The Battle For Gotham Part 10

Now, this is the chief thing that I think is alike on both these fights. As far as I know, the Lower Manhattan Expressway fight was the first one, at least in New York, where the citizens fighting it began to focus on this inconsistency. That's partly because of the much greater awareness of what was happening to air quality than in the past.5 And when you took the figures that were promoted for the expressway and turned them into what it would mean to the air, in Chinatown, for example, it was outrageous. And when you took the figures that were promoted for the expressway and turned them into what it would mean to the air, in Chinatown, for example, it was outrageous.

PROPONENTS CHANGE THE ARGUMENT.

That's when suddenly expressway proponents switched the whole argument to the marvelous new housing and parks and all that was going to be put in on either side of the expressway; it was going to be a whole new piece of city.

And the hearing that was held, the one where I got arrested, that's what that was all about in '68? [That hearing] was put together very hastily to change the subject. They had had to change the subject because they were hung up on this dilemma. to change the subject because they were hung up on this dilemma.Now, with Westway, here's how it's similar: it started started with a change of subject. So much about Westway has been about the landfill and what will be built on it, and the proponents of Westway keep trying to talk about that instead of about the highway. And the more they can talk about that, the less they have to face this absolutely impossible thing of trying to justify it. That's the function of the landfill. with a change of subject. So much about Westway has been about the landfill and what will be built on it, and the proponents of Westway keep trying to talk about that instead of about the highway. And the more they can talk about that, the less they have to face this absolutely impossible thing of trying to justify it. That's the function of the landfill.They learned a lesson. They can't argue Westway on the grounds of how much traffic it will service because the argument then becomes the pollution. They can't argue how little pollution it will provide because the argument becomes why spend all this money if it's going to do that little for traffic. But the opponents of Westway won't let them change the subject entirely.Now they're saying, look, even if it was 3 percent-that's nothing. But you see these are different hearings these are different hearings. They never have a hearing at which the economic justification and the pollution both have to be argued. They argue one thing at one kind of hearing, and then years later when the pollution one comes up they'll argue something else. And there's no honesty to any of these figures. And here is the basic inconsistency, the basic impossibility. Actually, it is is impossible to deal with the traffic needs of New York in highways instead of transit; it's an utter impossibility. It's a contradiction in terms. And it's not a verbal contradiction; it's a real one. You can't do it and keep New York, keep it as a viable city. impossible to deal with the traffic needs of New York in highways instead of transit; it's an utter impossibility. It's a contradiction in terms. And it's not a verbal contradiction; it's a real one. You can't do it and keep New York, keep it as a viable city.

I mentioned that the expressway fight seemed to be the first victory of its kind based on environmental reasoning, using the new federal laws pa.s.sed in 1968. Jane retorted: Yes, because before there were environmental impact laws-and in this case air quality-they could justify how this enormous amount of money to be spent had a tremendous cost-benefit ratio, because traffic was going to increase 8 percent a year, etc. They had big figures on the record early, because that's the only part of the argument that they were concerned with at first. There weren't any laws about air quality. That's why on Westway, twelve lanes for a 1 percent increase in traffic, a billion dollars for that! That's the figure that they used at the hearing, and the hearing officer said, in effect, "I can't see what you're basing this on." So, now comes leaking out in the press, if 3 percent more cars were going to use this, it still would come within the air-quality limits? In short, they have figured they could go up as high as 3 percent and not get into trouble. But that's all. And it's not enough to justify all that money. Hence the landfill, et cetera. They hope n.o.body asks the question: "All right, if this landfill and these parks and all these apartments and everything are so great and the city really will have money to run these parks and fill up this many more apartments and so on, why not do it on its own? Would you do it without the highway? Why is it so great with the highway?"6 Well, it's so great with the highway because it's meant to Well, it's so great with the highway because it's meant to sell sell the highway. the highway.

NEW LAND PLUS PLANNED SHRINKAGE.

During the Westway debate, observers occasionally questioned whether the land-development portion of the plan made sense. And not just because the city had no money to create or run the parks, but also because the plan only included putting in a lot of dirt and maybe a token park and then zoning it for housing and parks. None of the land development would occur at the same time as the highway was being built. If one liked the idea of all the parks and housing, then the question was: why are we letting the parks, already suffering from great budget cuts, that we have go to h.e.l.l while talking about new parks, and why are we concerned with new s.p.a.ce for housing when Roger Starr is talking about shrinking the city?7 8.4 Many people wore this b.u.t.ton.

Roger Starr was head of New York City's Housing and Development Administration from January 1974 to July 1976 and a New York Times New York Times editorial writer from 1977 to 1992. Starr's philosophy of Planned Shrinkage called for the concentration of shrinking urban populations in areas of high density and providing munic.i.p.al services to those areas, while cutting off services and abandoning or demolishing buildings in the areas with diminishing populations. Create new land and build new housing and office towers while at the same time abandoning areas, where editorial writer from 1977 to 1992. Starr's philosophy of Planned Shrinkage called for the concentration of shrinking urban populations in areas of high density and providing munic.i.p.al services to those areas, while cutting off services and abandoning or demolishing buildings in the areas with diminishing populations. Create new land and build new housing and office towers while at the same time abandoning areas, where sewers, streets, parks, schools, electric lines, and more already exist? There is no sense to this, no reality in it at all. This is the reason to change the subject and get behind the pollution issues.The expressway was a running fight for quite a while. It wasn't until 1969, after the new pollution regulations had gone in, that the first hearing was held on the plan for all the grand things that were going to be built on either side of this expressway and the marvelous new piece of New York that this money was going to buy. Killing it did did buy a marvelous new piece of New York. It bought SoHo. SoHo was already reviving, at least starting to. This new exciting neighborhood buy a marvelous new piece of New York. It bought SoHo. SoHo was already reviving, at least starting to. This new exciting neighborhood was was being created. Chinatown and Little Italy would have been devastated too. But n.o.body in the media confronted this built-in dilemma. I don't think this has ever been published, or ever said, and I think this is big news. Don't you? being created. Chinatown and Little Italy would have been devastated too. But n.o.body in the media confronted this built-in dilemma. I don't think this has ever been published, or ever said, and I think this is big news. Don't you?

