People disrupt Manhattan for novelty (eg. marathon) and civic/political (eg. no car zones) purposes all the time. Manhattan is hardly a purely reasonable place, in fact it's far from it. All kinds of nonsense takes place in nyc all the time. If nyc was driven by cold economic reason it would be boring and lame compared to what it is today.
reply> People disrupt Manhattan for novelty (eg. marathon) and civic/political (eg. no car zones) purposes all the time
replyThis isn’t in the same category as burying a new train line. I lived around just the Hudson Yard water and electric expansions when those happened. It was years of increased noise, traffic and litigation.
Sure it was bothersome, but it didn't seem to cause the city to collapse into itself, either.
reply> it didn't seem to cause the city to collapse into itself
replyStraw man. Nobody claimed these were existential threats.
OP said "I wouldn't be surprised if cost/passenger over useful lifetime still shakes out better for the trains." I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite came out–take the costs of the disruption and time value of money into account, and building a new train line anywhere in Manhattan is a worse use of resources than (a) increasing capacity on existing lines, a veritable forest of low-hanging fruit or even (b) eVTOLs.