Talk:History of transportation in New York City

Ah, it gives a warm feeling of vindication to see industrious scholars follow my suggestion of two weeks ago. Rather than make any additions today, I'll offer a few more suggestions:

1. "The" and "system" belong in many places but not in the title of this article.
2. The linked Second industrial revolution article places the alleged phenomenon in the time of Edison, Corbin and Green, not the time of Clinton, Fulton and Livingston. I don't much like the phrase anyway.
3. The parent article still mentions Moses too many times, while the daughter one says nothing of Belmont or Vanderbilt.
4. Too many redlinks.

This is pretty small stuff; mere suggestions to the editors actually doing the work. Jim.henderson 18:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've got no source for the speed of sprawl 200 years ago along the rivers. Actually Greenwich Village wasn't so much a sprawlurb as a somewhat isolated 18th century exurb that only got infilled at the time in question. That is, the GV of that time. A major part of the infill was the modern GV east of 6th Avenue. What I was working with was a memory of a series of maps temporarily exhibited under glass in central NYPL a few years ago, showing street growth before and after the turn of the century, and clearly the river streets preceded the ones around Washington Square by decades. But, with no cite I can't kick if someone deletes those words, and would be downright pleased if someone were able to replace them with more precise work.

Hmm, also no wagon road cites. Darn it. Well, it's more a matter of upgrading the roads to make them suitable for coaches (particularly (Royal Mail) than wagons, but still I ain't found someone to quote for it.

The article still has nothing about steam ferries, followed by riverboats and then steam railroads running the length of Manhattan in the streets and other wonderful early to middle 19th century phenomena. And later, trolleys on every East River bridge. Much yet to do, but it's coming along nicely. Jim.henderson 17:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I am displeased with the first paragraph and will try to rough out a replacement here.

Most cities are where they are, because of natural harbors or mountain passes or other transportation advantages. New York is one of many that were started as a port, and water transport remained dominant until the middle 19th century when railroads gradually surpassed it. Main line construction was essentially finished in the early 20th century, though rapid transit continued rapid growth for decades. Local freight rail dwindled in the early 20th century as truck transport became dominant. In mid century, new superhighways and airports, grew as quickly as rail had done before, but soon stagnated as manufacturing in the inner-city declined. In the 21st century as population and the urban economy resumed growing on a service basis, passenger rail service improved, ferry service revived, and construction for subways and commuter rail awoke again.

Style is still a bit choppy, but I expect to smooth it out and insert it in a few days. Notice I have omitted personalities and politics. No Stuyvesant, no Fulton, no Vanderbilt or Moses. Those of course are important topics, but I don't think they belong in the intro. Rather, I have emphasized the idea that transport is primarily an economic function and most easily seen in infrastructure. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:54, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

:{{tq|Most cities are where they are, because of natural harbors or mountain passes or other transportation advantages. New York is one of many that were started as a port}}. Sounds like an essay I would write for school. It can be done better. Epic Genius (talk) 02:24, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

::Yes to both. We need something like this in every high level transportation article, except (maybe) airports and even they are often co-located with (originally) ports. We also need some shorthand way of mentioning WHY I-99 parallels US-999 which in turn, parallels a major river. I think most place articles near water already mention their original dependency on the rivers/natural port. Student7 (talk) 18:07, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

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