MORE DIFFERENCES.

Public debate over whether to build Westway was really a mirage. No debate occurred about whether whether to build a highway, just which of five highway plans to adopt: highway alternatives, not transportation alternatives. It was all about cars. to build a highway, just which of five highway plans to adopt: highway alternatives, not transportation alternatives. It was all about cars.

The public has been going through a great learning process in the last couple of decades of how to defeat the highway men. In response the highway people, naturally, have worked up other defenses. The environmental impact and air pollution thing was a new weapon for the public. The changing of the subject was a defense move for proponents.Now there is a requirement for public partic.i.p.ation. The public demanded it and got it. In earlier highway schemes, there was no such requirement. So, the defensive weapon is new ways of manipulating the public and of using public relations to give the impression of public partic.i.p.ation. With Westway, they've antic.i.p.ated a lot of the troubles that they had with the Lower Manhattan fight. And this time it's a harder fight because they know that they can't give up on Westway and start with another piece of the net.

It was becoming clear that if Westway was lost, the battle and and the war were lost for more highways like it. "It's a much harder fight in that they are much more determined to win this battle," Jacobs said, "so they won't lose the whole net. But rather than the various differences mentioned, the war were lost for more highways like it. "It's a much harder fight in that they are much more determined to win this battle," Jacobs said, "so they won't lose the whole net. But rather than the various differences mentioned, this this is what makes this a much harder battle. The chips are down on this one. And herein lies the future of New York. The stakes for the people of New York are tremendously higher in this one." is what makes this a much harder battle. The chips are down on this one. And herein lies the future of New York. The stakes for the people of New York are tremendously higher in this one."

Westway's defeat would be an incredible reversal. If it was defeated, then maybe, finally, there might be some notion about getting to the real business at hand, Jacobs said. In the transit field this would mean looking at upgrading and expanding transit. In the housing field it would mean rehabbing what already existed instead of first or only building more new projects. Jacobs's vision was about strategies for rebuilding the city.

The stakes for everybody in the country are high. If Westway were built, it would be a very clear signal that there was no hope for the future of New York, that it could do nothing but repeat expensive, disastrous mistakes, and that it can't turn itself around, and that it was okay to keep building new or expanding existing highways. Other cities will follow.New York used to be its people, its citizens and the brilliance of many of its citizens. This was what put it ahead of other places. What's happened to a city that can have handed to it such a brilliant a.n.a.lysis of what its highway programs did to it, as Bob Caro did in The Power Broker The Power Broker, and it just rolls off? And they just keep obsessively repeating the same mistakes. This is what's absolutely frightening about Westway, that there's no way New York can turn itself around. That's what it would mean to me.

I asked, was this is a cla.s.sic turning point, then, a crossroads? Jane stated, "Yes, it is. I do think it is that important."

9.

BIG THINGS GET DONE.

The decline of New York's essentially efficient, energy-saving, decrepit transport system has reflected the decline of the city. But the ma.s.sive rehabilitation of this arterial lifeline through a trade-in of Westway funds would be the most significant present step this city would take to a.s.sert its inner vitality and to underpin its future growth and development for the benefit of the ma.s.ses of people who live and work here.JOHN OAKES, New York Times (op-ed, 1978) And that is what happened with the defeat of Westway.

No mayor could have as much of an impact on the city as did the official defeat of Westway in 1985. In fact, Westway would have cost endless billions of dollars and stunted the rebirth of the city that is so universally admired today.1 Citywide, the benefits are many but not easy to recognize and hard to measure. Transportation investments were fundamentally altered. Transit, on which 85 percent of New Yorkers depend, became a priority for the first time since the 1930s. Car-oriented policies were significantly challenged and seriously rethought. The years of debate resulted in a sea of change in urban development thinking. As a result, many destructive urban policies that evolved after World War II were reversed or, at least, moderated; transportation, after all, shapes development anywhere.

9.1 The Westway landfill would surely have seen towers rise on it at least as tall as ones like this rising on the Williamsburg waterfront. Ron Shiffman Ron Shiffman.

The defeat of that ma.s.sive highway project changed the transportation debate in New York City. It also helped change the debate nationwide. And it helped change the debate about how we understand and view cities. As Jacobs noted in conversation, one's view of the city shapes the feeling about this highway. Above all, the defeat helped renew New York City in many unrecognized ways.

If it had been built, the disruption and construction in Manhattan would rival the Big Dig in Boston. Expected federal funding would have been exhausted long before completion. Where the money would have come from to rebuild the subway and regional transit system is anybody's guess. The state legislature is unlikely to have filled the gap. The distinctively revived neighborhoods along the far West Side-Tribeca, the West Village, Gansvoort Market, Chelsea, and the West Thirties and Forties-would instead be coping with the impact of that disruption. The full range of consequence is hard to imagine.

Westway was more than a debate about a highway or even the larger transportation issues. It focused attention and drew out differences over how cities function and how they are reinvigorated. In the broadest sense, the battle over Westway should have been the final chapter-a postscript-in the long-standing clash of urban strategies defined by the battles in the 1950s and 1960s between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.

