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June 15, 2009
Don’t build it — They will come
MetroNY
As public apathy turns to disdain for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject, commentator Neil deMause recalls other publicly funded megaprojects that died a slow death for the better:
But history shows that red tape sometimes has its silver lining:
• The better part of my childhood was spent in anticipation of Westway, which for roughly a zillion dollars was going to tear up the Hudson River waterfront and bury an expressway beneath it. Thirteen years of bitter public fights later, an endangered-fish lawsuit finally killed the plan, at which point the city instead got the cash for new subway cars and a beautiful scaled-down waterfront promenade.
• Before that, Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have linked the Holland Tunnel to the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges, was debated for most of the 1960s before being abandoned. In the interim, the “blighted” district he had wanted to pave over became ... Soho.
When big projects falter, there’s no shame in stepping back and asking: “Why are we doing this again?” and “What else could we do instead?” It’s what a bunch of good-government groups have already asked about Ground Zero — which blew yet another deadline of its own last week — saying a Westway-style trade-in for mass transit cash makes more sense than subsidizing office towers that will sit empty for a generation.
Posted by lumi at June 15, 2009 6:52 AM