Quote:
Originally Posted by LTA1992
I doubt anything would have changed from what they built. It actually would have been worse. That's why the IND was created. The BMT and IRT were not organizations that worked towards passenger convenience and more towards the money. Plus, they really didn't like building new lines since it would dilute their profits. The IND would not have been able to build the new lines for the same reasons that NYCT as a whole couldn't. We should all know what those are by now.
1. The buses aren't crappy. They just need longer buses. The Q44 is currently receiving new 60ft buses as we speak. The S53 is fine and is frequent. Same for the S79.
2. Staten Island would have had a subway if they weren't the ones who were against it. Back somewhere between 1915-1920, construction was begun by the BMT, on a cross Narrows Subway but S.I and Mayor Hylan was against it. The Verrazanno Bridge was designed to handle way more weight that it currently carries, making carrying a rail link possible. Robert Moses, the designer, was more for the automobile and not for rail and foot traffic. Which is also why you don't see pedestrian walkways or even a railway provision, on the bridge. And the express bus actually makes the subway/ferry/bus combo look like the slowest thing ever. This coming from experience.
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First and foremost people didn't want anything else that would promote easier access to SI, and thus destroy a beautiful once suburban nearly rural in some places spot. Turns out the VNB did that in spades which is evident today, and why SI is going down the toilet.
Second weight issue aside trains at that time rail link was proposed between SI and Brooklyn never would have managed the grade leading up to and from VNB. Today's electric or diesel powered trains can manage, but that has only come about in past few decades.
Three as it turned out railroads began going bankrupt and failing post WWII including the B&O.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltim..._York_Railroad
Passenger service is all very well, but freight is what pays the bills. Absent that haulage passenger rail only (Amtrak, intercity or metro rail like subways) requires huge public subsidies and other funding to survive.
From Port Ivory down to US Gypsum and many other manufacturing on SI on down vanished, so did customers for that North Shore RR that would have run through to Brooklyn and then LI (freight).
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