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Do NYC residents (outside Manhattan & SI) mind the El subway lines? Are they noisy? Unpleasing to look at? NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) for any future el lines? Or just the opposite? Thoughts and opinions please.
I don't mind the el in my neighborhood at all.It doesn't even seem that noisy to me.It rumbles but I never hear it screech.Sometimes I hardly notice it .
My apartment is 2 blocks away.Most of the time I can't hear it in the apartment but sometimes I can hear the rumble in the middle of the night if I am up at 3 or 4 am.When that happens,it's a low distant rumble and I like the sound.....it's soothing somehow.
Not saying I would want to live right next to it but having it in the neighborhood is fine.
When I was a kid growing up in Boston a friend lived in an apartment right next to an el.You could almost reach out the windows and touch the trains as they went by ! We loved it !
Actually, some sections of Manhattan and SI actually do have an elevated train. The (1) train is elevated over 125th Street, and again in Inwood (and Marble Hill is technically part of Manhattan as well). The SIR is elevated in some neighborhoods on SI (off the top of my head, I know it's elevated around the Clifton station and also around the Eltingville station. I don't ride it too often, so I can't recall any other sections off the top of my head).
Dark, noisy and DIRTY!! Steel dust, pigeon poop, and falling trash.
Residential property values fall correspondingly with proximity to an El.
I live in Astoria, near the N/R line, my GF's father grew up living next to it. No one in his right mind enjoys living next to an El. Traditionally, the lowest residential rents are found next/under elevated lines.
Want to see reality? Just walk along 31st street and note, the developer follies. Several coop/condo buildings have been built along the elevated and NOT A SINGLE building is successful. All are majorily empty, unable to even fill the commercial spaces!
If this doesn't posit reality for the 'dreamers', what can?
No one wants to pay top dollar to have a subway train running through their living room! Certainly NOT their bedroom. Any notions to the contrary are simple fantasies!
****
Additionally, the cost of an elevated rises significantly when the costs of compliance to liberal handicap legal requirements are considered. The long mountain of stairs is prohibitive for a significant portion of the population, obviously the handicaped, but also, as one ages the stairs become an increasing obstacle.
Escalators and elevators w/b required increasing costs. Most subways and elevateds were conceived and built when no was overly concerned by such issues, and there were no legal requirements. Even if escalators and elevators were adopted, as they have been recently, the MTA has proven wholly incompetent in maintaining them.
Really, before dreaming up new public cash sinkholes, achieving and instilling government competency and efficiency, fiscal responsibility and accountability, s/b the focus and priority. Until such is achieved, there s/b no increases in government spending---period! Unless you find a $10 subway fare inviting.
****
Take Yorkville as someone mentioned, the area was a lower working class neighborhood that was never mentioned in the same breath as the Upper East Side, and was never considered such (despite Transplant nimrodness to the contrary). The closer to Fifth avenue and away from the els, the higher the rents. The closer to the old els, the lower the rents.
Even today, in Yorkville, rent is lower, coop/condo prices are lower the futher from the subway. Why change that? This reality made Manhattan affordable for many (the price was hoofing it to the subway.).
The only result will be displacement of present day renters, as rents rise in accordance with the new convenience of the 2nd Avenue subway, as well as rising prices of condos/coops. So, eventually, those who screamed loudest will be those priced out!!!
I think they are terrible and I would go out of my way to be far from an El. The City is noisy enough without a gazillion tons of steel screeching overhead. I cannot conceive of anyone building more of them.
Dark, noisy and DIRTY!! Steel dust, pigeon poop, and falling trash.
Residential property values fall correspondingly with proximity to an El.
I live in Astoria, near the N/R line, my GF's father grew up living next to it. No one in his right mind enjoys living next to an El. Traditionally, the lowest residential rents are found next/under elevated lines.
Want to see reality? Just walk along 31st street and note, the developer follies. Several coop/condo buildings have been built along the elevated and NOT A SINGLE building is successful. All are majorily empty, unable to even fill the commercial spaces!
If this doesn't posit reality for the 'dreamers', what can?
No one wants to pay top dollar to have a subway train running through their living room! Certainly NOT their bedroom. Any notions to the contrary are simple fantasies!
****
Additionally, the cost of an elevated rises significantly when the costs of compliance to liberal handicap legal requirements are considered. The long mountain of stairs is prohibitive for a significant portion of the population, obviously the handicaped, but also, as one ages the stairs become an increasing obstacle.
Escalators and elevators w/b required increasing costs. Most subways and elevateds were conceived and built when no was overly concerned by such issues, and there were no legal requirements. Even if escalators and elevators were adopted, as they have been recently, the MTA has proven wholly incompetent in maintaining them.
Really, before dreaming up new public cash sinkholes, achieving and instilling government competency and efficiency, fiscal responsibility and accountability, s/b the focus and priority. Until such is achieved, there s/b no increases in government spending---period! Unless you find a $10 subway fare inviting.
****
Take Yorkville as someone mentioned, the area was a lower working class neighborhood that was never mentioned in the same breath as the Upper East Side, and was never considered such (despite Transplant nimrodness to the contrary). The closer to Fifth avenue and away from the els, the higher the rents. The closer to the old els, the lower the rents.
Even today, in Yorkville, rent is lower, coop/condo prices are lower the futher from the subway. Why change that? This reality made Manhattan affordable for many (the price was hoofing it to the subway.).
The only result will be displacement of present day renters, as rents rise in accordance with the new convenience of the 2nd Avenue subway, as well as rising prices of condos/coops. So, eventually, those who screamed loudest will be those priced out!!!
Stupid and deserving.
The dreamers always F S up!
The MTA doesn't own the ones at the busiest stations...
The Market Frankford El is NOT quiet. The sections of the DC Metro which are elevated are mostly along highways, where noise is less of an issue.
Its not as noisy as it used to be and is typical of most Concrete El's. The DC Metro is pretty quiet aswell...except on Curves but this isn't limited to El's...
It's not a private owner which is constantly putting the various subway elevators out of service, though. Nor many of the other escalators in the system.
And Amtrak can't keep the Penn Station escalators operating either.
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