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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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This is provably false using googlemaps, with the exception of locations far from the subway. But it's surprisingly close, usually only 30% slower. Quote:
Again untrue, I kayak it all the time, and as I said, small craft was the ONLY way across for centuries. It was how Hamilton & Burr got to Weehawken. Quote: If it costs $2bn to make and $2m to maintain, and ferries cost $100m a year, then in about 12 years the bridge will break even with those ferry costs. If enough people use the bridge, it will cost less over its lifetime than the ferry. That $100m yearly for the SI Ferry transports 57,500 daily. And they only cost ~$60m per ship http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/08/post_894.html Have you seen how crowded the Brooklyn bridge walkway is? There's no way this bridge could hit the kind of numbers you're speculating.
Posted on: 2016/7/8 1:23
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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You do realize bikes are muscle powered? They will work, the only question is if people are willing to have a priority other than speed, which cyclists and pedestrians clearly do. What if my human powered longboat was like giant version of those 2 person lake toys, with everyone pedaling? They could even be covered from the elements and it would take no skill, unlike rowing. You climb aboard, and when the last seat fills, say 20 passenger/pedalers, off you go across the river with a coxswain steering. And excluding capital cost from per trip cost is just silly. That's like saying driving a Maserati is cheap, if you don't count the cost of buying it.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 21:27
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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I'm talking about ongoing maintenance. E.g. SI Ferry and MTA is $5-6 per trip, PATH is $9+ per trip etc. The per-trip costs for transit services never include the initial costs. The cost to build the bridge should be considered separately, not as an ongoing per-trip cost. So: Let's say it costs $2 billion to build this bridge, $2 million a year to maintain it, and in comparison it costs $110 per year to operate the SI Ferry. How do we compare the two? Do we look at the 18 years it takes for the bridge to break even? Do we distribute that cost over the 40 or 50 years it might operate? Again, this is why you'd want to do a study. You don't have to do a study for every suggestion, and this project may very well turn out not to be workable. But plenty of things that sounded crazy at first have been huge successes, and given circumstances like massive auto congestion in NYC, and PATH trains maxing out, and the cost of expanding PATH service, this might be a very feasible idea. Quote: 2- 10-40k bicyclists? From where? Why could you assume so many more than use the Brooklyn Bridge? And excluding pedestrians would make it even more of a non-starter. I never said it should exclude pedestrians. A very rough ballpark figure of 10k-40k crossings includes both peds & bicycles. The BB is very narrow, and ped/bike traffic is not well separated, and still manages around 7000 crossings per day. The Manhattan Bridge is a stone's throw away, and gets another 4000 cyclists per day. Williamsburg is also nearby, and nets another 5000 cyclists per day. Almost all of those crossers could use MTA. Residential density in DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Williamsburg etc are on par with JC and Hoboken. JC's population is 250k and rising, much of that population growth is downtown. Hoboken is another 50k. Throw in the tourists, and 10k sounds very plausible. And if the bridge is wide enough to handle it, I see no reason why the traffic numbers can't go higher -- especially as the PATH train increases in ridership, and maxes out its capacity. Quote: Ferries have their flaws, but have the advantage of doability, and scalability. The don't necessarily need to run on fossil fuels. What else will they use? Nuclear power? Perhaps we should hire JC residents to row it across the river? Quote: There are renewable fuels, and ferries crossed the Hudson for centuries by sail and muscle power. Guess I was right about the rowing thing... lol Sail and muscle won't work in the modern age. The best you could do is LNG, which has very low emissions but is still a fossil fuel.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 20:16
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Dolomiti, you've made 2 very farfetched assumptions:
1- "very low cost per trip". Considering at least a billion dollar cost, how do you figure? Cost isn't just the individual trip, in that case the cost per trip of the ARC Tunnel was negligible too. 2- 10-40k bicyclists? From where? Why could you assume so many more than use the Brooklyn Bridge? And excluding pedestrians would make it even more of a non-starter. Ferries have their flaws, but have the advantage of doability, and scalability. The don't necessarily need to run on fossil fuels. There are renewable fuels, and ferries crossed the Hudson for centuries by sail and muscle power. I still like my idea of a bunch of commuters sitting down in a longboat and rowing themselves across the Hudson. It couldn't be any more exertion than biking the 200 ft climb of a bridge.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 17:07
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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I want a Star Trek style transporter, it could be located at the mall or PATH Plaza in JSQ with a final destination at the WTC or the PA bus station. There would be no need for a costly and unsightly infrastructure over the river.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 15:20
