Comments on: Mott Haven residents denounce plan for Deegan

By: State won’t build new ramps on Deegan | Mott Haven Herald

State won’t build new ramps on Deegan | Mott Haven Herald — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:31:14 +0000

[...] Opponents were particularly incensed that the Deegan plan ignored the city’s desire to transform the Harlem River waterfront with a zoning plan passed last spring designed to attract developers to build high-rise apartments, new commercial buildings and a hotel. [...]

By: Douglas Willinger

Douglas Willinger — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:24:07 +0000

The lock-step ‘activist’ groups would have us wall off the Mott Haven waterfront for elite developement- a 6 lane elevated highway is a wall as much practically as a 7 or 8 lane one. The Mott Haven area deserves far better:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/11/activism-steered-to-maintain-wall-of.html

By: Douglas Willinger

Douglas Willinger — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:27:49 +0000

I use the phrase owing to my observation of the prevailing lack of critical thinking. To speak of footprint, note the type of land immediately alongside the highway (industrial that planning wants cleared), and think more multi-dimensionally, aka multi-leveled, yet hidden (buried).

Please see the example of Manhattan’s Riverside South Boulevard:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2008/05/nyc-west-side-highway-in-box.html

Why should not the South Bronx have I-87 redone more righteously, especially with the adjacent industrial lands making a box tunnel way more practical? Such a configuration would make more space on the surface by burying that segment of I-87, mitigating the ramp issue, allowing more development and more economic activity.

Given how jammed the western portion of the CBE is, why have not they even studied diverting some of that traffic — paticularly the thousands of Hunts Point bound trucks along an expanded I-87 that would be largely buried in such box tunnels where the traffic emissions would be trapped and filtrated, as done overseas to reduce local air pollution (but somehow never even mentioned by within the U.S. critics of urban highways).

By: Rosalie Ray

Rosalie Ray — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:26:09 +0000

As an “impressionable young college student,” I resent that, Mr. Willinger. In college, we are taught critical thinking skills that enable us to parse a sentence such as “Expanding highways allows greater economic activity within a given footprint.” This statement entirely depends on the size of your footprint. For the residents of Mott Haven, the statement is not true; longer ramps will reduce the space available for economic activity (see the eminent domain threats). On the other hand, more trucks will be able to traverse the Major Deegan, leading to more economic activity elsewhere. The question is, when do we stop asking residents to give something up for regional or national interests, and frankly, given the externalities associated with truck traffic, I think that time is now.

By: Douglas Willinger

Douglas Willinger — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:37:52 +0000

“Highways should not be expanded anywhere in the country, and removed altogether from big cities, where they don’t belong. ”

Expaning highways allows greater economic activity within a given footprint; incredibly this is altogther disregarded by ideologugies as “Boris” who regurgitates such anti progressive slop thoughtlessly as do many impressionable young college students

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:38:43 +0000

The residents of this neighborhood understand something the writer of this article and the DOT don’t- wider roads simply encourage more traffic. There will be backups on the new ramps the day after they are completed. The solution to backups and congestion is to make Major Deegan narrower, not wider.

People at the DOT like Syed Rahman are like German Communist Party members after the Berlin Wall fell- they don’t understand that the world changed around them and their old beliefs and principles just don’t apply anymore. Highways should not be expanded anywhere in the country, and removed altogether from big cities, where they don’t belong.

Indeed, DOT should take its money elsewhere- expand service on Metro-North, which is a direct competitor of the Major Deegan.

By: NYSDOT’s Deegan Expansion Plan Is Panned By All | Mobilizing the Region

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:10:24 +0000

[...] South Bronx at a hearing this Monday. The plan met opposition from government, advocacy groups and residents alike for its dubious traffic assumptions, negative impact on waterfront access, and misplaced [...]