New York City's Transportation Future Hindered by a Dysfunctional Present

"All cities apportion the elements of urban life among different branches of government, but New York’s agencies, authorities, departments, and public corporations have evolved into billion-dollar fiefdoms, with their own cultures, goals, and instincts for self-preservation," writes Justin Davidson.

The result, he says, is that good ideas are never realized. He examines more closely proposals for a Port Authority terminal upgrade, the BQX streetcar line, and the 14th Street busway. For various reasons, these proposals all faced some type of bureaucratic morass that brought them to a screeching halt. 

"Rather than be seduced by sugarplum fancies of levitating pods and robot taxis, we should devote the streets, bridges, and tunnels we have for vehicles that New Yorkers of a century ago would recognize as highly efficient: buses, streetcars, and bicycles. But instead of heeding the urgent call of the past, we’re stuck in the short-term future, hashing out a great city’s transportation priorities for the next generation by dint of objections, inertia, and self-serving squabbles," argues Davidson.