PART IV. Automobile Through-Traffic

AUTOMOBILE THROUGH-TRAFFIC

The successive steps in the formation of routes of automobile travel within and through and near Bronx Park, largely controlled as they have been by considerations entirely independent of the Botanical Garden, and the interjection of the Botanical Garden into the area traversed by or affected by these routes, have resulted in a situation quite unprecedented, so far as we know, in any of the important botanical gardens of the world.

Many of these botanical gardens are substantially self-contained, free from intersecting through-routes of vehicular travel, and subject to design and management for botanical garden purposes alone. Most of them, like Kew, have no roads for public vehicular travel within them at all. The Arnold Arboretum, more nearly comparable in size with the New York Botanical Garden than is Kew, but because of its confinement to woody plants presenting less administrative difficulties in controlling public abuse of its collections than is the case where more strictly garden-like elements are involved, has roads open to the public in the daytime, but it is completely closed at night and up to the present time the roads have not been open to automobiles.

In an area the size of the New York Botanical Garden, we believe that automobile roads for circulation within the area are necessary and desirable, although for the public benefit to be derived from the Botanical Garden as such it is extremely desirable, as heretofore indicated, that every possible care should be exercised to minimize the danger and annoyance of frequent crossings at grade of these roads and the main routes of circulation for people on foot.

But the successive and almost independent steps in the development of the main lines of through-travel for automobiles in this part of the Borough of the Bronx, have placed the Garden in the path of some of the most important of these lines and thrown upon its roads a burden of through-traffic which is already a very serious problem and bids fair to become immensely worse.

The completion of Bronx River Parkway, debouching from the north into what was evidently designed as a local loop road for circulation wholly within what is now the Botanical Garden, taken in connection with the prior opening of the Grand Concourse (laid out long after the establishment of Bronx Park and the design of most of its roads), opens through the Garden, on roads very ill adapted to the purpose, what is plainly destined to be one of the most busily thronged automobile thoroughfares leading in and out of Manhattan.

Both for the benefit of this through-traffic as such and for the benefit of the Botanical Garden as such, a radical improvement in this situation seems almost imperative. It is possible that the City may find a way to open a new and more direct connection for this great line of through-traffic independent of the Botanical Garden, between the Grand Concourse near its present northern end and a point in the southerly part of Bronx River Parkway north of the Garden. (See Map B.) Also there is even more reason to hope for the contemplated connection of Bronx River Parkway Drive with the northern end of Bronx Park East, the complete opening and improvement of the latter to Pelham Parkway, and its ultimate extension across Pelham Parkway into Boston Post Road. Such by-passes, if provided, would greatly ease the situation, but even so it would remain far from satisfactory.

Certainly if this is not done, and probably even if it is done, there should ultimately be a shorter and less tortuous road, on good lines and grades and of ample width, following as closely as practicable the westerly boundary of the Botanical Garden and substantially independent of all its routes of interior circulation, from Bronx River Parkway Drive at a point north of the northwest corner of the Garden lands to Southern Boulevard, which borders the southern part of the Garden on the west, and connecting at grade, conveniently, with the roads which cross into the Garden over the railroad at Woodlawn Road, at Mosholu Parkway and at Bedford Park Boulevard (200th Street).

Such a road or parkway for through-traffic, because of the necessity for connecting with the bridges over the railroad, should be built largely in heavy fill, on a broad embankment that would provide a platform for a tall and dense border plantation serving ultimately to screen from the landscape of the Botanical Garden not merely the railroad but the very conspicuous miscellaneous buildings on the higher ground to the west, far better than they can ever be screened otherwise. And from such an embankment-road the throngs of people using it would be able to overlook and enjoy in passing the neighboring portions of the Garden without invading it or coming into conflict with those who resort to the Garden primarily for its own sake.

As a matter of intelligent city planning we believe that ultimately a branch of such a thoroughfare should be, and probably will be, provided directly south near the railroad to Fordham Road along the edge of the Fordham University property. We understand that this is now prohibited by legislation secured in the supposed interests of Fordham University; but looking to the remote future we cannot but believe that the time will come when it will be to the interest of all concerned to complete such a connection in a properly designed manner. This possibility obviously reinforces the importance of such a through-traffic line as we have suggested along the westerly boundary of the Garden, whether the City does or does not open the independent connection between the north end of the Grand Concourse and Bronx River Parkway.