Neither Moses nor Jacobs played a direct role in the Westway saga. Moses was long out of power; Jacobs lived in Toronto by then. But their urban philosophies were central to the argument over Westway.

The idea of ma.s.sive highways through cities, as we've seen, was heavily promoted by Robert Moses. And while Westway was not Moses's project, it was clearly in keeping with his legacy.2 In fact, Moses had his own plan to rebuild the West Side Highway, about which he said: "There isn't a project I've been connected with in forty years that would have been built if I had consulted [the public] prior to announcing it." In fact, Moses had his own plan to rebuild the West Side Highway, about which he said: "There isn't a project I've been connected with in forty years that would have been built if I had consulted [the public] prior to announcing it."

By the time the Westway fight was engaged, the highway resistance, inspired by Jacobs's victory with the Lower Manhattan Expressway, had strength. Proponents like to attribute the Westway opposition to the total dedication of one woman, Marcy Benstock, an environmental activist most identified as the opposition leader. They like to blame her for Westway's demise. Her vigorous opposition was, in fact, dedicated, formidable, and effective. Clearly, she was the leading public voice. But that opposition was broader and more widespread than recognized or acknowledged. A CBS poll in 1976, for example, found 67 percent of New Yorkers asked wanted the money spent on transit, not a highway.3 The opposition was, in fact, a diverse but loose alliance: environmentalists, local legislators, transit advocates, community boards, preservationists, fiscal conservatives, and liberals aided by some transportation and environmental officials inside government agencies. The opposition was, in fact, a diverse but loose alliance: environmentalists, local legislators, transit advocates, community boards, preservationists, fiscal conservatives, and liberals aided by some transportation and environmental officials inside government agencies.

The Westway battle raged during the 1970s and into the 1980s until Mayor Ed Koch and Governor Hugh Carey opted to trade in the federal highway funds in 1985 for a combination of transit and highway investments just as the opportunity for all the states to trade in such funding was about to expire. "There is no question the debate over Westway, in the end, was a plebiscite on ma.s.s transit or highways," says Kent Barwick, former president of the Munic.i.p.al Art Society. "It crystallized the issue and strengthened the resolve of transit advocates. The Lower Manhattan Expressway victory was a mere skirmish in comparison; Westway was the Armageddon of highways in the city." "The real impetus was anticar," adds Albert Butzel, the lead lawyer in the fight against Westway. "It was an opportunity to get rid of a superhighway and to use the money for ma.s.s transit. The Lower Manhattan Expressway was the beginning of the end of the automobile fixation; Westway expanded the debate. People realized that the lifeline of the city was ma.s.s transit, not highways."

TRANSIT REINVESTMENT WAS HUGE.

The defeat of Westway resulted in an enormous reinvestment in the city public transit system, the most in decades. Nationally, trading in highway funds for transit investment was rare. A 1974 federal law first permitted this. Portland, Oregon, was the first to take advantage. Boston traded in highway money to reinvest and reopen some closed suburban rail lines. Later, for the Big Dig, House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-MA) got a special allocation of four billion dollars. Other cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore traded highway for transit funding.

The 1985 trade-in set a pattern for New York trading in highway funds for transit funds that has continued ever since with each five-year Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) capital plan. But it took that significant early trade-in money (only part, but a significant part, of the total funding) to begin to reverse decades of neglect that had acc.u.mulated since 1956. In that year, the year of pa.s.sage of the Federal Highway Act, the building of the Interstate Highway System began, and New York inst.i.tuted a policy of "deferred maintenance," as Robert Caro points out in The Power Broker The Power Broker. "So superbly engineered and maintained had the system been previously (New York had been enormously proud of its subways) that it took years for this systematic neglect to take its toll." By the late 1960s, it had almost reached bottom. "When Robert Moses came to power in 1934," Caro adds, "the city's ma.s.s transportation system was probably the best in the world. When he left power in 1968, it was quite possibly the worst."4 The first reinvestment was critical to the dramatic turnaround and total upgrade of the citywide system. Today, many users take for granted reasonable subway conditions and find plenty of weaknesses to complain about. But in the mid-1970s, conditions were horrific. Train cars regularly broke down and were taken out of service. Graffiti covered every car. Doors didn't close. The schedule was erratic. The system's infrastructure, invisible to the public, was in terrible shape. Signals and switches failed. Tracks were unsafe. Garbage overflowed station containers. Subway cars and buses were in use well beyond their replacement time. Most stations were deteriorated.

In 2004 the New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign mounted an exhibit at the Munic.i.p.al Art Society t.i.tled "The Riders and the Rebirth of City Transit: 25 Years of Advocacy." A companion booklet noted, "It may be hard for many of us to imagine now, but our city's subways and buses were close to collapse in 1979, the year the New York Public Interest Groups founded the Straphangers Campaign. Subway . . . service was so horrendous that a daily commute was enough to make residents question why on earth they chose to live here. The same thoughts occurred to the city's business leaders, who often cited poor transit as the leading reason for moving out of New York."

In 1981 frequent track fires and derailments prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to launch an investigation into the safety of the subway system. Ridership fell to the lowest level since 1917. All of that has been substantially reversed. The station upgrades are particularly visible because the "Percent for Art" policy has meant inclusion of artwork in every renovated station. Nearly 200 stations have been upgraded and artwork installed since 1985 in the 722-mile system, the Works Progress Administration all over again. Sadly, some of the first rebuilt stations are beginning to show their age, primarily for lack of regular cleaning and maintenance. Money for capital projects, with contracts available for the well placed, is always more readily available than the operational funds necessary to maintain the facilities, which requires salaried, union labor.

REINVESTMENT PAYS.

