One thing that irks me about these schemes is that they often ignore cities role as regional hubs -- i.e. many cities became cities because they serve as geographical gateways interlocking the surrounding region. They are happy to take the benefits of being at the hub, but (increasingly) adopt a nativistic dialogue with the rest of the spokes. I get that no one likes highways running through their communities, but wh…
There are no highway arteries running through the congestion zone. Building one would require hundreds of billions of dollars of eminent domain.
Manhattan has a $1tn GDP [1], on par with Switzerlad [2]. Its economy is larger than all but 6 states (between Pennsylvaia and Ohio) [3]. More than all of New Jersey. If it crossed the pond it would be the fifth-largest member of the EU, between the Netherlands and Poland [4].
It's a tremendously productive jewel that towers–literally–over the economies of its neighbors. Sacrificing Manhattan to save a few bucks on a trucker who doesn't want to take a highway through the Bronx is absolutely mental from a social, economic and environmental perspective.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_York_City $939bn in 2023
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...