There has long been an agitation for a street across the Bronx valley from the end of Burke Avenue on the east to some point on Webster Avenue. This proposal first took the form of a high-level viaduct substantially on the north line of the Garden lands. This was indefinitely postponed because of its excessive cost. The project now comes up again in the form of a descending earth-fill embankment from the end of Burke Avenue, crossing by bridges over the road which connects the Garden with Bronx River Parkway, and over the Bronx River, coming nearly down to the elevation of the meadow along the northerly line of the Garden land at a point between the river and the railroad, thence curving across the northwest corner of the Garden land and rising on an embankment adjacent to the railroad so as to meet the grade of the existing bridge over the railroad at the Woodlawn Road Entrance. This latest proposition, besides being less costly, can be made in its ultimate effect a much less conspicuous intrusion on the landscape of the Garden than a high-level viaduct. Its immediate effect would be very distressing through the substitution of high, raw earth-banks where many well-grown trees now exist; but if these banks are liberally and skilfully graded and composed of material suitable for the vigorous growth of permanent trees and underplanting, and if they are properly planted, they can be made in due time to furnish a good enframement of the Garden, especially desirable on the railroad side.

The portion of this embankment road which would parallel the railroad from the north boundary of the Garden to the Woodlawn Road Entrance bridge would coincide with the west-side through-travel route previously discussed, and if the City undertakes the work it is highly important for the Garden that the grading plans be worked out in such a way that the slopes can be counted on as permanent, that trees can be promptly planted on them and grown to maturity. It would be a shame to permit the work to be done in such a way that after beginning by the destruction of the now-existing trees it would leave the new plantations subject to probable destruction by a future widening of the embankment when the west-side through-route is opened.

South of the Woodlawn Road Entrance the construction of the west-side through-route may be quite remote, but we believe it would be most unwise to proceed except upon the assumption that it will ultimately be constructed. Its precise location and grades and the eastern limits of the regrading necessary in connection with it we have not attempted to determine. Obviously the operation as a whole should be so designed as to minimize the disturbance to the Garden to the utmost degree consistent with securing (a) satisfactory grades, alignment and width for the through-road, (b) the best possible permanent bordering plantation for the landscapes of the Botanical Garden, and (c) incidentally attractive park-like qualities for the enjoyment of users of the through-road, including pleasant views over the Garden while maintaining an effective barrier, for police purposes, between this road and the interior of the Garden. Our impression is that a continuous, dense, high, but narrow screen of trees and undergrowth should be provided between the road and the railroad; that the slope toward the Garden should be more openly and intermittently planted; and that the permanent fence between the road and the Garden might in many places take the form of a mere parapet supported by a high retaining-wall so as to permit unobstructed views of the Garden without facilitating trespass and at the same time minimize the encroachment of the slope-grading on the present plantations of the Garden.

We assume, then, such a west-side through-traffic road, as a fundamental part of a comprehensive plan for the Botanical Garden.

With this new through-traffic line and the complete improvement of Bronx Park East, the interior roads can be wholly or almost wholly relieved of the burden of through-traffic, and some of them could advantageously be eliminated. One road in particular seems to us unnecessary and undesirable under such conditions. This is the one which extends past the easterly corner of the Museum and across the Water Gardens. As long as it remains, it will offer a temptation to high-speed through-travel by automobiles and motor cycles between the Southern Boulevard Entrance and Bronx River Parkway. It will also interpose a very objectionable traffic-line between the Museum, with other features yet to be developed in its vicinity, and the entire area of the Garden to the east of it. Incidentally it constitutes a strongly marked line in the landscape composition, having a very awkward and unpleasant relation to the orientation of the large and dominating architectural mass of the Museum itself.

We are inclined to think that the steep road which now runs from the hollow below the Iris Garden up over the ridge and down to the junction of Southern Boulevard and Pelham Parkway, could advantageously be eliminated. To do so would certainly be advantageous to the great majority of people who visit the Garden on foot, and would remove one element of danger and complexity at the important traffic-junction where it now makes a five-corner intersection. It would also facilitate a more useful and more beautiful treatment of the Iris Garden unit through which the road now runs.

On the other hand, certain additional road construction is necessary to complete a satisfactory system of interior circulation for the Garden.

One such addition of unquestionable importance is a link across the river somewhere south of the Gorge, so as to avoid the necessity of going outside of the Garden enclosure into Pelham Parkway and back again into the enclosure in passing between the southeasterly and southwesterly parts of the land. In our opinion such a road and bridge, while ultimately necessary, are far less urgent than many other improvements. But it is extremely important to fix the precise location and grades of such a future road because of its intimate relation to the design of all the adjacent areas, within which improvements in maintenance, in planting, in the path system, etc., are needed. These should all be directed toward a well-studied landscape treatment into which this road will fit perfectly whenever it is built. In other words, the design of this road and bridge ought to be part of a design for the permanent treatment of the two landscape units to the north of it--namely the Hemlock Gorge unit and the suggested Landscape Garden unit--and of the picnic grove unit to the south of it; and no permanent improvements should be attempted in any of these areas until the plans for all have been worked out with a considerable degree of finality. Our present impression is that the best line for the road would be, very roughly, as indicated on Map A. This shows alternative lines for the easterly end of the road, choice between which can not be made without working out the details with much care. In any case the road ought not to be permitted to encroach upon the natural southern and southeastern limits of the topographic unit suggested for development as a Landscape Garden. And probably in any case an underpass should be provided for a foot-path connecting that unit with the picnic grove unit.