Since Westway's demise in 1985, approximately $1.4 billion in Westway trade-in funds have flowed to fix the subways and buses. Additional funds have gone into the regional system. The trade-in for transit funding, what Westway opponents advocated from day one, was the leverage that rebuilt the system. The enormous borrowing the state initiated under MTA chairman Richard Ravitch would not have been possible without it. "It is scary to think what city transit would be like without that support," says Gene Russianoff, staff attorney of the Straphangers Campaign. "Some people remember Westway as a symbol of what couldn't get built, a symbol of how David held off Goliath and saved the subways. The $1.4 billion in trade-in funds was a pittance in terms of need," notes Butzel, "but it came at a critical time at the beginning of the refocusing on transit that that controversy stimulated." The system was in terrible disrepair, Butzel adds, so the trade-in funds were just the beginning. But the beginning of a real turnaround they were.

Today, trains are nearly twenty times more reliable. Graffiti on subway cars is negligible, and transit crime, fires, and derailments have all been dramatically reduced. Every subway car and bus has been either rehabilitated or replaced. The subway fleet has been expanded by four hundred cars and buses by eight hundred in order to meet growing demands. Miles and miles of tracks and antiquated signals have been replaced. Mayor Giuliani's administration slowed that reinvestment when it resumed in 1995 the old pattern by cutting the subway rebuilding program by $625 million over the following five years.5 In 2004 annual ridership had reached 1.4 billion, the highest since the subway's heyday in the 1950s. In September 2005, the number of daily bus and subway riders reached 7.5 million during weekdays, the highest average daily ridership since June 1971. In 2004 annual ridership had reached 1.4 billion, the highest since the subway's heyday in the 1950s. In September 2005, the number of daily bus and subway riders reached 7.5 million during weekdays, the highest average daily ridership since June 1971.

The transformation is enormous, but, as historian Mike Wallace points out, "the tangibility of the trade-off" remains elusive. People either forget or downplay the impact of the trade-in money on the subways. "If," Wallace adds, "you could point to a new Second Avenue subway, people would feel differently." Under Mayor Bloomberg, construction of that desperately needed subway line was resumed.

SHOW ME THE MONEY.

Mort Downey put it all in perspective probably better than anyone else could. He was with the Federal Department of Transportation from 1977 to 1981, chief financial officer for the MTA from 1981 to 1993, and then back to the federal Department of Transportation as deputy secretary for transportation from 1993 to 2001. Downey remembers this period well, having been in the eye of the storm for more than a decade. "The needs of transit were being debated independent of the Westway issue," says Downy, but they weren't making any headway in gaining new funding from either the governor or the legislature. Politically, however, it became clear to Governor Hugh Carey that in order to get Westway approved, he would have to create the illusion that he was also delivering funds for transit. "He announced publicly that he had applied to Washington for $600 million," remembers Downey. But it was not at all true. When Washington denied that an application had been made, "Carey, then desperate to save face, persuaded [DOT secretary Neil] Goldschmidt to say that 'it was not beyond the realm of possibility.' But it was all done within the context of getting Westway through."

Then Carey appointed Richard Ravitch as chairman of the MTA in 1980, and everything began to change. Ravitch started talking about the real conditions and needs of the MTA to rebuild the city's transit and the suburban railroads. According to Downey: He said a basic minimum capital investment of $1.5 billion a year was needed, when the whole capital budget was holding at $200 million a year and some of that money was being used not for capital but to save the fare. Ravitch was told not to talk about this because they had to get Westway approved, but he basically said, "I have to do the job you appointed me to do."Ravitch went around the governor, directly to the legislature, to get the first five-year [1982-1986] capital budget of $8 billion, so the time of the trade-in decision [1985] was such that it gave a nice boost to the MTA effort. It was a momentum builder. We would not have gotten the second five-year plan without it. It set the pattern. By 1987, we had the second plan, and by the third, the legislature just knew they had to do it. Ravitch got the debate going, but until he lit the fire under them, they were not supportive of doing both.

By 2007, Downey estimates, $74 billion has been spent rebuilding the system of the subway, buses, and suburban railways.

THE BIG DIG FACTOR.

Another significant factor demands consideration. Let's call it the "Big Dig" factor. One disastrous news story follows the next, it seems, about Boston's Big Dig, the tunnel highway that connects the city and Logan International Airport. The tunnel is part of the larger central highway system through Boston. Concrete in the walls of the tunnel seems not to be of required quality and may be giving way. Ceiling panels in the tunnel were discovered to be faulty after one fell on a car and crushed a pa.s.senger to death. Other construction defects have been exposed over the years. Overruns have kept costs mounting from an original $2.7 billion estimate to what seems to be probably a $15 billion final cost. Started in 1991, the connector tunnel was opened in 2003 and replaced the elevated highway that had divided the city from the waterfront and the North End. Significantly, it does more than replace; it adds capacity.

Does anyone really believe that Westway's construction would not have gotten the city and state into similar trouble, at least financially? Westway's budget was expected to grow from $2 billion to $4 billion just because of inflation. Downey figures it might have hit $10 billion before completion, less than the Big Dig because the Big Dig may be more complicated, Downey says. It crosses a river and goes through the heart of downtown Boston. Yet Westway was also largely to be an underwater tunnel.

But the much heralded aspect that Westway would have been funded with 90 percent federal and 10 percent state funds would not have lasted the duration of construction. That commitment expired before Westway would have been finished. "Between 1978 and 1981, the picnic was over," Downey says of unbuilt segments of the Interstate Highway System like Westway. "The mood in Congress was 'get it done' and let's move on. The first deadline was set in 1978 and changed in 1981 to 1983, unless unless, as in the New York case, there was litigation." Then it was 1985. The litigation was ongoing. That was the reason Mayor Koch and Governor Cuomo finally agreed to the trade-in that year. There was no guarantee of Westway funds, but the trade-in was secure.

