Should the Port Authority of NY/NJ build a new span across the Hudson

[Don Brown]

Should the Port Authority build a new bridge or tunnel to connect from Manhattan to West NY in NJ to relieve congestion to and from the city on the existing tunnels and the GWB? Any thoughts?

[B35 via Church]

Is there a need for another Hudson river crossing between NYC & NJ? Yes, absolutely.....

Problem is there's not much of any real estate for a bridge or a tunnel... Where are you putting a bridge or a tunnel approach on the NJ side?

[Don Brown]

Perhaps to connect it to the NJ turnpike. Make a new freeway to connect it all to 42nd or 59th street.

[Deucey]

On 1/24/2021 at 7:36 PM, Don Brown said:

Perhaps to connect it to the NJ turnpike. Make a new freeway to connect it all to 42nd or 59th street.

So we’re having it touch down where in Manhattan without destroying all that high price Westside real estate? And because of the angle needed to build it and still let cargo ships pass under, it’s not touching down until 9th-10th Av. 

Same with the tunnel - but now you’ve got queues of traffic like at Canal Street with the Holland Tunnel. Rich folks on the Westside won’t like that.

[B35 via Church]

On 1/24/2021 at 7:36 PM, Don Brown said:

Perhaps to connect it to the NJ turnpike. Make a new freeway to connect it all to 42nd or 59th street.

Directly? Lol.... You're not Pulaski Skyway-ing anything into Manhattan, bud......

12 hours ago, Deucey said:

So we’re having it touch down where in Manhattan without destroying all that high price Westside real estate? And because of the angle needed to build it and still let cargo ships pass under, it’s not touching down until 9th-10th Av. 

Same with the tunnel - but now you’ve got queues of traffic like at Canal Street with the Holland Tunnel. Rich folks on the Westside won’t like that.

Exacerbating gridlock by way of induced demand.... Exactly.

[Deucey]

20 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Exacerbating gridlock by way of induced demand.... Exactly.

I do feel like DOT should’ve built some version of the Mid-Manhattan and Lower Manhattan Expressways just to make a faster connection to LI that avoided local streets, but I’m glad it never happened since induced demand would’ve made air quality and congestion much worse than what we have now.

Also, I would’ve been okay with it if that 9/11 LMDC money made West St into an actual Westside Highway down to the FDR as a proper Manhattan Ring Road, or into a real Michigan-style trunk road with Michigan Lefts (left turns as U-turns after the intersection), but we are where we are, and it was more cost effective to destroy the decrepit and closed viaduct and build a proper boulevard.

Now it has me wondering about the feasibility of building a MNRR spur past Penn down to FiDi using West Street for the viaduct - as a traffic and pollution reduction measure.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Deucey

[R10 2952]

Way back in the early 19th century, the first iteration of the West Side rail line ran at street level all the way down to Lower Manhattan, ending in the vicinity of Chambers and Hudson Streets.  The line was cut back to a terminal at St. John's Park after the Civil War, and then elevated in the 1930s and rerouted to a purpose-built freight station on the new High Line.  Personally, I always wondered why no consideration was given back in those days to running passenger service on the rail viaduct.

Would have loved to see the line resurrected for some useful transportation purpose instead of conversion into a park, but the railroad demolishing the line below 14th Street in the 1960s made it functionally useless after that point- I'm actually surprised the northern half lasted in freight service until the '80s.

Edited February 2, 2021 by R10 2952

[N6 Limited]

I'd like to see a tunnel from Queens (or Brooklyn - Red Hook/BQE) direct to NJ. No one actually wants to drive through Manhattan, it's just in a central location.

 

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 1/24/2021 at 9:35 AM, Don Brown said:

Should the Port Authority build a new bridge or tunnel to connect from Manhattan to West NY in NJ to relieve congestion to and from the city on the existing tunnels and the GWB? Any thoughts?

If it carries trains - and not cars/SUVs/trucks - then yes!

Edited March 8, 2021 by T to Dyre Avenue

[bobtehpanda]

On 2/1/2021 at 10:58 AM, Deucey said:

I do feel like DOT should’ve built some version of the Mid-Manhattan and Lower Manhattan Expressways just to make a faster connection to LI that avoided local streets, but I’m glad it never happened since induced demand would’ve made air quality and congestion much worse than what we have now.

