How a bridge can decide who gets through
A low overpass turns a road’s design into a filter. The parkway bridges associated with Robert Moses on Long Island were built with clearances too low for many buses. A passenger car could pass beneath; a tall public-transit bus could not. That made the route usable by one kind of traveler and physically unavailable to another, without a checkpoint or an official refusing entry.
The distinction mattered because the parkways led toward beaches and recreation areas that were presented as public destinations. “Public,” however, did not mean equally reachable: a family without a car could not simply board a bus and follow the same route as a family driving a private automobile.
A road system built around cars
A parkway is a landscaped road intended primarily for passenger vehicles, rather than a general-purpose highway. On Long Island, the parkway network helped connect city residents to places farther east, but its design favored people who could travel by car. Low bridges reinforced that choice by making buses—and often other tall vehicles—unsuitable for the route.
The effect was more durable than a written restriction. A rule can be changed or ignored; a bridge clearance is built into the landscape. Reaching the destination by transit required a different route or another way to cover the distance, while drivers could continue beneath the arches.
The lasting consequence of a physical barrier
Moses’s parkway designs are widely discussed as an example of how transportation infrastructure can restrict access through its practical effects. The barriers fell especially hard on people who depended on public transit, including many lower-income city residents and communities of color. The landscape did not need to announce whom it excluded: it made car ownership a condition of easy access.
That is the enduring lesson of the low overpasses. A road can be open to everyone in principle while its dimensions quietly determine who can actually use it.