Every other state except New York and Ma.s.sachusetts had finished their interstate highway segments or were in construction. "There was a total of $6.5 billion to cover trade-ins around the country, not enough for both projects, so those two would have been hanging out there looking for money," Downey explains. New York, like Ma.s.sachusetts, would be scrambling for money, and mostly it would have to come from the state and city budgets because enough could never again be extracted from Congress that wouldn't take up the transportation budget for the entire state. In fact, Downey adds, subsequent allocations to Ma.s.sachusetts included a provision guaranteeing that a certain percentage of the money go to projects other than the Big Dig because "it was sucking up so much of the state allocation."

STEEL-WHEEL JOBS VERSUS RUBBER-TIRE JOBS.

Westway proponents vociferously argued that Westway was important for the creation of jobs at a time when the New York economy was seriously hurting. Union leader Peter Brennan said on CBS's Eye On Eye On program in 1976, "Will we build a Westway, and open the doors to jobs, whether it be office buildings or warehouses? . . . Do we talk about getting New York turned around, or do we want to put a China Wall around New York and all die of starvation looking at each other? . . ." program in 1976, "Will we build a Westway, and open the doors to jobs, whether it be office buildings or warehouses? . . . Do we talk about getting New York turned around, or do we want to put a China Wall around New York and all die of starvation looking at each other? . . ."

The jobs issue pulls at the heartstrings, but what kind of jobs and for whom were never understood. Jacobs focused on this in our conversation: The jobs argument breaks down into a few things. The Lower Manhattan Expressway debate was the first time the question was ever raised as to where are these jobs? Outside or in New York? And the ones that are in New York, how temporary are they? How long do they last? The other thing about jobs is that under this kind of scheme, permanent jobs are eliminated for the sake of temporary jobs in construction.In fact, this is what New York has been doing for years: it's been cannibalizing itself for the sake of temporary construction jobs. It has lost all kinds of low-cost industrial s.p.a.ce. It has driven out-apart from those that want to leave the city for various reasons-businesses and all kinds of jobs, not only for highways but for urban renewal, for public housing, for anything.It was the expressway that I first saw this issue confronted head-on [at a public hearing], and I had a conversation with Harry Van Arsdale, who was head of the Central Labor Council. In fact, I quoted this somewhere in Economy of Cities Economy of Cities where a study of how many jobs there were in the SoHo area, before it was SoHo, and how many would be wiped out by the expressway. Van Arsdale was there with a lot of paid construction workers who were given a day's pay, they told us, to come to City Hall and cheer or boo at the right points. They all left promptly before five o'clock. where a study of how many jobs there were in the SoHo area, before it was SoHo, and how many would be wiped out by the expressway. Van Arsdale was there with a lot of paid construction workers who were given a day's pay, they told us, to come to City Hall and cheer or boo at the right points. They all left promptly before five o'clock.Van Arsdale was speaking in favor of the expressway, and I said to him, "What about the jobs of all those people that are going to be wiped out by the expressway?" And a lot of those people are blacks and Puerto Ricans who have a very hard time getting work. And he said, "Oh, I can't be concerned about those jobs." And he wasn't. He was concerned with construction only. High-paid construction workers, temporary jobs. To this day, that's the basis on which jobs are talked about for Westway.

This is still true in debates on highways, stadiums, casinos, malls, and similar big projects.

In reality, highways and transit are both job creators, at least for jobs that last the duration of the construction project. The same energy and advocacy never seem to get behind the kind of entrepreneurial investment that creates long-term jobs not in construction.

An important distinction exists, however, in the jobs created by highways and transit. Most of the highway jobs are on-site, with cement, steel, and other supplies coming from distant places. With transit, more meaningful jobs and more of them can be created off-site but within the state.

In 2005 the MTA distributed an eight-page brochure highlighting dozens of subway, bus, and commuter rail parts that are made around New York State. A map of the state showed forty-four locations of parts subcontractors for subway, bus, and railcars. Diagrams of the hybrid buses, subway, and railcars identified the location at which each component is produced. The minimum number of scattered manufacturing sites was ten for hybrid buses produced in Oriskany in central New York; the maximum was twenty-eight for the Kawasaki railcars produced in Yonkers, a city north of New York City. "The economy of the southern tier of the state is very dependent on this work, especially the rebuilding of subway cars," Downey points out. The sh.e.l.ls of 660 new subway cars were delivered by ship from Brazil to the Port of Albany, for example, and trucked to an a.s.sembly plant with eleven hundred employees in Hornell, in the southwest corner of the state. The Hornell plant is producing the propulsion and gear units. All the parts work, Downey adds, is highly labor intensive. The lighting for new cars comes from Buffalo, the ventilation system from Auburn, and fabricated metal parts from Kingston and Farmingdale. The propulsion system for the new clean-fuel city buses comes from Johnson City and the sheet metal from Utica.

BEYOND TRANSIT: REGENERATION OR REPLACEMENT?.

It would be a mistake, however, to evaluate the Westway defeat only only on the basis of the enormous transit benefit from the trade-in funds. Multiple positive ripple effects are equally significant: on the basis of the enormous transit benefit from the trade-in funds. Multiple positive ripple effects are equally significant: The Westway corridor from the Battery to Forty-second Street along the Hudson River has been transformed on both sides of the roadway. Neighborhoods around the city experienced tremendous infusions of new residents, lured, in part, by vastly improved transit service. Neighborhoods around the city experienced tremendous infusions of new residents, lured, in part, by vastly improved transit service. A stronger awareness of and interest in the full 575 miles of New York City waterfront evolved or were accelerated after the intense focus on this 5-mile section. The regional transit network shared in the new system investments, improving access to the city for local users, commuters, and visitors.