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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As long as my tax dollars are not spent on some feasibility study for this, Jeff Jordan and Kevin Shane, as well as anyone who contributed to their crowdfunding campaign, can dream all they want. Just please don't apply for a state grant and go spending my tax dollars on a feasibility study to tell us what we already know. This will never happen and about as delusional as it gets.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 14:48
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Yes, and I pointed out that there aren't any structures across the Hudson that we can "repurpose," and that adding new train/car infrastructure is phenomenally expensive. As to ferries: 1) This is not necessarily a zero-sum game. Improving ferry service does not require us to rule out new infrastructure. 2) Ferries have their pros and cons. One major issue is (as already discussed) that they are very expensive to operate; another is they burn tons of fossil fuels; another is that they need to stick to a schedule. 3) Permanent subsidies are a bad idea; at a minimum, they subvert the market forces that theoretically make the service more efficient. Quote: Quote: lol Yes, and I largely repeated that yesterday. I never said that a pedestrian bridge is a replacement for the PATH. What it can do is provide a low-maintenance, low-impact, very low cost-per-trip, carless, pro-bike and pro-pedestrian, always-available corridor for commuters and tourists. Unless someone does the numbers and it looks truly awful, I don't see it as a disastrous thing. Nor do I think it's bad at all to at least do a basic feasibility study. Quote: the nature of JC being on a peninsula rather than part of a contiguous urban mass like Brooklyn means there's be far fewer potential users.... Pedestrians will be limited. Cyclists will have a much better range, and won't need to utilize additional transit capacity in either Hudson or JC. Offhand, I don't see much of a problem with 10k, 20k, 30k crossings per day. Especially given the intense development in DTJC. We'd actually need to do a study to figure out the likely capacity and reach for a project like this. But why do that, when you can just slag it as "fuzzy thinking?"
Posted on: 2016/7/7 14:43
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Where did I say a tunnel is cheap? I said repurposing existing structures like the high line was cheap compared to building new. And I already said subsidizing ferries was far more practical. You want some math? Quote:
Know who said that? You did, in post #12 of this thread. And you were right. More than that, the nature of JC being on a peninsula rather than part of a contiguous urban mass like Brooklyn means there's be far fewer potential users who would be within practical walking or riding distance. There are few bike friendly Hackensack & Passaic crossings. What we could really use is some kind of outside the box thinking like the vacuum transport Hyperloop but in a prefab tube dropped into the river rather than laboriously dug. It could be like a Disney ride, cars continuously cycling back and forth in a continuous loop.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 2:47
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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lol.... Yes, everyone hates looking at bridges. That must be what's driving interest in the project. Quote: Look at the hysteria about the LG office building rising above the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs, and then multiply it 100x. Or, not. That was literally dropping a huge office building above the tree line in one of the few big swaths of visible green space in the area. Somehow, building a bridge between two massively overbuilt areas not only is nowhere near as bad. As one might guess based on how much attention it's getting. Quote: People just LOVE this sort of sexy fantasy, rather than something real and doable, like subsidizing ferry service to PATH fare levels. NYC provides FREE ferries to Staten Island to promote economic stability and development there, Hudson County is of similar size and arguably greater economic importance. uh huh The SI ferry carries 66,000 people a day (vs 260k on the PATH), and costs nearly $110 million per year, or nearly $5 per trip. We'd need new ferries, expanded ferry stations (with parking), plus this will increase fossil fuel use. The Brooklyn Bridge, which has a very narrow pedestrian and bike path, has about 7000 crossings a day. A wider bridge could easily handle 10,000 crossings; if maintenance is $3 million a year, that's 82? a piece. That's hardly pie in the sky numbers. What else ya got?
Posted on: 2016/7/7 1:54
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Oh, really? So building a new tunnel under the Hudson will be cheap? Why didn't you tell Christie that before he canceled the ARC Tunnel? What, exactly, do you have in mind? The PATH trains will soon max out with 10 cars and PTC, and JC is still building. We can't increase the capacity of the GWB or existing tunnels. Ferries are expensive to operate, limited by schedules, use tons of fuel, and pollute It's no more "visually intrusive" than any other bridge. Should we tear down the Brooklyn Bridge because we can see it from the waterfront? Plus, until someone does the math, it's hard to say whether or not it's cost effective. The cost per trip would be extremely low; maintenance would be a fraction of a tunnel or train; there is no question it'd be a tourist attraction. We're also now looking at $20 billion and up (and 20 years) for the Gateway tunnel and associated improvements. Plus, those are NJT tunnels, that don't service Jersey City. That almost makes $3 billion for a bridge sound cheap. So again, I ask -- what's your solution?