Also, I would’ve been okay with it if that 9/11 LMDC money made West St into an actual Westside Highway down to the FDR as a proper Manhattan Ring Road, or into a real Michigan-style trunk road with Michigan Lefts (left turns as U-turns after the intersection), but we are where we are, and it was more cost effective to destroy the decrepit and closed viaduct and build a proper boulevard.

Now it has me wondering about the feasibility of building a MNRR spur past Penn down to FiDi using West Street for the viaduct - as a traffic and pollution reduction measure.

The BQE is supposed to be the ring. I don't know that we need a much more inner ring than that.

The Belt is supposed to be another ring.

And the last ring was supposed to be 287, but Long Island has NIMBYed every attempt at a Sound Crossing. Both the highways on either end to complete it more or less exist, though.

[N6 Limited]

On 4/19/2021 at 12:54 PM, bobtehpanda said:

The BQE is supposed to be the ring. I don't know that we need a much more inner ring than that.

The Belt is supposed to be another ring.

And the last ring was supposed to be 287, but Long Island has NIMBYed every attempt at a Sound Crossing. Both the highways on either end to complete it more or less exist, though.

Are we sure it's NIMBYs blocking a Sound Crossing and not MTA Bridge and Tunnels? 

[bobtehpanda]

4 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

Are we sure it's NIMBYs blocking a Sound Crossing and not MTA Bridge and Tunnels? 

If the MTA could build a new tolled crossing they'd jump at the chance.

The Sound Crossing was a Moses project originally, and Bridge and Tunnels is just the TBTA.

[N6 Limited]

6 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

If the MTA could build a new tolled crossing they'd jump at the chance.

The Sound Crossing was a Moses project originally, and Bridge and Tunnels is just the TBTA.

Wouldn’t a sound crossing connecting I-287 to NY135 be out of the MTA’s Jurisdiction, like the Tappan Zee?  It would probably be an extension of the NYS Thruway.

[bobtehpanda]

19 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

Wouldn’t a sound crossing connecting I-287 to NY135 be out of the MTA’s Jurisdiction, like the Tappan Zee?  It would probably be an extension of the NYS Thruway.

Both Westchester and Nassau are in the MTA's jurisdiction. Or rather they're not outside of it.

The Tappan Zee's thing is to avoid the rule of Hudson river crossings and to avoid the Port Authority's jurisdiction.

[46Dover]

On 4/23/2021 at 6:42 PM, bobtehpanda said:

Both Westchester and Nassau are in the MTA's jurisdiction. Or rather they're not outside of it.

The Tappan Zee's thing is to avoid the rule of Hudson river crossings and to avoid the Port Authority's jurisdiction.

I thought PA had a wide range of coverage to include the Tappan Zee or am I wrong?

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, 46Dover said:

I thought PA had a wide range of coverage to include the Tappan Zee or am I wrong?

No, the PA has 25 miles within the statue of Liberty. The Tappan Zee is just outside that range at 27.

[46Dover]

3 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

No, the PA has 25 miles within the statue of Liberty. The Tappan Zee is just outside that range at 27.

Ohhh.  That is close

[GojiMet86]

2 hours ago, 46Dover said:

Ohhh.  That is close

Intentional, so that the revenue would go to the state and not the Port Authority. Same reason (or one of the reasons) why it was built at the widest point of the river. You don't build bridges at the widest points.

[46Dover]

So jurisdiction is marked from the Statute of Liberty.  I had always thought it was the World Trade Center from the distance markers on the old PATH Map Guides back in the 80s.  It had lines marking distances from WTC complete with the entire NJT system

[bobtehpanda]

34 minutes ago, 46Dover said:

So jurisdiction is marked from the Statute of Liberty.  I had always thought it was the World Trade Center from the distance markers on the old PATH Map Guides back in the 80s.  It had lines marking distances from WTC complete with the entire NJT system

Huh.

But yeah, the PA is from the 1920s, and WTC didn't exist back then,

[Deucey]

On 4/25/2021 at 1:16 PM, 46Dover said:

So jurisdiction is marked from the Statute of Liberty.  I had always thought it was the World Trade Center from the distance markers on the old PATH Map Guides back in the 80s.  It had lines marking distances from WTC complete with the entire NJT system

That 25 mile radius is how Chris Christie got PA to pay for the Pulaski Skyway retrofit - calling it a port approach road.

Interesting thing I read somewhere was that the VZ was supposed to be a PA bridge by the same logic - but leased to TBTA, but TBTA "bought it" and that's why it's a  bridge today.