The proposal of a west-side parkway for through-traffic outlined at the beginning of this portion of the Report, together with the development of the vicinity of the Museum, discussed in the following section, Part V, necessitates a revision of the vehicular approach to the Museum and of the connection along its westerly side with the roads in the Fruticetum. As to the latter connection, it would be almost as undesirable to force vehicles, circulating within the Garden between the vicinity of the Fruticetum and the vicinity of the Museum and points further south, to go outside the Garden enclosure into the contemplated through-travel road and back again, as it is to force out into Pelham Parkway the vehicles that need to cross the Bronx River in the southerly part of the Garden. And for reasons already indicated we believe it would be far better to provide such an interior circuit west of the Museum and the Water Gardens, even at the expense of considerable local regrading and replanting, than to maintain permanently the present road in the heart of the Garden northeast of the Museum.

The location of the present east-and-west road south of the Museum through the center of the valley which lies between the Museum and the ridge northeast of Conservatory Range No. 1, and the concurrent splitting of this valley into two halves of contrasting treatment--the northeast half occupied on the Museum axis by a formal approach to the Museum which begins abruptly in the very middle of the valley unit, while the southwest half is treated as an open informal landscape--is to us very distressing and esthetically self-contradictory. Some permanent cross-connection for the interior circulation of vehicular traffic somewhere between the Museum and Conservatory Range No. 1 seems essential. The best place for it we are not yet sure of, because it is involved with three other very perplexing problems which will be discussed in the next section of the Report.

Briefly there seem to be four possible solutions: One would be to leave the cross-road substantially where it is but to unify the valley by applying the same kind of landscape treatment to both its halves; either by extending a generally formal treatment southwesterly across the valley from the Museum to the opposite ridge, this treatment being traversed by the cross-road; or by curtailing the formal treatment to the immediate vicinity of the Museum and leaving the entire heart of the valley treated informally but still traversed by the cross-road. A second would be to shift the cross-road much closer to the Museum and leave the entire heart of the valley open for treatment as a single unit, either informal or formal, but undivided by a road. A third would accomplish a similar result by shifting the cross-road much further from the Museum to a position fairly well up the slope on the southwesterly side of the valley. A fourth would be to remove the road entirely from the valley by resorting to the old road line just to the northeast of Conservatory Range No. 1.

Upon the whole, as well as we can judge without working out thoroughly the problems discussed in the next section of this Report, it would seem that number three or number two of the above alternatives would hold the best promise of first-rate ultimate results. These two are roughly indicated as alternatives on Map A.

Under the circumstances, clearly, no considerable permanent changes should be undertaken in the area between and surrounding the Museum and Conservatory Range No. 1 until a satisfactory general plan for this whole area has been worked out and agreed upon, unless they are such as would surely fit in with any one of the above mentioned alternatives.

Only one other additional road for interior circulation has occurred to us as at all desirable, and we are not yet entirely confident that it is worth while. The road now under construction from the Rose Garden to the Allerton Avenue Entrance is in part ugly and positively dangerous in alignment and grade. The most objectionable points are where it crosses the Lake Valley and near the undeveloped Arboretum Entrance. It is apparently possible to lay out a substitute for this section of the road on good lines and grades, by swinging off from this newly built road at a depression southwest of the Propagating Houses, crossing by an arch over the ravine east of the Lorillard Mansion and from there to the Rose Garden following approximately the old Lorillard approach road. In this position the road would overlook, without intruding upon, the Landscape Garden discussed in Part III, Section 4, and would make it possible to bypass or entirely to eliminate that section of the newly constructed road which now injures by its embankment the Lake Valley and which has the only steep and dangerous gradient and curve in the Garden road-system.

There are various other adjustments of roads and road-junctions, mostly of a minor sort but important in the aggregate, which ought to be made in order to adapt what were designed as park drives for horse-drawn vehicles to use as automobile roads in a botanical garden; but we will here mention only one, the very confusing junction in the Fruticetum north of the Water Gardens. This ought to be radically changed and simplified for the convenience and safety of traffic, and we believe it can at the same time be so handled in connection with the readjustment of the Fruticetum planting as to improve the appearance of this part of the Garden very materially.