New York City is facing a congestion crisis in its infrastructure that will only exacerbate as the city continues to grow in population. Examining the broader urban morphologies at its regional scale is vital in understanding how these urban issues have come to be formed in conjunction with policy incentives, and therefore how we as designers might propose alternative urban methodologies to tackle this problem.

 

The cartographic mapping below illustrates how both Private (toll roads) & Public (rail & bus) forms of transit contribute to passenger congestion. The crossing grain of East-West oriented regional transit lines and grided regional highway network intersect with North-South oriented local transit and street grid to create congestion at those specific transfer points on the island of Manhattan. Key transit stations or bridges & tunnels become bottlenecks as regional transportation flows re-orient themselves to the grain of the local network. Because of the widespread unaffordability and cost-of-living of Manhattan, more and more lower-income residents whose jobs are still on the island, commute from farther and farther district boroughs, leading to over-capacity and congestion at these key transportation points of transfer.