Reddit mentions of New York: The Politics of Urban Regional Development (Lane Studies in Regional Government)

Traffic congestion has been a problem since the days of New Amsterdam! This was something that the city fathers meant to address for years, and finally did after the end of the American Revolution, when the city was growing at an unprecedented pace. John Randel, Jr. was commissioned to survey the structures on Manhattan, which became the basis for the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811. Here is a great zoomable copy that was created between 1818 and 1820; it has the 1820 street grid superimposed on top of it. You should check out The Measure of Manhattan, which offers a history of John Randel, Jr. and the execution and expansion of the grid.

Most of the urban planning in the city has involved altering the present grid, and extending it and modifying it for the other boroughs (to varying degrees). The grid has evolved in response to transportation advances, but there are obviously limitations because of simple geography. Trucks choke the streets south of 14th Street because there are several separate grids at play. One of the most interesting things I’ve learned is that there are two separate grids denoting the De Lancey and Rutger estates; the De Lancey grid is perpendicular to the Bowery, while the Rutgers grid is perpendicular to Division Street, which led to the Bowery; these grids reflect the direction of commerce in these particular areas. The 1811 grid is somewhat more static, but as I mentioned before, there have been several notable changes over the past 200 years. If you want to check out some online maps of the city, check out the David Rumsey Map Collection; it has close-up maps of the different city wards if you wanted to focus your research on a particular neighborhood.

To study traffic patterns, one must be familiar with the earliest forms of transportation in the city. The personal wagons of merchants and the carriages of the wealthy shared space with cattle being herded down the streets, and wild hogs foraging about (a tremendous problem up until the 19th Century). In the early 1800s came the omnibus, which was a carriage with multiple seats inside; they began to operate on all major thoroughfares and streets quickly, connecting uptown residents with their downtown businesses and the ports with fast packet ships and freighters moving West through the Erie canal. In the 1830s, railroads reached down into Manhattan, further revolutionizing transportation in the city, but of course the tracks often competed with the other street vehicles. The elevated trains were built in the 1870s and 80s, freeing up space on the streets below; streetcars were also spreading throughout the city, adding to the chaos. The subway, opening in 1904, alleviated congestion a bit, but as you can see, many of the modern problems we have with traffic are not quite as modern as we think. Cars and trucks further added to the traffic nightmare that is quintessentially New York. The construction of the highways that ring Manhattan and in many cases cut through entire outer borough neighborhoods did help congestion, but as we have seen in the past 80 years, they are not without their problems. I would recommend New York: The Politics of Urban Regional Development for further information regarding urban development in the 20th Century.

Hope that helped a bit. Good luck on your project!