Robert Moses Would Love Bangkok-from Jim

Those of us who’ve spent enough time in Chicago to rely on the El, gone sightseeing in Brooklyn by taking the subway where the tracks are elevated or old enough to recall the elevated trains in Manhattan can relate to – and appreciate – the SkyTrain that serves sections of Bangkok.  It provides a way to simultaneously outpace automobile traffic, a normal subway advantage, with an ability to see the city that subway riders often must sacrifice.  There are also a series of elevated highways that relieve some of the pressure on surface streets.

All of which logically reminded me of Robert Moses plans, often thankfully thwarted, of running highways through New York City to keep traffic moving.  A personal favorite is the Lower Manhattan Expressway that would have given drivers from New Jersey a direct route to Queens or Brooklyn without getting stalled on Manhattan Island.  It would have been built on the second or third floor level and would not build neighborhood cohesion.   I think Moses would have appreciated the way Bangkok is dealing with the congestion problem.  Whether congested American cities are ready for the SkyTrain is an open question.  Probably not.