9.2 One of those lovely moments with Jane, a martini break in a conversation. Stephen A. Goldsmith Stephen A. Goldsmith.

The benefits are not obvious, until one appreciates the critical and beneficial role of transit to urban life and the destructive role of highways. Few New Yorkers living in neighborhoods revitalized in recent decades connect the improved transit benefits they enjoy today to the defeat of Westway. "The Westway trade-in and subway investment made all the difference in my life," reports a longtime resident of Brooklyn's Park Slope. "Before that, you could never count on getting back and forth to Manhattan to make a business meeting on time. You never knew whether your kid's lateness from school was something to worry about. And, you wound up spending a fortune on cabs at night (if you could get them to take you across the bridge), because you never wanted to trust the subway after dark. I'd say the subway improvements maybe doubled the value of my house."

The transformation of the far West Side of Manhattan below Forty-second Street is probably the most visible testimony to the post-Westway change. What Jane said would happen if Westway was killed has, indeed, happened. "There is so much there," she said of the so-called decrepit area. "Plenty of room exists for fill-in development between buildings and on empty lots. Much of that vacant s.p.a.ce certainly ought to be developed before you add new landfill at enormous expense, if that's ever necessary. And the new land wouldn't be a success until these fill-ins were done in any case."

During the Westway debate, proponents vigorously argued that the highway and landfill development were absolutely necessary to spur the revival of this stretch of the West Side. Without Westway, the area was doomed, the experts said. They were wrong. This area was certainly "ramshackle." The condition was not debatable; the cause of the condition was. And Westway as the cure was a joke. As Jane said: "What a ridiculous idea that you put in a billion-dollar highway to manicure a place!"

ORGANIC REGENERATION GETS A CHANCE.

Anyone who has observed the organic regeneration of urban districts understood how erroneous this notion was. Grand plans, for highways, urban renewal, stadia, and the like, work as impediments to authentic regeneration, and their defeat makes regeneration possible. Regeneration after defeat is not guaranteed; other conditions are necessary.

In the 1970s many properties along the route were turned into sleazy bars and illicit s.e.x spots, supporting the image of extreme deterioration. Owners waited for the big payoff that would come with condemnation. The bars served as a useful, very visual prop for Westway advocates. Mysteriously, all of these places disappeared after Westway's demise.

Something was ready and waiting to happen there, and it did-after Westway's defeat. Now, property along the West Village, Gansvoort Market, and the Chelsea waterfront is among the highest-valued real estate in Manhattan. "The neighborhood is now part of the richest ZIP code in New York City and the 12th richest ZIP code in the country, according to a study by Forbes," the New York Sun New York Sun reported on August 14, 2006. reported on August 14, 2006.

Many buildings have been renovated, and numerous trendy restaurants and shops opened and new buildings have been built. Too many architecturally distinctive buildings, however, were torn down, viable businesses lost, and residents displaced while the death threat hung over the area and the Landmarks Preservation Commission delayed expansion of the Greenwich Village Historic District. An expansion was pa.s.sed in May 2006. A small additional district was designated-the omitted remnants of the rich district that existed when the original Greenwich Village Historic District was designated in 1966. But even this time, certain landmark-quality buildings were omitted, enabling developers to replace them with high-rise condos.

Old industrial buildings have been converted to residential lofts in the pattern established in SoHo after the demise of the Lower Manhattan Expressway plan.6 And although residents complain that the new high-rises are intrusive and out of character, the scale of some of the new buildings-notably the three best known, designed by architect Richard Meier-are only twelve stories. This is modest for the city, especially in contrast to the excessive scale-forty stories plus-permitted in a 2005 zoning change for the industrial neighborhood of Greenpoint-Williamsburg in Brooklyn. And although residents complain that the new high-rises are intrusive and out of character, the scale of some of the new buildings-notably the three best known, designed by architect Richard Meier-are only twelve stories. This is modest for the city, especially in contrast to the excessive scale-forty stories plus-permitted in a 2005 zoning change for the industrial neighborhood of Greenpoint-Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

If Westway had been built and the new land created for development, can one imagine zoning for fewer than forty stories, and probably more with incentives? Would a wall of high-rises on a hundred acres at the river be better than what is emerging now? Most people complain about the scale of the apartment towers Donald Trump built along the river between Sixty-fifth and Seventy-second Streets, and they are lower than forty stories. Would the West Side have received zoning less than Greenpoint-Williamsburg's forty stories plus?

THE NEW PARK-BIG IS BIG The creation of the Hudson River Park along the waterfront puts the lie to the oft-repeated ridiculous belief that nothing big can get done in New York City. Even the New York Times New York Times, long an ardent advocate of Westway, noted that "this modest park is as big an urban planning success story as anything that has taken place in New York City in 100 years."7 Modest it may be, but it is still the largest Manhattan park built in more than a century. Modest it may be, but it is still the largest Manhattan park built in more than a century.

Not only is this already a huge accomplishment on its own terms-about three-quarters completed-but it is the largest physical change in the city's waterfront land use since the days when cruise ships and commerce filled a rich a.s.sortment of finger piers. The opening of the first segment in Greenwich Village in 2003 marked the beginning of serious city and state efforts to transform for recreational use waterfront areas in neighborhoods throughout the city. New segments seem to open annually.

