I suspect Washington Avenue Extension, built in 1968-1973 is reaching the midpoint in its useful lifespan, or maybe even a bit beyond it. It seems unlikely it will have a life much beyond 2050, and certainly not well into the twenty-second century.
Simply said, Washington Avenue Extension is a gasoline alley built into the Albany Pine Bush for the convience of us humans to get to businesses and commerical strips. It was built with the cheapest materials possible, not designed to last more then a few decades. Washington Avenue Extensive lives and dies on cheap energy, as it’s too remote of a location to be pratical for anything besides automobile commuting.
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The automobile and the cheap fossil fuels that make it possible will not be around forever, especially as we as society get concerned about the impacts climate change is having on us all. It’s even located in such a remote location that trollies or other mode of public transit really do not make sense there.
There is often an unwillingness to admit humankind might not be around in the next century, or that the automobile age will end. Technophiles and advocates for the status quo advocate for solar panels, windmills, and electric cars.
Someday cracks in the concrete slab known as Washington Avenue Extension will spring dandelions and weathering will lead to the road to eventually break apart and start to fail. Rebar will rust, and eventually the forces of nature will remake the landscape, someday removing any trace of human action.
The hideous place known as Washington Avenue Extension will someday be entirely gone, a relic of earlier times. It’s quite possible that humanity will strip that road in an effort to restore the Albany Pine Bush, or even just for the materials to meet more contemporary needs in the city.
