Rethinking Manhattan's grid

citylab.com

3 points·gringoDan··4 comments

Nice rendering there of a lap pool that they propose to place directly in front of the building in which I grew up, and in which my parents still live. They're missing a few things:

- delivery and moving trucks, which double-park on the street constantly

- Ubers, which are "local traffic", waiting for pickups

- food delivery messengers on electric bikes "sharing" the pedestrian areas at speeds over 20 mph

- piles of garbage bags waiting for pickup on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – and "large items" too on Friday

- garbage trucks, stopping at every building to pick up that trash

- fire hydrants and access for fire trucks on both sides of the street

- tree pits, or any other way for the roots of the trees not adjacent to hedges to get water

- the 4' wide basement wells in front of many buildings on that block

- homeless people, each with multiple shopping carts full of their possessions

- bike racks

- street lights!

Or maybe start thinking in three dimensions. The subway is already the first step in that third dimension. Why not add more layers (either up or down) ?

I wonder what the costs are of the plan in the article and how it compares to digging more tunnels for subway (down) or adding some kind of elevated rail (up).

That would've been a good starting point for them for sure. A cost benefit analysis would probably be too much to ask for, but would at least make it less of an opinion-type piece.

I actually had the thought that streets should not be for people - put people up on skywalks (indoors or outdoors), and reduce the amount of people on the ground. Could also make for a much nicer experience for the people as well. Doesn't seem like it would cost a ton to just do that.

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