Friday, December 07, 2007

Let's Build a Bridge from the North Fork to Rhode Island

What would you think of a highway that runs from Riverhead east along the North Fork, crosses via bridge to Plum Island and then Fishers Island, and crosses again to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, with a spur from Fishers Island to New London? As David Collins, a columnist for the New London Day, says, "Wow."

The idea for a highway like that was alive, at least in the minds of some people, from 1938 until 1966, when smart people in Rhode Island said they weren't interested. It's a ludicrous idea in retrospect but really it's no more preposterous than the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (maybe less preposterous, in fact), the motto of which is "Follow the Gulls to the East Coast Scenic Shortcut."

My opinion is that in general we've had enough of these engineering marvels to last us a while. Collins's column talks about the old proposal for a bridge across the Race in the context of the new proposal for a tunnel under the western end of the Sound, which most definitely wouldn't be known as the East Coast Scenic Shortcut.

Labels:

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

what is your view of 300 ft tall wind generators at the east end of Fishers Island, as currently proposed under a plan proposed by venture capital, and being considered by Rhode Island?

9:38 AM  
Blogger Tom Andersen said...

My view is that wind generators should be seriously considered everywhere that it makes sense to do so. I understand that they will ruin the experience of some people who sail or who have shorefront houses, or even people who go to the beach, but the purity of the aesthetic experience shouldn't take precedence over the need for abundant clean energy.

In any case, I've heard of proposals for Little Compton and Block Island, but not east of Fishers Island.

2:36 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

eXTReMe Tracker