Downtown Manhattan

Today was one of several training days for me to get known to Manhattan’s chaos. We started from our hotel in N.J. and went through the Lincoln Tunnel. At 34th street we went west until 12Ave or 9a. The road runs south along Manhattan to Battery Park.              Broadway This is the area of Ground Zero and the new Freedom Tower. For a guy like me who has never seen anything like it, the trip was awesome. We went up again on Greenwich and that’s about where traffic got to be a problem. We tried Broadway to circle back to Battery Park but the congestion turned out to be too much. There was no way we could make any headway. And that pretty much was the way the rest of the trip was to be. New York City is choking on its traffic. Never in a million years had I ever seen anything similar. They might have traffic rules but nobody cares to follow them. If you don’t literally push pedestrians out of your way by inching the bus forward they will not let you pass. The same of course, is valid for every driver in this city. Ruthless driving is a way of life in this city. We were looking for a parking spot for the bus and it took 2 hours of driving around until we finally found a spot along 50th.Street and only because another bus was just leaving.        12 Ave South We went to a nice little restaurant and had a great meal there. It was the first decent food after leaving Canada. Had a great chat there and I learned a lot again. Did you know that New York Transit Authority has a 7 storey-building where buses are parked? 70-80 buses were just running down the ramp to get into the Lincoln Tunnel. They were about bring the tunnel traffic to a stand-still.        Entrance Lincoln Tunnel Space is at a premium in this city and innovative ideas have been developed like the below shown parking paternoster for cars. New York has an ongoing never ending construction-mania and if technically possible high-rises would be higher than Mt.Everest. We drove 54km today and have been driving for 3hrs. flat! That pretty much sums it up.