The first segment-a ten-acre swath in Greenwich Village-included three piers extending a thousand feet offsh.o.r.e with lawns, playing fields, playgrounds, a children's ecology stream, and a display garden, not to mention the spectacular views of the city's skyline from the end of the piers. Users disagree as to how difficult it is to cross the highway. Either way, millions are indeed crossing. Any weekend, people are coming from all parts of the city. Diehard Westway proponents argue that with the highway underground, access to the waterfront would have been better. But there still would be a road to cross, an access road, not much narrower than the present highway.

Only six years since that 2003 opening, one marvels at how much more of the five-mile park already exists, with more constantly under construction. Within some common design elements, like railings, lighting, and comfortable benches, the diversity of uses and potential experiences is remarkable. Boating options range from sailing and kayaking to touring, with more boating opportunities planned. Lawns for picnicking, sun-bathing, or socializing are plentiful. Playgrounds, tennis courts, a fabulous historic barge, and more are found along the way. Even a small, protected wildlife sanctuary for migrating birds exists with a variety of plantings and flowers to attract whatever Mother Nature brings.

Protecting the fish was at the heart of the Westway battle, and the new park seems to do this well with a generous a.s.sortment of habitat preserves. The areas between the piers are off-limits to filling and platforming and continue to function as they have for years. The piers and pilings slow the river flow and create calmer areas, providing shelter for the fish. Decking has been removed from what used to be piers, creating a series of protected pier ruins-pile fields that are both fish habitat and sculptural reminders of the waterfront's history when piers lined the water's edge, one after another. Their function as habitat is preserved; if more than 30 percent of the pilings in one field is lost, replacement is required. What is sadly missing, however, is any kind of interpretive signage to remind the visitor of some historic events and activity. This waterfront was the incubator of the city's and, in effect, nation's economy in the 1800s. Not a clue is offered.

9.3 The Tribecca boardwalk section of Hudson River Park. Albert Butzel Albert Butzel.

Nevertheless, born out of the Westway defeat, this is the greatest park development since Central Park and not just because it is the largest park added to the city since then. It is a balanced blend of new park s.p.a.ce, recreational uses, city service structures, and nearby new development. The design evolved out of a three-year planning process with definite input from the a.s.sorted adjacent neighborhoods. Because the end result reflects that input, Hudson River Park feels more like a string of contiguous but varying parks, some more pa.s.sive or active than others.

How do you value a five-hundred-acre park attracting people from all over the city? Kayakers, sailors, even swimmers can get into the water, and everyone gets close to the water. It turns out to be an incredibly well-used city park, not the neighborhood park that people expected. The waterfront-park momentum it precipitated spread to Brooklyn's DUMBO, Red Hook, Williamsburg, and elsewhere in the city. The significance of the spread of this momentum is enormous.

Unquestionably, this is a different park from what Westway would have produced. The intention was to create a pa.s.sive park on the landfill, recalls one Westway defender, who worked on the never-completed design. That meant trees, walkways, and lawns, with ball fields down around Christopher Street. Some argue that it would never have worked out that way and instead would have been an extension of Battery Park City with a continuation of the same bulkhead and uses. There is nothing wrong with that, but that is not the same as what now exists, with the variety of designs and uses in between rebuilt piers. Being out on the pier, a thousand feet from sh.o.r.e, is a unique experience. "The piers," one planning commissioner commented, "are the best thing to happen to New York in 50 years."

9.4 Hudson River Park gra.s.sy Pier 45 in Greenwich Village is a popular gathering place. Albert Butzel Albert Butzel.

Equally interesting in a diverse, urban way is the variety of residential and commercial development evolving across the West Side Highway on the inland side facing the river. An interesting mix of new and old of reasonable scale, including numerous innovative conversions of unusual commercial buildings, it is a variable stretch that changes from community to community, reflecting both the city's earlier and its recent development history. And talk about serendipitous planning-the celebrated High Line neighborhood, with its own new park paralleling the highway two blocks inland, ties in nicely with the waterside park. In fact, what is evolving along the inland side should be called "Starchitect Row," with buildings by Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, and Robert A. M. Stern. None of them exceeds twenty stories, and happily none overshadows such incomparable landmarks as the Art Moderne Starrett-Lehigh Building. In fact, as a group, the recent new waterfront buildings are among the highest quality of new structures because of high design standards imposed by the City Planning Commission.

None of this would have happened if Westway were built with one hundred acres of solid, continuous park versus piers and one hundred acres of new development that would be towers like Trump's Riverside South above Fifty-ninth Street. None of the inland-side development would have happened as well, or at all, knowing that a wall of towers would be built in front.

THE TRANSPORTATION DEBATE.

Until the mid-1980s, the idea that more and bigger highways solved traffic problems still prevailed. Few observers recognized that highways through through cities and increased vehicular traffic in cities were inimical to urban life. Few experts understood how crucial public transit was to the functioning of a vibrant city. cities and increased vehicular traffic in cities were inimical to urban life. Few experts understood how crucial public transit was to the functioning of a vibrant city.

Some of this is still true. After all, word usage reflects beliefs. Officials talk about "investing" in highways but "subsidizing" transit. Federal funding for roads and airports is infinitely more generous than for transit. News reporters fail to distinguish between infrastructure investment infrastructure investment as code words in legislative proposals for highway funding rather than sewers, utilities, streets, and other systems, which used to be-and should still be-what the words connote. as code words in legislative proposals for highway funding rather than sewers, utilities, streets, and other systems, which used to be-and should still be-what the words connote.

