Exactly right! That’s why we want to let them know what a privilege they are enjoying by designating the parkway a Scenic Byway! When the Pasadena Freeway was designated a National Scenic Byway and restored as the historic Arroyo Seco Parkway, the motorists SLOWED DOWN. The park infrastructure reaped federal mega$ improvements in the landscape and greenway.

The debate about usage of waterfront for roadways is a debate about externalities. Externalities can be dehumanizing to those who do not receive the benefit. “Externality” is the most obscene word in economics jargon since it sanitizes irresponsible, immoral, unethical and illegal economically motivated behavior in which one party(ies) usually makes a profit and another party(ies) pays a penalty.

The drivers along the riverfront driveways benefit from the view and ease of commute while the residents are deprived of unobstructed views, and parkland and suffer health problems from increased air pollution and noise.

One imperfect solution to externalities is to tax those who profit and/or benefit to pay for solutions to mitigate the problems created.

Isn’t the proposed stretch of greenway on the East River part of the solution?

Wouldn’t improvements along the Hudson River be part of the solution to create happier drivers and almost happy residents who can enjoy their parks?

You say “nobody mentioned the obvious solution: take a couple of lanes from the parkway.” In fact the communities of the Henry Hudson Parkway have fought fiercely for years to protect the parks that the road runs through – and none more successfully than those in the upper west side that you mention. Don’t underestimate what it takes for a community to take on city and state agencies and their sponsors to reveal, let alone modify, each project that tilts the parkway toward expressway. The next battle for the parks is to keep it from being opened to trucks – a recommendation by DOT that was supported by TA in the misguided notion that this might reduce trucks on local streets (a different conclusion about induced demand in their studies of traffic through other parks). We understand that allowing trucks changes the design standards – everything from road geometry to guardrails to landscape. The Brooklyn shore parkway is being prepared for these changes now. Please get over Robert Moses. We are fighting now for our waterfront and our parks. The more we can strengthen the PARKS in the parkways, the better our chances of reclaiming a lane — not only to widen the greenway, but maybe for light rail! The parks will never be a priority in the parkways unless the public recognizes that that’s what they are.

Of course it’s hard to defend displacements of people for public projects. We can comfort ourselves that Moses also opened up the best beaches and open space in Long Island and the Hudson Valley to the public by condemning private land of the some of the richest and most powerful estate owners..

Hilary, I’m not convinced that motorists will show any appreciation for the view, since they’d just assume that it was their right. I’ll also point out that in this town waterfront parkways are so inviolate that when the gap in the Hudson River Greenway betwen 83rd and 91st Streets started getting public attention a few years ago, nobody mentioned the obvious solution: take a couple lanes from the parkway.

The benefits of using the natural eco-services of waterfront parkland to clean waterbodies (making the park suitable for recreation) was analyzed by the Gaia Institute in its study “Stormwater Capture Parks along the Henry Hudson Parkway.” Preserving landscape along the waterfronts should be a central feature of the mayor’s plan for the city’s longterm sustainability. One criticism of the East River plan is the apparent absence of water-capturing landscape. They could address the challenges of both access and environmental remediation in one fell swoop by GREEN ROOFING the highway. This is what the Harlem River Brownfield Opportunity Area Study recommends for that transportation-dominated waterfront.

And while this last suggestion will undoubtedly strike readers of this blog as mad, I venture it anyway: open up some views of the river to the motorists. Moses did this for train riders along the Hudson by cutting windows out of the stone encasement. The covered sections of the FDR now provide motorists with energy-saving light and gorgeous views. Don’t begrudge motorists scenic views — it slows them down and makes them more willing to pay for the privilege of driving through the heart of this metropolis. The best plan will integrate the most solutions – park, transportation, air/water/noise quality.

On the Lower East Side to construct the FDR Moses razed an entire neighborhood. This neighborhood was known as Lung Alley, for the high rates of death from tuberculosis.

Keeping people away from the waterfront was progressive thinking when Moses took the helm of the Parks Department. Moses’ approach to urban waterfront improvement were so successful that today only historians are familiar with the problems he solved. The improvements worked so well that people began to seek out the waterfront for recreation and pleasure.

Jean Bonnes

In Washington Heights which offers gor
Waterfront:
A Journey Around Manhattan
urban meditation
2004

As we’ve seen in the past, if sustainable transportation advocates don’t take the initiative, all too often architects and planners seem to lose all imagination and build huge garages, or else leave the new residents and visitors to walk or rely on insufficient bus service.

The Second Avenue Subway is not expected to start serving the area until 2017. In the meantime it’s a long walk to Park Avenue. Will BRT (only north-south) really be sufficient? Maybe the 42nd Street Light Rail plan can be promoted in this context.

While Moses did seek to create parks by the water he gave preference to cars. It is the cars that have the easiest access to the best views on the west side. Instead of putting vehicles towards the street grid he placed between them between the water and a park thus making sure that the park would be encumbered by vehicles and that pedestrian access to the actual waterfront would be impaired.

He didn’t do this because he hated pedestrians or had some grudge, he did it because when he built his great parkways he though of the car as a leisurely vehicle and the ability of drivers to see the water and the park as goal number one. And at the time driving wasn’t an entirely functional thing and a nice drive could actually be a nice drive if it was surrounded by parks and water.

As much as his parks were great, his ideas were not. Even on the west side, he eliminated the railroad tracks at grade all along the west side except in Harlem where the poor people didn’t merit expense of burying them. Indeed access to waterfront parks all around Manhattan is limited in some way by the existence of moses’ highways.