New York's Most Hated Highway | Gowanus Expressway Explained

have a look at this disheveled Expressway what you're looking at on all counts is New York City's most hated Road dooming Travelers to congestion challenging driving conditions and the ever underlying concern of a collapse now this is not an entirely unique situation a common issue in America is the deterioration of the country's infrastructure but the guanas expressway in southern Brooklyn takes that notion to an entirely different level of concern you see this road has routinely been brought up in conversations about improving the city's infrastructure but nothing seems to stick as the list of accidents grows and the structures wither away so stay tuned as today we discover the story of the kuanana expressway I'm your host Ryan soash and you're watching its [Music] history to fully contextualize how infrastructure of this region got to where it is we need to go over its creation and The Story begins with Robert Moses who held almost total power over the development of New York from the 1920s all the way to the 1960s and is a controversial figure even to this day born in Connecticut in 1888 he was surrounded by development from an early age in his home his mother was active in movements to bridge the gaps between the rich and the poor poor by building communities for them to live together and his father was a successful real estate Speculator selling everything and retiring to move his family to New York City after he graduated from Yale Oxford and Columbia University Robert Moses got into public service in New York both the city and the state by 1919 he was appointed by Governor Alfred E Smith to the position of Chief of Staff of New York State's reconstruction commissioner which wanted to make administrative reforms in the state government in another 5 years Governor Smith appointed Moses as the head of New York and Long Islands state park commissions which were the first of many titles he held at once starting in 1924 he held offices including the New York Secretary of State the chairman of the emergency Public Works commission the commissioner of New York City Department of parks the commissioner of New York City's Planning Commission the chairman of New York State Power Authority and more as a consequence of all these offices that he happened to hold at the same time he was the unquestioned controller of the state's Park system building connecting roads called Parkways that allowed the public access to them his appointment as commissioner of the New York City Department of parks in 1933 was one of his most significant positions as it came with an appointment as the head of the Triboro bridge and tunnel author Authority in the same year this let him begin an enormous building spree in the city raising an entire network of bridges tunnels highways and city parks by 1934 he made a bid for elective office and lost the governorship by 800,000 votes and a loss of this magnitude was enough to convince him against running for office ever again that was the peak of his popularity as in the next decade he demolished countless ten slums replacing them with large public housing Towers this came with an enormous blow to his popularity and the opinions of his work he also refused to build a stadium proposed by Brooklyn dodgers owner Walter ory creating one of the main reasons that the famous baseball team left for Los Angeles all of these reasons and more led to Robert Moses's resignation from most of his posts his last notable position being the president of the 1959 World's Fair by 1968 he was removed from his final office and his career in public service came to an end leaving a confusing Legacy starting as a popular idealist who created pools and parks of Plenty the arrival of World War II heralded the beginning of the decline in his reputation leaving him as a controversial figure to this day with allegations of corruption and even racism becoming increasingly accepted as fact and they may not be entirely untrue it's important to understand the man behind the guanas expressway and the baggage he brought with him as the many issues that the roadway has now can be traced all the way back to the designer now the key word here is can his legacy is a very confusing one partly because much of it solidified during a major turning point New York's culture and debate on the veracity of these reports is still ongoing a lot of problem problems with the expressway run parallel with some shortcomings that Robert Moses was accused of but correlation does not necessarily equal causation his Construction in the 1920s and 1930s were on a scale unlike any others in American Urban history but he bent the rules to do so and regardless of intent or not his work eventually led to the reinforcement of some very concerning social policy a famous quote on this matter comes from one Francis Perkins who said that quote Moses loves the public but not the people the public is just the public it's a great amorphous Mass to him it needs to be bathed it needs to be aired it needs Recreation but not for personal reasons just to make it a better public relevant accusations will be brought up as we go through the history of the expressway and hopefully it will contextualize why exactly it's such a hated Road the story of the highway in question begins in the 1930s as the city shifted to become more car dependent previously the city mainly depended on railroads and one of those railroads was the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Fifth Avenue line an elevated rail line running through Brooklyn built by the union elevated Railroad Company later known as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation it ran from Park Rose station on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge to 6 5 th Street in Brooklyn the day after it opened on November the 5th 1888 a collision between two trains closed it until June the 22nd 1889 when it reopened new connections and extensions were added and the tracks were reorganized to reduce the risk of crashes