The overwhelming predominance of highway provisions in transportation legislation is accepted as the norm. Some transportation legislation mentions only only highways and makes little or no attempt to fund transit. The very central concept of mobility is lost. The transportation question should be: mobility for what? Highways are designed to move vehicles; transit is designed to move people. The difference is like night and day. For mobility of people and goods, public transit should be paramount. "Traffic engineers think of moving vehicles from point A to point B," Jane noted in conversation. "But the kind of mobility systems cities need-and once had-link all kinds of places within the city in multiple ways." highways and makes little or no attempt to fund transit. The very central concept of mobility is lost. The transportation question should be: mobility for what? Highways are designed to move vehicles; transit is designed to move people. The difference is like night and day. For mobility of people and goods, public transit should be paramount. "Traffic engineers think of moving vehicles from point A to point B," Jane noted in conversation. "But the kind of mobility systems cities need-and once had-link all kinds of places within the city in multiple ways."

VEHICULAR DOMINATION STILL PREVAILS.

The deadest downtowns in cities across America are car dominated. The vibrancy of New York's bustling streets depends on pedestrian, not vehicular, traffic. Unquestionably, New York City has been much more accommodating of vehicular traffic than it was during the 1970s when the City Planning Commission was forced to clamp down on the number of parking s.p.a.ces in midtown, among other strategies, to discourage driving. This move was a response to a Friends of the Earth air pollution lawsuit in 1977, but the parking-s.p.a.ce restriction expired. Garages have not stopped proliferating since. Traffic gets worse. Every new building seems to have another enormous parking garage. The City Planning Commission maintains antiquated standards requiring too much new parking for each new building and residential unit. Curb cuts are granted for private residences on residential blocks where no garages ever existed, allowing one more suburban intrusion to erode vibrant urban streets.8 Resistance is fierce to tolls on the East River bridges, even by residents in neighborhoods accessible to transit. Tolls, of course, would impose some of the city's costs on commuters and visitors and encourage more transit use. Mayor Bloomberg appropriately and vigorously fought for this to no avail. But he was 100 percent correct to do so. Resistance is fierce to tolls on the East River bridges, even by residents in neighborhoods accessible to transit. Tolls, of course, would impose some of the city's costs on commuters and visitors and encourage more transit use. Mayor Bloomberg appropriately and vigorously fought for this to no avail. But he was 100 percent correct to do so.

Delivery trucks get bigger and longer, causing traffic jams at every corner they can't easily turn. Private tourist buses are larger and more numerous than ever and crowd out local buses from public bus stops. For the tourists' convenience, taxpaying residents are inconvenienced. Nothing is done to encourage visitors to use the subway or buses, and hotel doormen only put visitors in taxis, rarely recommending transit. Transit maps should be given to every visitor. And why not a metro card with ten dollars' worth of trips in every hotel room to introduce visitors to transit use? And why not give permit and financial advantages to smaller tour buses with operable windows and no luggage s.p.a.ce?

Police, fire, and many other city employees have free workplace parking, even though some of them also get free subway pa.s.ses and live in transit-accessible neighborhoods. If they don't live near transit, they could park at a transit locale and continue by subway. Imagine the added security if police and firemen took the subway to work like most city residents.

The parking-garage lobby has achieved enormous strength, boldly evidenced after 9/11. To ease the postdisaster traffic congestion, Mayor Bloomberg wisely and firmly required all vehicles coming over the East River bridges to have two pa.s.sengers. Garages reportedly suffered the loss of business. They were not alone, but they claimed erroneously that people wanting to shop were not coming in because of the limitation. The restriction did not last long. The garage-lobby investment in maximum vehicular traffic was never more clear until its opposition to congestion pricing.

Permit parking for taxpaying residents in neighborhoods burdened by suburban drivers-as is done in Cambridge, New Haven, and other cities-is rejected whenever it is proposed. The city's efficient trolley system and Second and Third Avenue elevated trains-called the El-were eliminated during the Robert Moses era to make more room for cars. As a result, the city has a smaller transit system than it did almost a century ago. But new replacement streetcar lines are dismissed out of hand because it is unthinkable to interfere with street s.p.a.ce for cars. New York is way behind European cities, which have extraordinary streetcars, bike-ways, and congestion pricing.

So some of the transportation ideas dating from before Westway was killed may still dominate. And some may even be worse. Nevertheless, one should not ignore the differences. The sea change is enormous. Public transit is valued more now than before the Westway fight. New York and the country could have become car-centric without Westway but not without Robert Moses. Yet in small, incremental ways, the public's desire for the return of more ma.s.s transit is having an impact as light rail systems are built city by city, section by section, and downtown sections of elevated highways are being dismantled in a number of cities.

Surely, on many levels, the death of Westway marked the end of an era. And, despite dire warnings of gridlock to come if the roadway's capacity was not expanded, traffic flows no worse than twenty years ago, heavy but manageable. And while traffic has increased, adjustments have been made to avenue and crosstown streetlights by the Department of Transportation to a.s.sist a smoother traffic flow.

BIG PROJECTS DO GET DONE.

Whenever a project like Westway is defeated, the cry is heard: "You can't get anything big done in New York anymore." Every time I hear this lament, I wonder what city they are talking about. Sometimes big proposals-usually for a new overscaled construction project-actually are defeated. But does that mean all big projects are defeated? Evidence indicates otherwise.

Is not the rebuilding during the past twenty years of the city's ma.s.s transit big, in fact huge and more complex than any singular building project? The ma.s.s transit system is not yet good enough, yet it is on its way. Extension of the Number 7 subway line west along Forty-second Street and downtown to Thirty-fourth Street is under way with an estimated price tag of $2.1 billion, even though the long-proposed Forty-second Street Streetcar would have made more sense. Although it would have been built faster and cheaper, it would have taken minimum surface s.p.a.ce away from cars. Horrors!