Category: Uncategorized (page 5 of 7)

New York City’s public transportation system is always facing repairs, train traffic, rerouting problem, and delays. Some subway cars are dirty, old, and can be extremely inconvenient, but when looking at other cities, it isn’t as bad as we think. Though it might be slow, and dangerous at night, it allows citizens of the city to get almost anywhere they need to. Cars may be quicker, but not always when you account for traffic jams, and they’re only a luxury here. I agreed with the proposal for a system of tolls that attempts to minimize car usage, and update and expand the subway system, but I don’t think that this goal of a better public transit system should be a weapon in competition with other world cities. Trams and underground trains in other places may be more efficient or cleaner than our subways, but the crowdedness and grit is all part of the honest experience.

Despite this, New York’s transit could use an update. By trying to reduce car traffic and therefore, its environmental impact, Move NY also creates a more natural system that pushes for a higher efficiency route for toll collection. As a result of these larger yields, the city has more money to invest in a faster, more reliable, and more accessible, system of public transit for citizens living in suburban areas in outer boroughs.

I think Move NY is a great plan for New York and a looks toward the future. It is a more responsible, efficient, and environmentally friendly idea that NYC should be proud to accept. Even though it isn’t completely necessary in the competition between us and other global cities, being a testing ground for innovation on a large scale is something unique to New York and something that we as a city should be actively seeking rather than trying to push away. So, I support the ideas that were presented by our guest speaker last Wednesday, I just don’t completely agree with a small part of the reasoning, or advertising of the project.

The streets and transportation infrastructure of New York are in need of improvement. The streets of Midtown are consistently crowded and so are the subways to and from that area of the city. I commute from Queens to Manhattan daily using the A train and I often find myself struggling to fit in the carriage during rush hours. My daily commute lacks timeliness, comfort, and sometimes, safety. When “Gridlock Sam,” presented his Move NY plan, I was amazed. The plan really seemed faster, safer, and fairer for the denizens of New York City.

Sam Schwartz’s Move NY plan is supposed to make commuting in New York faster, generate jobs to maintain infrastructure, and create new mass transit routes. Although I like the Move NY plan, I am skeptical about it’s success if it were to be carried out. I strongly believe that by the time the Move NY plan can be carried out in it’s entirety, it will no longer be the best way to control congestion in New York. Reductions in congestion on the roads or in the subways as a result of the plan can attract more people, and the mass transit systems in place are already insufficient to serve the current population. In my opinion, the infrastructure necessary to expand mass transit will take too long to build and there is simply no guarantee that mass transit services will improve. I don’t think this plan could keep up with New York and its growing population.

-Yashoma Boodhan

Every day, the effects of Robert Moses’ expansive traffic structures can be seen and felt by New Yorkers. Drivers struggle to gain speed on city streets and bridges and tunnels are hubs of congestion, but it is not just those commuters who face traffic problems. Even those who utilize public transport are constantly stalled; they are not bumper-to-bumper, but body-to-body, packed into subway cars that cannot handle the large crowds of today’s New York City. Sam Schwartz’ MoveNY initiative seems to have a solution to this problem.

By reanalyzing out-dated tolling systems and rethinking the budget for transportation, there may be solace for New Yorkers who want to shorten their commute time. I thought that the idea of using the two-rule system for changing toll rates was ingenious. Places of high congestion with options for public transit are most contributing to problems of congestion and pollution, and therefore should be tolled. Currently, there are many high-traffic areas of the city which have low, or no, tolls. However, places where there is a lower volume of travelers or no public transport most require the bridges and tunnels, and therefore should have little to no cost. This common sense ideology runs through much of the MoveNY plan, and the revenue from this system could seriously help New York. With opportunities for expanded public transport, whether in trains or buses, or amenities like pedestrian bridges, “green” travel alternatives would be encouraged, further decreasing the harmful and stressful congestion of today.

Casey Sniffin

Move NYC seems to be an excellent first step in the vital process of securing funding for New York city transit. No one can deny that our current transit system is overstressed, and as our population continues to grow, improvements will become even more necessary. I am intrigued by the idea of new train lines and even those awesome foot bridges we all saw displayed. The possibility of walking from New Jersey to Manhattan would be a game changer in the way local residents think about commuting, and allow greater access between New York City and Hoboken, which is almost a sixth borough at this point. (It probably won’t herald in a new dawn of peace and cooperation between the two states, but if there was ever a time when the costal centers needed to hang together, this is it.)

However, restructuring our toll collection can only be the start. Critics predict that the new system could discourage car use, which could increase subway dependence before repairs are possible. This could mean a few years of rough transit and very crowded train cars. Though, in the long run, our tech will simply have to be rehauled, it might end up happening during a spike in transit use due to new toll policies. Of course, as populations grow, we may end up in an identical situation a few years down the road, and without Move NYC, the city will have no plan to finance repairs. If a transit meltdown is coming, “Gridlock Sam’s” proposal may be worth a few years of uncomfortable service. Of course, the main issue is simply the possibility that much of the funds raised by the plan will “disappear” into the tangled, corrupt, bureaucratic sludge that is local government. There would need to be a plan to safeguard the funds raised, and to ensure that they are not high jacked by rival projects. A third quibble of mine is that Move NYC makes no mention of reduced car pool rates, which I think would incentivize commuters to use their cars more efficiently.

All things considered, Move NYC is a clear improvement of the current system, and will provide the kinds of funds which NYC desperately needs. Given the unlikelihood of federal support during this administration, especially considering our sanctuary city status, we need funds NOW, and this plan will get them.

