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“Yikes! What a Way To
Go...New York City's Travel Experience
By Miriam Medina
Part VIII
New York City's Travel Experience
19 6 1-2 0 0 0
Researched and Compiled by Miriam Medina
1 9 6 1
A) The $92 million Throgs Neck bridge,
easing the flow of traffic in and out of Long Island, opens.
B) The Throgs Neck Expressway (I-695).
Throgs Neck Expressway serves as a link between the Bruckner
Expressway - New England Thruway (I-95) and the Cross Bronx
Expressway Extension (I-295) approach to the Throgs Neck
Bridge in the southeast Bronx. Although it is just over one
mile long, the six-lane expressway is an important link for
traffic between Long Island and New England. Completed in
1961 at a cost of $16 million, the Throgs Neck Expressway
was constructed with six 12-foot-wide lanes separated by a
steel guardrail. A 10-foot-wide breakdown shoulder is
provided along the entire length of the expressway. (25)
1 9 6 2
A) Construction of the Sheridan Expressway
began in 1958 as part of the elevated Bruckner Expressway
project. The 1.2-mile-long Sheridan Expressway was
constructed with two 12-foot-wide lanes in each direction,
but like other early-Interstate era expressways in New York
City, had inadequate shoulders and short
acceleration-deceleration lanes. In October 1962, the $9.5
million expressway was opened to traffic. (25)
B) March 19, 1962 :The New York State
Legislature forms the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit
Operating Authority (MaBSTOA), a non-civil-service
subsidiary of New York City Transit, to take over bus
service for the bankrupt Fifth Avenue Coach Company and
Surface Transit, Inc. routes. (26)
1 9 6 3
A) Since 1743, the cities of Newburgh and
Beacon had been served by ferries crossing the Hudson River.
Beginning with a fleet of sailboats and rowboats, the
trans-Hudson service deployed three ferryboats by 1910. Each
ferry, which measured 160 feet by 35 feet, could hold 30
passenger cars on each trip. By the 1950's, the growth in
trans-Hudson vehicular traffic along NY 52 and construction
of the nearby New York State Thruway (I-87) had rendered the
ferry service obsolete. The original Newburgh-Beacon Bridge
(I-84 and NY 52) was open to traffic on November 2, 1963. A
parallel bridge was opened on November 1, 1980. (25)
B) The Alexander Hamilton Bridge (I-95 and
US!) was opened to traffic on January 15, 1963 at a cost of
$21,000,000. (25)
C) The final link of the Cross Bronx
Expressway was completed in 1963, some 15 years after
construction began, at a cost of $140 million. One year
later, the complex interchange with the Major Deegan
Expressway was completed. (25)
1 9 6 4
A) The entire length of the $38
million Harlem River Drive opened in early 1964, in time for
the New York World's Fair. According to the NYSDOT, the
six-lane parkway handles approximately 100,000 vehicles per
day. (25)
B) November 21, 1964 : Bus service starts between
Brooklyn and Staten Island via the Verrazano Bridge.(26)
C) The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between
Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York, opens on November 21,
1964. The Lower deck was opened on June 28, 1969. Until the
building of the Narrows Bridge, the island's only
connections with New York were ferries that crossed the
harbor between the island, Manhattan and Brooklyn. During
its first full year of operation in 1965, the six-lane
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge carried approximately 48,000
vehicles per day. The total cost of this structure was
$320,126,000. (25)
1 9 6 5
As early as the 1930's, New York City
officials saw the need for an express highway that would
provide local and through-traffic service through Staten
Island. Unlike the Willowbrook and Richmond parkways
proposed elsewhere in the borough, the new route was to
allow cars, trucks and buses. All three routes were to
provide access to the proposed Narrows Crossing, as well as
to the existing Port Authority crossings between Staten
Island and New Jersey. The Staten Island Expressway (I-278)
carried approximately 50,000 vehicles per day in 1965, the
first full year of operation.(25)
1 9 6 6
September 11, 1966 : Although a few
air-conditioned buses were in service previously,
air-conditioning becomes a regular NYC Transit bus feature
with the arrival of 682 vehicles known as the 8000 series. (26)
1 9 6 7
A) November 26, 1967 : The Christie
Street connection opens, enabling BMT lines that cross the
Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges to stop at
Broadway-Lafayette (an IND station). The Grand Street
station also opens to serve trains using the Manhattan
Bridge. (26)
B) Since New York City arterial coordinator
Robert Moses announced plans for this road in 1947, the
Nassau Expressway has spent much of its life only on paper.