but the bad public perception of trains at that moment provided a perfect segue for Moses to lean into his vision of City Parkways by the 1930s Robert Moses was developing a system of Parkways in New York City and he had some plans in mind for that Fifth Avenue line the Parkways were initially a series of high-speed four-lane roads that went into out of and throughout New York City well the first part of the section had opened in 1908 Moses oversaw its continued expansion and development many of these Parkways were developed by the Long Island State Park commission and the New York City Parks Department both of which LED or in some way influenced by Robert Moses in the 1930s Moses wanted to build a Parkway following the route of the Fifth Avenue line and there was not a lot of resistance to his enormous influence plus his plans did not require a new structure rather it would be built on top of an older one by 1939 construction began on what was then known as the ganas Parkway on top of the Third Avenue line which had been decommissioned for years the parkway became part of a limited access Parkway Loop encircling four of the five burrows New York City problems began almost immediately as the Third Avenue Lane was already forcing physical division throughout the communities in Brooklyn setting up problems later down the road these communities primarily made of Northern and Western European immigrants were very tight-knit and already had several other encroachment problems which were about to get a lot worse not to mention the parkway which was already intrusive on the neighborhoods required the construction of several access ramps the highways construction required the condemnation and deconstruction of countless homes and businesses and it was these access ramps in particular that only increased the roadways negative impact despite the considerable Community opposition and even some propositions for them to place the highway way closer to the Waterfront a sensible compromise the Parkways construction went ahead and the buildings destroyed in its wake were just lost to Time by August the 27th 1942 the Hamilton Avenue drawbridge over the guanas canal opened allowing access from the south end of the Belt Parkway to the North End of Red Hook through direct travel to Sunset Park however it's worth noting that by 1942 the United States had thrown its weight into to World War II which warranted an explosion in highway traffic requiring yet another expansion the four lanes in each direction of the guanas parkway were no longer acceptable in response an expansion was proposed by the trioral bridge and tunnel Authority The Authority also headed by Robert Moses quickly had its proposal approved by the New York City Board of estimate this expansion which turned the four lanes into six transformed the road into the guanas expressway as we know it now the expansion of the expressway warranted another wave of demolitions as the total amounts of lanes increased to 12 this antagonized the community even more as an estimated 200 buildings were torn down to make room the expansion set the city back $100 million which is 678 million in 2021 further south on the expressway another expansion occurred in the mid 1950s as there was to be an interchange with the proposed cross Brooklyn Expressway there were to be 12 Lanes constructed which was met with enormous backlash from the community in response the 12 lanes were reduced to six and the cross Brooklyn Expressway never came to be regardless to make room for this highway that never was around 800 buildings were indeed torn down forcing around 7,000 th000 residents to look for new homes the expansion's completion was followed by the opening of the verzano narrow bridge which connected the guanas expressway to Staten Island in 1964 this put the guanas expressway into the state that it currently remains however there are still many issues with it that were apparent even at the time of its construction despite being part of an interstate highway system Interstate 278 and all the money that was spent on it its design was outdated even at the time of its construction some of the key issues included short on ramps lack of shoulders and many many tight turns this was just not a structure built for Success perhaps it was built for mere sufficiency at best this does not match the standards of the rest of the interstate highway system which are of a notably higher quality the issues with the expressway only got worse as time went on as it substandard structures were put under constant strain daily even by the 1970s a decade after it entered its modern form deterioration was already apparent the daily hundreds of thousands of cars as well as being pelted by rain wind snow and the humidity of a Seaside property caused the roadway to Simply fall apart within 10 years not to mention the area around the expressway is not doing well either as mentioned its construction divided neighborhoods and worsened problems already existing in the communities though to be fair some have begun to Rebound in recent years it should also be pointed out that the guanas canal that it passes over has become extremely polluted previously used for shipping in its current state it has been designated as a super fund site by the Environmental Protection Agency meaning the agency has recognized it as a polluted area that will require long-term cleanup efforts that will potentially take decades despite this it remains a very well-traveled Road and while repairs have taken place there have been no substantial fixes to the problems raised by its construction by the 2000s the guanas expressway had around 175,000 vehicles per day as a result the expressway got high occupancy vehicle Lanes or HOV lanes for short as of now that was the last change made to this Expressway despite the numerous flaws many propositions have been brought forth to solve these issues none of them have come to fruition its history is nothing but a sea of issues with no Solutions most people who have traveled the guanas expressway these days