Posted on: 2016/7/7 1:35
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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As an owner of one of those apartments, I say where do I sign up for the bridge? It would be something that begins to define the area as something other than "it's not much to write home about, but it's a five minute subway ride to lower Manhattan." You could put it down by the Goldman building (on this side) to minimize its effect on the area; also, a beautifully designed bridge becomes an attractive attribute to the landscape.
No reason why you can't do both - a bridge and subsidize ferry service. The Port Authority (not the only potential funding source - certainly not for the ferry, at least) has a budget of just under $8 billion per year; $3.5 billion of that is for capital projects. You could have built the bridge for a fraction of what the Oculus cost (and I happen to like the Oculus. Why? Same reason the bike pedestrian bridge would be so attractive - its an amenity. Something that makes a place. Look at the shitty way the riverfront was built, with little planning and no regard for amenities and ascetics. The Jersey City waterfront is so lacking in things that define great places. The bridge isn't just a device to ease rush hour commutes (although it certainly would help in that regard) but something that invites people in to look at JC anew. I'm sorry, but some murals and picnic tables on Newark Avenue don't really chin that bar. Also - look at the rebuilding of the Tappan Zee bridge, the dumbest bridge in the country (built in the widest part of the Hudson so that it barely escapes the port authority's reach.) $3.9 billion for a new bridge because that was built in the 50s and wasn't properly maintained. There is money for stuff, there just isn't great oversight.
Posted on: 2016/7/7 0:46
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Oh, I'm sure their voices would be drowned out by the thousands of owners of multi-million dollar apartments on both sides of the river who would prefer not to have this thing messing up their views. Look at the hysteria about the LG office building rising above the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs, and then multiply it 100x. People just LOVE this sort of sexy fantasy, rather than something real and doable, like subsidizing ferry service to PATH fare levels. NYC provides FREE ferries to Staten Island to promote economic stability and development there, Hudson County is of similar size and arguably greater economic importance.
Posted on: 2016/7/6 19:56
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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I'm sure the many employees of The Manhattan Cruise Terminal would love to hear more about this.
Posted on: 2016/7/6 19:20
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Do you and your wagon ever venture beyond the walls of the city, Brewster? This type of stuff is not unusual in more forward thinking parts of the world (Scandinavia, Holland, France, et al, eastern Asia). You've previously cited ship traffic as one obstacle - other than the cruise ships, you could design something with plenty of clearance for the traffic that uses the river, commercial and otherwise. (The cruise ships don't HAVE to come up the river. There are other options.) Not saying it would be cheap, but there would be more demand and benefits than I think you are appreciating.
That said, thanks to the thick overcrust of backwards that envelops the region, it's probably not likely until the second half of the century.
Posted on: 2016/7/6 17:57
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Classic examples of fuzzy thinking. Taking existing structures and sprucing them up and repurposing them is nothing at all like constructing something new, large, visually intrusive, and even in the best possible usage case, a low return on a HUGE capital investment. Quote: Yes, we are all waiting for Star Wars XI: The Quarterly Financial Reports! There was actually a great recent paper on how the Death Star would have bankrupted the empire. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2 ... pted-the-star-wars-galaxy
Posted on: 2016/7/6 16:54
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Yes, we are all waiting for Star Wars XI: The Quarterly Financial Reports! lol Quote: This kind of nonsense where an idea is presented with zero externalities, including cost, leads people to fuzzy thinking, that all ideas are equal, there simply are no stupid ones. Not true, there are stupid ideas. This is one of them. Please. Thinking outside the box is what resulted in projects like the High Line and the Walkway Over the Hudson, Ciclovias/Summer Streets, and so on. It is only by thinking about projects like these in the first place that we can start to come up with costs, and compare it to other transportation options. If people don't respond to it, then it goes nowhere. In this case, people are responding to it. So, the next step is to figure out the likely costs and benefits. If it's too expensive and/or provides too little of a benefit, then we can say "it's a nice idea, but let's find a better option." In contrast, a knee-jerk reaction accomplishes nothing and benefits no one.
Posted on: 2016/7/6 14:19
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Newbie
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In the context of embracing wild ideas, the issue is the if an idea is too wild, people get turned off of that line of thinking. It's easy to just throw up an idea "line connecting points A and B", but the better thing would be to throw an idea that was attuned to the realities of the time with, as brewster stated, a cost/benefit analysis. A multi-disciplined approach would at least provide the starting point for a debate that could possible be fine tuned and implemented.