Although the initial construction contracts were let out in
1949, it was not until the mid-1960's when construction
actually began on the expressway. (25)
C) July 19, 1967: The first successful train
of air-conditioned subway cars, composed of ten R38 cars,
goes into service on the line. On June 24, 1975, two
air-conditioned 10-car IRT trains enter service, the first
air-conditioned IRT trains since the subway system opened
nearly 70 years previously. The entire fleet of 5,800 cars
now has air-conditioning. (26)
1 9 7 1
August 2, 1971: Queens express bus service
starts. The X18 operates from Hillside Avenue to Manhattan.
(26)
1 9 7 2
A) Bruckner Expressway was completed.
In the years prior to its 1972 completion, the Bruckner
Expressway had a number of different Interstate
designations. These designations were as follows: June 1958
to December 1958: I-278 from Major Deegan Expressway (I-87)
to Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95); I-95 from Cross Bronx-Bruckner
interchange to New England Thruway.; December 1958 to April
1959: I-895 from Major Deegan Expressway (I-87) to Sheridan
Expressway (designated I-895 in the February 1959 plan);
I-678 from Sheridan Expressway to Cross Bronx Expressway
(I-95); I-95 from Cross Bronx-Bruckner interchange to New
England Thruway; April 1959 to 1972: I-278 from Major Deegan
Expressway (I-87) to Sheridan Expressway (designated I-278
in the July 1959 plan); I-878 from Sheridan Expressway to
Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95); I-95 from Cross Bronx-Bruckner
interchange to New England Thruway. 1972 to present: I-278
from Major Deegan Expressway (I-87) to Cross Bronx
Expressway (I-95); I-95 from Cross Bronx-Bruckner
interchange to New England Thruway. Note that this was the
original route plan for the Bruckner Expressway from 1958. (25)
B) The first section of the West Shore
Expressway, between the Outerbridge Crossing approach and
EXIT 4 (Arthur Kill Road), opened to traffic in December
1972. The remainder of the expressway - the last section
finished in the New York area during Moses' lifetime - was
completed in November 1976. (25)
1 9 7 3
April 29, 1973 : Bx55 bus service replaces
the Bronx's Third Avenue El, which ceases operation. (26)
1 9 7 4
" In 1974 there were over twenty-three
million traffic accidents involving automobiles, which
caused nearly five million injuries and forty-six thousand
deaths. The urban transportation system, heavily dependent
on the automobile, is largely responsible for the depletion
of natural resources. The oil embargo of 1973-74 showed what
happens when petrochemicals become more expensive and less
readily available. The use of mass transportation increased
seven to eight percent as a result of the oil embargo (New
York
Times, 30 December 1974-39). As oil becomes more scarce and
more expensive, some people who now live in the suburbs may
move to the downtown, changing both the social character and
economic status of the inner city." (35)
1 9 8 1
August 5, 1981 : The first General Motors
RTS Advanced Design buses, which are equipped with
wheelchair lifts, go into service on the B17 route in
Brooklyn. (26)
1 9 8 8
December 11, 1988: The Archer Avenue line
opens, consisting of three stations and linking the Jamaica
and Queens Boulevard lines in Queens. Six southeast Queens
bus routes are rerouted to serve the city's first modern
inter-model (bus-rail) transfer facility at the new Jamaica
Center (Parsons-Archer) station. (26)
1 9 8 9
A) September 10, 1989: The Gun Hill bus
depot opens in the Bronx. It is the first NYC Transit
facility to use solar energy. Solar panels on the roof
generate roughly 40 percent of the energy the depot needs on
a daily basis. (26)
B) From the time that JFK (then Idlewild)
Airport opened in 1948, traffic was backed up for miles on
the Van Wyck Expressway. The JFK Expressway was built as
part of an ongoing, multi-billion overhaul of Kennedy
Airport that began in the late 1980's. It was designed to
relieve up to 30 percent of the traffic volume from the Van
Wyck Expressway. (25)
C) October 29, 1989 : Service begins
to the 63 rd Street Extension's three new stations:
Lexington Avenue, Roosevelt Island (Manhattan) and 21st
Street (Long Island City, Queens). (26)
1 9 9 2
September 13, 1992 : New M60 Interborough
bus service between Harlem and LaGuardia Airport gives
Manhattan residents a one-seat ride to and from the airport.
(26)
1 9 9 8
Sept 1, 1998 : Hybrid-electric buses enter
passenger service. NYC Transit pioneered the use of
hybrid-electric buses and now has the largest fleet in North
America. More than 200 are on order; we expect to have 550
by the end of 2006.(26)
2 0 0 0
January 3, 2000: Articulated buses begin
service on the M79 route in Manhattan. They are 60 feet long
(The average bus length is 40 feet), have 22 more seats than
standard buses and can carry almost twice as many customers.
They are called "articulated" because the accordion-like
bend in the middle lets this bus turn corners. (26)
Return To New York City Main Directory
Sources of
Information Utilized
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