Wish you could commute from New Jersey to New York on foot?
You almost could, historian Robert W. Jackson notes in his new book, “Highway Under the Hudson: A History of the Holland Tunnel” (New York University Press).
The narrow sidewalks in the Holland Tunnel were specifically designed for pedestrians, and officials believed people would walk between the two states — albeit for a toll.
But just before the tunnel opened in November 1927, concerns over safety prompted a last-minute ban of pedestrians, Jackson says.
So what to do with the walkways?
In 1954, the Port Authority tested an electric-powered “catwalk car” that would shoot down the 30-inch wide walkway at 15 mph. It was a snug fit — just two feet wide and 6-feet high.
The cars were meant to replace a six-person team that patrolled the Holland with two men (though they realized they would need four). A similar system was proposed for the Lincoln Tunnel.
Alas, the electric cars were not to be.
Jackson said he couldn’t find definitively why the test was scrapped, but it could be “that electronic monitoring and signalization probably proved to be more cost efficient than patrol officers. As the traffic control systems were upgraded, they found that they didn’t need officers in the tunnels at all, except in emergencies.”
Pedestrians and electric scooters aren’t the only dashed dreams of the Holland.
George Washington Goethals, chief engineer of the Panama Canal and namesake of the bridge, proposed a much larger tunnel that would have had two levels. That idea was scrapped as too expensive and difficult.
And since planning for the tunnel began in 1919, almost all the early renderings included horse and wagon traffic. That, too, was discarded just before the tunnel opened, as officials feared that fast-moving cars and horses don’t mix.
Despite its lowered ambitions, the Holland was more popular than any of its designers imagined.
In 1927, the tunnel was expected to accommodate 15 million vehicles annually when at full capacity. By 1957, it was carrying 20 million — and today, it hosts 34 million vehicles a year.
Though that’s less than the Lincoln Tunnel (42 million) and the George Washington Bridge (106 million), “it’s still much more than even the most farsighted engineers had anticipated,” Jackson writes.
And, of course, the tunnel followed the Catch-22 of all new transportation projects — meant to alleviate traffic in Manhattan, it just made things more crowded.