[Olog-hai]

How many expressways does Manhattan have? There is one and only one: the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, which crosses the island way up in Washington Heights. The FDR Drive/Harlem River Drive is not an expressway (weight limit of 8,000 lbs per axle, all commercial vehicles prohibited); nor is the Henry Hudson Parkway, which formerly connected to the now-gone West Side Highway.

Commercial vehicles in Manhattan are restricted to city streets for the most part. All the tunnels and all the bridges, save the GWB, Trans-Manhattan Expressway and Alexander Hamilton Bridge (i.e. the I-95 corridor), force commercial vehicles onto Manhattan's city streets. The subways are not used for carrying freight, and neither are the commuter railroads; the sole freight railroad line (a former NY Central line on the west side) is used only by Amtrak north of 34^th Street, and has been converted to an elevated walking trail from 34^th to Gansevoort Street.

So if the LoMEX and MidMEX had been built, that would have meant fewer cars and trucks in Manhattan. The city is a “service economy” now, which technically produces nothing; it used to be a manufacturing center.

[9YearLurker]

It makes no sense for Manhattan to be a manufacturing center.

There’s no benefit to manufacturing being in such a tight space, whereas financial services and other type businesses thrive in such proximity.