who are quite happy with *NOT* having trains will put up a fight.
For instance there was a ROW between NYC and Boston that is further inland and faster than the current Shoreline of the old New Haven (now Amtrak). As want for the times NH and other forces put the thing out of business. Now Amtrak is looking into reactivating the line as part of bringing HSR between NYC and Boston. Since the ROW is further inland and much straighter than the current shoreline tracks trains could run faster and also not suffer as many weather related issues.
However Connecticut locals aren't having any of it, so it looks as if nothing will ever happen.
^Well, as I mentioned earlier, the huge "post-Panamax" container ships coming in now are EXACTLY the reason the Bayonne roadway needed to be raised. If not, they will go to other eastern ports that can accommodate them.
However, that has nothing to do with the Hudson, as you pointed out. The container ships are going to Port Elizabeth and Port Newark, not Manhattan.
However again like Robert Moses's LOMAX highway and bridge system for lower Manhattan, forget it. If anyone thinks the residents of Manhattan below Hell's Kitchen and certainly Chelsea, West Village and Tribeca put up a stink when RM tried to shove a highway and bridge down there, think what would happen today?
Far West Side of Manhattan has become home to some of the most valuable real estate in NYC. Anyone who thinks owners are going to let NYS or anyone else take their property without a fight is mistaken.
Then you have the fact people live down there, and more are coming yearly, especially as the Hudson Yards becomes a reality. Traffic on the west side is bad enough with the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, no one is going to stand for piling on with a new bridge.
However again like Robert Moses's LOMAX highway and bridge system for lower Manhattan, forget it. If anyone thinks the residents of Manhattan below Hell's Kitchen and certainly Chelsea, West Village and Tribeca put up a stink when RM tried to shove a highway and bridge down there, think what would happen today?
Far West Side of Manhattan has become home to some of the most valuable real estate in NYC. Anyone who thinks owners are going to let NYS or anyone else take their property without a fight is mistaken.
Then you have the fact people live down there, and more are coming yearly, especially as the Hudson Yards becomes a reality. Traffic on the west side is bad enough with the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, no one is going to stand for piling on with a new bridge.
The maximum slope on most bridges is about 6-7 degrees, to avoid trucks or busses bottoming out. You also can't have a slope change across the Hudson demanding that tall boats go over to one side. That's literally not how river traffic patterns work. Telling Cunard Line that we're sorry their boat is out of service for six months because the currents got tricky isn't something we can do.
But your big trouble is that slope. From 212 feet you need 2,017' in a straight line, about eight street blocks. Make that into a helix and then you're really starting to crunch real estate in Manhattan, because you still have the existing lead ins from the other tunnels. You're making it sound like just moving the West Side Highway is a simple process.
Your basic stumbling block is Robert Moses. He really ****ed up imaging big projects because he destroyed social communities without concern making communities much more vocal in the process and less willing to go along with gigantic projects like this at the expense of people's homes.
People have been debating this idea for years and frankly, it's too late. That property is worth far too much for this to happen, period. You can continue to argue it but it's never going to happen.
Tend to agree. The whole idea is likely something that would send the NIMBYs into orbit as well, building some collossal bridge over top of everybody like that. I don't deny it would work damn well though. Hell I'd add a 4th level for car and truck traffic and basically extend I-495 all the way across to I-95 in Secaucus if we are really dreaming. People in the Bronx and Staten Island would definitely benefit. We all know how unusable 278 and 95 are at the wrong time of day.
People like to look at bridges, walk on them, drive on them.
No one likes to walk thru a tunnel
Why not build one new NY-NJ bridge -- the size of the GW.
And then use the lincoln tunnel for train traffic.
If the Bridge is 2 levels, that gets 12-16 lanes -- better than the 6 lanes the tunnel provides
And then it would add 6 train tracks -- allowing the fixing up of the existing 2 tracks, to get 8 NJ Transit
tracks.
I'm guessing the cost of redirecting Penn Station trains to Lincoln tunnel + building a bridge and redirecting roads to it would be a small fraction of the cost of building a new tunnel, while also giving the above benefits. Also I'm guessing it would take less time to do this.
Or is this a much harder thing to do then I'm imagining?
It seems like the Holland tunnel would be a better candidate for that type of repurposing. Knocking out the Lincoln would be a traffic disaster.
It seems like the Holland tunnel would be a better candidate for that type of repurposing. Knocking out the Lincoln would be a traffic disaster.
Automotive tunnels and rail tunnels are not built to the same specifications. You can't just swap rail into an automotive tunnel. I doubt it can handle the weight/loads, train cars weigh up to 286,000lbs, much more than the weight a car or truck puts on the same surface area.
To add to that, NJ Transit's locomotives won't fit in the Holland or Lincoln Tunnels, nor will any of the bi-level railcars. The single-level cars *might* clear it, but if they do it'd barely fit. Maybe you could run subway cars.
It seems like the Holland tunnel would be a better candidate for that type of repurposing. Knocking out the Lincoln would be a traffic disaster.
Knocking out the Holland for rail, which couldn't happen anyway as has been explained, would also cause a traffic disaster. The Lincoln has more traffic, but have you never seen the backup for the Holland at rush hours? Where would they all go?
Not to mention what you would do with the trains once they got into lower Manhattan...
If the GWB had the original rail ROW as planned this whole conversation would be moot.
Back then it would have been easier to run ROW on both the NJ and NY sides, but no instead another level for vehicle traffic was added instead.
It was a time when cars ruled. Gasoline was cheap and was never going to run out!
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