Posted on: 2016/7/6 4:52
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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I love Science Fiction. But even in SF there's COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS!! This kind of nonsense where an idea is presented with zero externalities, including cost, leads people to fuzzy thinking, that all ideas are equal, there simply are no stupid ones. Not true, there are stupid ideas. This is one of them.
And even in post-scarcity futures where cost is no object, other people's opinions of what to do with public spaces still do. (read Corey Doctorow's "Down and out in the Magic Kingdom", where volunteers in a post scarcity world battle each other over renovations at WDW.)
Posted on: 2016/6/30 22:43
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Of course it's not a real proposal! Even the designer admits that. It's all about getting people to imagine outside of the box, the first step to embracing big ideas. We may not see this in our lifetimes, but future technology and a more communal society and government may allow something similar. I'm glad the guy came up with the idea, took the time to illustrate it, I find it inspiring, especially someplace like New Jersey, where so much of the public dialog is dispirited, and about taxes, traffic, etc.
Posted on: 2016/6/30 21:27
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Brewster - you are so 15th century, flat earth. The world changes, my man. This stuff will happen - it may be decades away and probably not this design, but the only thing permanent is change. 150 years ago, no one would have imagined cars. 100 years ago, no one would have imagined commercial air travel for the masses. A year ago, few would have foreseen the possibility of the UK leaving the EU and perhaps breaking up altogther (the UK, that is. Who knows, perhaps the EU, too?). Fifty years from now? Cars may be antiquated, the U.S. could go the way of the UK (which I think is quite possible) - who knows?
It always happens slower here because change is harder to affect here and people are more resistant; creativity and innovation tends to happen elsewhere and creeps in, slowly permeating the calcified status quo, but it does happen. Repurposing and reorientation of infrastructure is no different. So growl about the kids on your lawn all you want, just understand that you sound old and out of touch when you do.
Posted on: 2016/6/28 18:41
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Idiocracy is on it's way. Reality seems to have no place in these proceedings. Never mind the issues of sightlines and property, this guy is proposing 7 pillars to support this planted in one of the worlds busiest waterways.
I remember a design award winning bike based on room temp superconductors. Remember the suggestions to stop flooding by putting reefs off the battery where the ship channel is 50 ft deep? "It's so negative to let reality and physics interfere with creativity, man."
Posted on: 2016/6/28 17:46
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Jeff Jordan Architects Wins Award for Liberty Pedestrian Bridge ProjectJune 28, 2016 Remember the Liberty Pedestrian Bridge? Well its architect, Jeff Jordan Architects, just won an award for the visionary project. The New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Architects recognized the firm with an Honor Award in the Unbuilt category. Read more: http://jerseydigs.com/liberty-bridge- ... dan-architects-win-award/
Posted on: 2016/6/28 16:10
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Posted on: 2015/11/24 16:15
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Erm... Yes, that was also when service to WTC was out on weekends. Your memory is a bit selective. http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2 ... eir_boat-_ferry_ride.html
Posted on: 2015/11/22 22:58
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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What!? Based on ridership levels all throughout the Summer of 2014, when the ferry was subsidized to match the price of a PATH ride, it would seem clear as day what the answer is.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 20:58
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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This isn't really a money saver. It's more a tourist attraction or a destination, as well as an alternative route for crossing the Hudson. It's also not clear how much ferry ridership would increase, even if the ticket price was cut in half.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 19:41
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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Not going to state my opinion on the feasibility of a pedestrian bridge to Manhattan because I'd have nothing new to add and don't really care that much anyway, but I'd love to know what the JCTakeitBack campaign's position is on this. Would it be a key element of "taking Jersey City back" (whatever that means) or would it bring in more of that "yuppie scum" (whatever that means) that they hate so much and more people "having brunch" (whatever that means) in Jersey City that they dislike as well. Would love to hear what they have to say, and if the campaign has made any real progress.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 18:19
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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wouldn't it just be cheaper both with respect to initial investment and ongoing maintenance to subsidize the ferry down to a buck or two?
Though realistically, need to make the PATH and ferries all cost an equal amount, to take cost out of the equation so that decisions are based on what is most efficient. Something like this would end up being a whole lot cheaper than building bridge, especially one high enough not to completely suffocate the economy of upstate NY.
Posted on: 2015/11/22 16:06
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Re: PATH-Weary Jersey City Wants to Build a Pedestrian Bridge to Manhattan
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I wish they would build an express over the street bike lane bridge in Manhattan and other borroughs so that it could encourage more bicycle use since it would go over the streets and be more like an expressway from north to south. Also a street car system with this type of bridge could work over here too.
Something like this.
Posted on: 2015/11/21 15:59
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ಠ_ಠ
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