An EV Grieve reader notes that construction crews have starting their road work on the eastbound lanes on Houston below Essex this morning... No photographic evidence, though.... People! In any event, this roadway project should keep us in posts for the next, oh, 37 years.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Coming soon to East Houston: Construction, hell, rodent control stations
Long-threatened East Houston reconstruction starting this month
[EV Grieve file photo]
How bittersweet Grieve. LOL.
ReplyDeleteI'm really looking forward to never again tripping over those humps in the pavement when I cross Houston...
ReplyDelete37 years? don't you think you're being a little optimistic?
ReplyDelete@ Lisa. Oops! Typo! Sorry. I meant 137 years.
ReplyDeleteat least it didn't destroy our summer...
ReplyDeleteThis is gonna sound like a personal bitch, but I seriously think it affects every one of us in the city.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg is wreaking a personal vendetta against this city because his congestion pricing plan was rebuffed by the citizens. Under the guise of "traffic calming" he's essentially "shrink wrapping" all these major arteries to restrict traffic flow, plain and simple.
I use ALL means of transportation to get either around or in/out of the city. I walk, take buses, trains and I occasionally drive. Trying to navigate 1st and 2nd Avenues with this new configuration has become a daunting and dangerous undertaking. The traffic is now jockeying for position in far less space than there was before. Cabs are scuttling back and forth (as they always did) looking for fares, or trying to figure out where to drop a passenger. The travel lanes are narrow, and there's really no margin for error. This has made it extraordinarily dangerous for everyone, pedestrians, cyclists and motorists because the safety margins have been made smaller.
I don't know what will happen now. Bloomberg wants to radically alter the workings of our city as we know it, and is doing it under the guise of progress, but I really question his motives and if indeed this will make a better New York.
You're going to now see Houston St. transformed from a vital crosstown thoroughfare into a clogged street. New York City has done just fine for many decades without these "improvements". What's next, revive Robert Moses's crosstown expressway so traffic never has to touch the streets of Manhattan ?
I don't see how this is really going to make this a better place. All I see is surface transportation being slowed to a crawl for everyone.
@ Anon - "This is gonna sound like a personal bitch..."
ReplyDeleteYes, it sure does. Buy a bike and save us the polutions.
I'm actually very happy the Bloomberg is pissed about the Congestion Pricing debacle. He's made the City the most car-unfriendly it has ever been. Great! And, if people who used to drive, now find it easier to take the subway, then it's doubly great. MTA can use the additional revenue.
I'm sorry that you're unhappy, but I hope you can adjust. I've had to do it for 30 years. Now, it's the car-people's turn... and really, there are still tons-o-cars, so you're not really being asked all that much.
Bowery Boy, you don't get it. It's not about the cars, it's about ALL surface transit. And it will impact the efficiency and safety of cyclists as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd I said my post would sound like a personal bitch, it is not, it's an opinion about what's happening to a city I've lived in for twice as long as you have, so I think my experience should count for something.