Two Futures for NYC’s Aging Highways:
Rebuild them to current, wider federal highway standards, or replace them all with street-level transit, trees, parks, and neighborhood connections. This model prices both over a 30 year period to visualize what we currently plan to spend and what we could save if we were to make different choices. Challenge the assumptions.
Because Robert Moses shouldn’t get to choose for you, too.
Removing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE), the East Side Highway (FDR), the Cross Bronx Expressway (XBX), and the West Side Highway (WSH) and replacing them all with transit at street level costs less than rebuilding the highways over a 30-year period.
How to read this
Every number is a 30-year net present value, 2029–2058, bond-financed on identical terms for both futures. Gray bars are the cost of rebuilding each highway in place to current standards. Colored bars are the cost of demolishing it and building transit on the land — construction, vehicles, and operations, minus fares, property tax, and land sales. The gap is public money saved. Every assumption below is adjustable; the formulas are not.
Rebuild vs Removal · 30-yr NPV by corridor
Corridor detail
| Corridor | Mode | Rebuild NPV | Removal NPV | Savings | % saved | Stations | Fleet | Capacity |
|---|
Not counted anywhere above: property near a removed highway appreciates. At a conservative 5% uplift on adjacent value (Embarcadero and Cheonggyecheon precedents run 5–15%) and a 1.5% effective tax rate, the four corridors would throw off roughly $3.2B in additional 30-year tax increment NPV ($0.5B BQE · $1.3B FDR · $0.4B XBX · $1.0B WSH at model defaults). We exclude it from every number on this page.
Assumptions 🔒 Formulas locked — inputs only
Daily boardings each corridor must carry, and the transit technology replacing the highway.
Subway is priced as new grade-separated structure — it cannot street-run on a cleared at-grade corridor, so most segments carry tunnel or new-structure costs.
Assumptions by transit mode The actual numbers — challenge them
| Assumption | Light Rail | Electric BRT | Subway |
|---|
Guideway rate card · $M per route-mile by segment type
| Segment type | Light Rail | Electric BRT | Subway |
|---|
Station rate card · $M per station by station type
| Station type | Light Rail | Electric BRT | Subway |
|---|
Where the transit money goes 2026$, before escalation & financing
| Corridor | Guideway | Stations | Systems | Contingency* | Vehicles | = Transit capex | $/route-mi | Demolition | Annual O&M | Land proceeds |
|---|
* Contingency is charged on both sides. The removal scenario carries 50% on every dollar it spends — guideway, stations, systems, and demolition alike, per FTA practice for pre-engineering estimates. Highway rebuild carries 35%, matching Flyvbjerg’s +34% average overrun for bridges and tunnels — the right benchmark for rebuilding urban viaducts and trenches under live traffic. Both are adjustable above; the removal side carries the heavier burden by default.
People vs. pavement · per lane, per hour
One highway lane moves about 2,300 people per hour (1,800 vehicles at NYC's 1.3 average occupancy). The same width of right-of-way, given to transit: