Pontoon Bridges To The Rescue?
No one can accuse people of not thinking outside the box in terms of finding transit solutions for the upcoming 
shutdown. This is evident by the idea proposed by former Manhattan resident & now San Francisco based 31 year old Parker Shinn who has proposed the idea of a pontoon bridge to help ease the commute for thousands of riders. Danielle Furfaro of the New York Post has more:
A crew of engineers and real estate agents is hoping to convince the city of another option to mitigate the pending L-pocalypse — a floating bridge over the East River to help ease the pain of the train’s tunnel shutdown.
Pontoon bridges have been quickly built all over the world to deal with temporary traffic issues, said Parker Shinn, who is trying to garner support for the project.
“We are confident that this would be a practical solution from both an engineer and a cost perspective,” said 31-year-old Parker Shinn, who lives in San Francisco but spent years dealing with the hell of living off the Third Avenue stop in Manhattan and waiting for several trains to go by before he could get on one.
The proposed bridge would be anchored by 37 barges over 3,000 feet and elevated enough for small boats such as ferries to pass through.
It would have a 240-foot long drawbridge in the center for larger boats. The bridge would have two lanes for buses and two for pedestrians and cyclists at a cost of about $38 million, said Shinn.
Shinn, who is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 for marketing and additional engineering, said he’s aware of the huge hurdles in the way of getting the project built by April of next year, which is when the L train shutdown is supposed to start. But he said the city and MTA’s weak plan released in December convinced him that he had to try.
“When I saw the MTA’s plan, I was really concerned for the people in Brooklyn,” said Shinn. “The rough calculation of economic lost in terms of lost time is staggering.”
Click here for the complete report.
I love the forward thinking from Parker has his idea has some interesting merit behind it especially since he is correct in his concert for riders after seeing the initial plans put out by the MTA. The biggest hurdle in my opinion would be the timing as I am not sure if this solution could be created in time especially when needing the approval of the Coast Guard among other potential tie ups.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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