Though the MoveNY movement seems to be at bit of a gridlock itself at the moment, I remain hopeful for its eventual support by our lawmakers. What is troubling is that a plan as sensible as reducing tolls where there is less traffic and raising them where there is plenty, is the subject of debate. It makes me think that those opposed to the plan do not see the revenue going to more reliable and far reaching subways or maybe a free-flowing midtown cab commute, like I do.

What I wish Sam would have discussed more with us about his book. I believe he said that it would be called Street Smart and focus on automated vehicles. I have been interested in this field for a good bit of time, being that my father his heavily involved in it. As an engineer, my father has become known as the “father of connected vehicles”.  He was the first in the country over 20 years ago to propose using connected vehicles and connected infrastructure to automate vehicles and improve vehicle safety. At Virginia Tech, he founded the Smart Road where he designed the facility for testing automated vehicles and concepts.  While equalling and fairly evaluating tolls seems like the first necessary step for proper traffic flow in the city, automated vehicles seem like the most important step that will hopefully come soon.

At the moment, I am happy to sign MoveNY’s petition. But I would like to see much more than this put into action. I want to see automated taxi cabs that do not honk at parked cars and get you where you need to be in the most efficient manner.

Laura James

It seems like this question is a pretty simple one: do the ends justify the means? The ends in this case being the convenience of millions of commuting New Yorkers, and the means being the destruction of the hundreds of families’ homes the highway would have to go through. But maybe it’s more complicated than that. As Robert Caro points out, East Tremont wasn’t just a neighborhood; it was an urbanizing zone for immigrants of all colors and creeds. When it was destroyed, the Bronx didn’t just lose out on its benefits, the entire city did.

Additionally, the poverty left in the Cross-Bronx’s wake rippled throughout the entire metropolitan area. To this day the borough of the Bronx remains significantly low-income, perhaps in part because of the destruction of the middle-class stronghold of East Tremont. The abandoned buildings and vacant lots left once the residents had been relocated became locusts for crime and vandalism. The taxes the residents were paying were lost, further contributing to the decline of the borough at large. In my opinion, the building of the Cross Bronx should have been handled more carefully. It should only have been built had these consequences been taken into consideration, which it seems likely they weren’t. Robert Moses ought to have accounted for the highway’s immediate effects on the citizens and city it was supposed to convenience. Infrastructure is important, but not important enough to merit uprooting families and destroying neighborhoods as important as East Tremont

Robert Mayo

The Cross Bronx Expressway should have been built but not in the location it stands today. The Cross Bronx Expressway, today, makes New York City extremely accessible to Westchester and areas north of the Bronx. It is in part because of Moses’ highways that New York City is the bustling epicenter of commerce and culture that it is. However, the manner in which the expressway was constructed led to the destruction of people’s homes and lives in the sense of living in a community. Tearing down dozens of apartment buildings and uprooting over one thousand families doesn’t justify the construction of one of the many highways that make Manhattan accessible to other counties and boroughs. The Cross Bronx Expressway was one of multiple routes a highway through the Bronx could have ran, and it was a callous and careless choice. The widespread opposition to the highway, especially by the residents of East Tremont, should have led to an alternative route but nevertheless to a Cross-Bronx Expressway.

It is the accessibility to New York City that allows it to flourish commercially as a financial capital and also culturally as an immigrant hub, and Moses’ infrastructure facilitates that. The Cross Bronx Expressway did not need to displace the New Yorkers that it did, but a Cross Bronx Expressway should always have been part of New York City’s future road map.

Ariel Avgi

Dear All,

Kindly post a 200-250 word blog post giving your answer to one of the two questions below.

1. Should the Cross Bronx Expressway have been built?
2. What is your opinion of Sam Schwartz’s Move NY plan?

Keeping in mind our general discussion of both topics yesterday, it may be useful to go over what would have happened had the Expressway not been built or the website for MoveNY.

AO

While it is true that Robert Caro definitely criticizes Robert Moses towards the end of his introduction, so much of his writing is done in what seems to be a commending sort of tone that I had begun to wonder whether he was ever going to get around to pointing out Moses’ many shortcomings. Having said that, I would say that Caro’s assessment of the damage Robert Moses did to New York City and its surrounding suburbs was a valid and fair one. I would actually have taken it further. Robert Moses’ total disregard for the lower classes and people of color is troubling at the least. Furthermore, Moses’ devolution into the very political machine he claimed to have been fighting against is worthy of scrutiny. Without taking into account what could be seen as physical or financial damage, the damage done to certain groups of people by Moses’ work is enough to make me question his motives, his methods, and ultimately his impact not only on the city of New York but on the people of New York. However, one cannot argue the fact that New York City would not be the place it is today without Moses’ works and it certainly won’t be escaping his influence anytime in the near future. Thus, one can appreciate and understand Moses’ impact as a benevolent force, while in equal parts criticizing this impact as a hindrance and more so, a force of injustice and inequity.

Paul Root

I think Robert Caro’s overall assessment may be a bit lacking. What Robert Moses did for New York as far as infrastructure is concerned is in part commendable. He shaped the city and literally made  New York the well-loved city it is today.

However, Caro is undeniably right in that we cannot simply remember Moses as an ideal man. Moses manipulated and threatened people, and paid millions to get his way. He said he wasn’t a politician, but certainly played politics. He never forgave anyone who tried to cross him. Most importantly, in order to create his empire he took down homes of more than 250,000 people- which unsurprisingly were homes of minority groups. He tore apart neighborhood and, by effect, ruined lives of generations. When he did build housing for poor and underprivileged communities, he made bleak and cheap buildings. While Robert Moses did wonders for NY’s infrastructure, he does not deserve is to be remembered an ideal man because he wasn’t one. While his creation is a marvel, the actions he took to get there cannot be dismissed and their effects cannot be minimized.