have convinced themselves that it's not about to fall apart when the truth is that nobody really knows what the future holds and we need not look further than to our video about New York's Westside Highway collapse to understand the potential risks that's to say nothing for the road itself in which crater-like potholes are a routine issue so naturally there have been many proposals made to fix it despite the lane extensions the road remains congested and a full restoration project was estimated to take upwards of 7 years for just one section a popular proposition that comes up surprisingly often throughout the decades is replacing it with a tunnel it's not an unheard of approach and it almost went through once the tunnel plan was first proposed in 1998 following a report by the regional plan Association that a tunnel replacing the ganas Expressway would not only be feasible but a good option for the surrounding communities beginning at the intersection of the ganana expressway Belt Parkway and the verzano Narrows Bridge Approach in Bay Ridge the guanas tunnel would go north through Sunset Park and under the guanas Canal to Red Hook ending at the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel approach the destroyed guanas Expressway would instead be used as a treelined Boulevard along Third Avenue and expand into parks along the Waterfront 13 Alternatives were proposed by the New York State Department of Transit and they gave a comprehensive environmental impact statement as well as preliminary approval for the tunnel at an estimated cost of $12.8 billion however before it could be fully approved it was shot down after several issues related to utility and Sewer lines beneath the harbor became apparent even basic construction questions such as whether to dig a trench and cover it or to dig deeper with a boring machine went entirely unanswered the biggest problem with approaching a solution to the questions posed by the guanas expressway is the expressway itself and as whenever studies take place on it to figure out how to improve it repairs are constantly being made and so no one really knows what travel times would be without the delays there's a reason why the last big project involving it was in the 1960s ever since the department of Transit has simply been fighting to keep the road standing the guanas expressway is a magnet for accidents due to its route alone say nothing for its disrepair it's Sharp turns and interchanges make it a difficult road to navigate and given that the lanes are only 10 1/2 ft wide traffic jams are frequent a lack of shoulders on the expressway means that any accidents or car problems have nowhere to pull over to clogging the road even further and making traffic jams just much more common and much worse and if something's wrong with the iguanas Expressway itself such as a pothole that's another issue that needs to to be fixed before traffic can resume it's such a densely traveled road that if anything is to be done to fix it or replace it the people relying on it for Transit need to find another way around the only other options are street level the tunnel proposal remains a popular one as well a tunnel would be an expensive Endeavor in the long term the money would be made back as a modern tunnel would be easier to maintain than the dilapidated and out dated Expressway that the city is currently stuck with additionally reclaiming the Bay Ridge and Red Hook waterfronts that it currently runs over has plenty of opportunity to recuperate funds however the risk of a catastrophic failure happening at all is still an uncertainty it's a real possibility and a growing one at that but hundreds of thousands of vehicles drive on this road every single day and surely if the risk was that enormous then something would have happened already however every day that passes the risk of the disaster grows it may not fall tomorrow or the next day but if an action Remains the normal approach for the next decade that uncertainty will become all too real perhaps the whole debacle with this is best summarized by Lewis Mumford writing for the New Yorker in 1959 quote at the very moment that we have torn down our elevated railways because of their spoilage of urban space our Highway Engineers are using vast sums of public money to restore the same nuisances in an even noisier and more insistent form but what is Brooklyn to the highway engineer accept a place to go through rapidly at whatever necessary sacrifice of peace and amenity by its inhabitants a poorly designed and doomed highway from the outset the guanas expressway became one of the first strains on the legacy of Robert Moses as it drove a wedge between already alien communities in Brooklyn it is this neglectful attitude towards the people of the area that has shifted to the bridge itself as it remains in a state of dilapidated and ailing operations over 80 years after its construction well it has remained operational for that long it's not a situation built to last with every day action isn't taken it gets closer to a catastrophe despite the proposals to fix the issue the situation shows no sign of improving it's a scar across the face of New York that refuses to fade which is probably why it's the city's most hated Expressway and special thanks to our channel members for sponsoring this video find out how you can become a member by clicking that join button otherwise I thank you all for watching and subscribing until next time this is Ryan so signing off

Channel: IT'S HISTORY

Views: 167,648

Keywords: gowanus, gowanus canal, expressway, new york city expressways, brooklyn-queens expressway, news express, business, how to design a new highway, bike lanes, how many inches new york, incredible skyline views, urban planning, new york building congress, regional plan association, president eisenhower interstate highway system, airline service, mass transit delays, news wave, news show, 5g airline disruption, news reporter dancing, how dangerous is new york

Id: FITzIbWN0hQ

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023