So far that’s the sort of critical detail that really seems to be missing.

Not to put this all on the state, but if we had an enlightened state DOT, that’s the kind of detail they would commit to exploring in the no-Sheridan alternative. Or they would reach out to whatever agency they need to so that they could study this in a reasonable way (City DOT? City Planning?). But it looks as if they just want to get this over with, conclude that fencing off the Sheridan is worse than not fencing it off, and build their highway improvements.

The impact of removing the grade-separated queue, segregated from the local street network, however, can have enormous local impacts.

Sure, if it’s not managed properly.

This is purely hypothetical, but if the cross harbor freight tunnel got built, freight trains could travel from New Jersey, through Brooklyn and Queens, over the Hells Gate and into Hunts Point. In such a scenario, could/would this reduce truck travel to Hunts Point?

Yes, by a little bit. However, nobody has the money for it. The projected cost is $7.4 billion, which doesn’t justify the benefit, which is projected to be a 10% cut in cross-Hudson truck traffic. The basic problem is that for much less money, the MTA and NJT could electrify the entire regional network, including the sidings, and then run electric freight trains. This would also have a large benefit for commuter rail.

So is ignoring the realities of that northern connection.

But when you believe that white is black and black is white, you have to twist things cleverly. You must believe that no liquid can ever replace petroleum, and that anything electric must be plugged in because we will never have better technologies- its simply easier to guilt out the masses to presume that technology is static, and current markets are safe.

I would write a letter criticizing the obvious inadequacies of the analysis.

The environmental process is supposed to identify impacts and propose mitigations for those impacts. Why hasn’t it identified this obvious mitigation?

Railroad CARS, trolley CARS, automobiles, etc.

Unless it is by bicycle, airplane (fuselage) or boat (hull), yes, travel will be via CAR.

It is always fun to reveal the thoughtlessness of the anti car people.

Likewise with the Sheridan, deck it over for access to the new riverside park (actually an excellent idea) and fix the northbound connection:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2010/01/northbound-sheridan-pinch.html

The ongoing population increase in New York City has been almost entirely absorbed by public transportation, not by increases in car use or ownership. It’s unreasonable to say that suddenly thousands of South Bronx residents would change their incomes and lifestyles and start buying cars. And if you are talking about increases in driving due to increases in suburbanites taking advantage of the free roads to drive through the South Bronx, that outcome is clearly undesirable for the city and I don’t understand why you would support it.

NYSDOT is an example of orthodoxy trumping reality, like the Catholic Church’s old belief that the Earth is at the center of the universe or the denial of genetics in 1930′s Soviet Russia. Neither the perpetual growth of car use nor the belief that every trip made by car today must be made by car tomorrow are valid facts; they are simply doctrines of an outdated pro-car ideology.

As the advocates have noted, it does not really add much in terms of throughput capacity. What it does is provide storage space once peak-period queues build, and distribute traffic better.

Currently, drivers waiting to get on the Cross-Bronx line up for a mile on the Sheridan Expressway, and idle there… significantly removed from people’s homes and the intersections where kids are trying to cross the street:
http://urbanresidue.com/Sheridan

It also helps relieve some of the backups on cross-moving local streets where traffic queues waiting to get onto the Cross-Bronx impact local intersections by distributing the traffic over a broader area. That means fewer pedestrians dodging drivers forcing their way through the red late, that means less honking, and that means less overall idling.

Since removing the Sheridan wouldn’t significantly reduce throughput capacity in the system, there is little potential impact to trip-making decisions. If travel time is not significantly impaired, there really is no reason someone would decide to stop driving.

The impact of removing the grade-separated queue, segregated from the local street network, however, can have enormous local impacts.

There is also the matter of flexibility and redundancy in the network. The Sheridan does not get much use every day, but it does play a vital role for periods when there is some type of incident. If everything is congested all the time, there is no room to recover when there’s even a minor incident. And the air quality suffers when a small breakdown on the Cross-Bronx floods half the Bronx with backed-up traffic. Let’s consider one specific, current example – construction on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge.

To fix up the aging structure, they have to close all/part of the ramps connecting from the Alexander Hamilton Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway. This requires detouring trucks bound to Hunts Point. Without the Sheridan, the detour would require using local streets, which frankly is unacceptable from any community standpoint. Keeping them out of the neighborhoods on the Sheridan is clearly preferable.

There is a lot of potential benefit of reclaiming roadway space, but you have to make sure you’ve addressed the transportation issues first. Producing fancier renderings and animated flyovers of a redeveloped area, without providing a set of transportation options that work, can only lead to frustration. Unfortunately, some of the advocates behind this project went for the flashy campaigning, instead of attending to the basic planning work first.

I want to like the proposal, but the concept just doesn’t look like it works. And I get tired of its proponents attacking anyone who isn’t convinced, instead of doing the work to show they actually have a feasible idea!

As for the housing and parkland, many agencies would fight for that land and it could result in becoming a plot of empty land for years due to politics and community opposition. Besides, the area already has highway-friendly stuff, such as auto shops and a hotel.

As for DannyG on Reply #2, this wouldn’t be a middle-class High Line for anything since the middle class is mostly located east of the river and far away from Soundview (in Westchester Square and Morris Park and Throggs Neck). They wouldn’t set foot into the South Bronx, unless driving through it, which can bring them into opposing the tearing down of the Sheridan Expressway.

But with this proposal, I do like the ideas of adding new exits at Longwood Avenue (to serve Melrose and Morrisania, thus bypassing the infamous Hunts Point Av/Southern Blvd intersection) and at Oak Point Av (taking trucks off points west of the highway completely and giving Melrose, Morrisania, Longwood, and the Hub drivers an even better alternative to both Longwood and Hunts Point Avs). This would spread the cars and traffic on East 163rd street and place them onto other streets like Longwood Av, Leggett Av, and East 156th St.

I’d prefer leaving the Sheridan and adding the new exits for the Bruckner, mainly due to the population boom, which can result in more cars traveling around the Bronx and more trucks doing business in Hunts Point.