&gt;&gt; That leaves the majority of Manhattan with spare subway capacity to move people around.<p>&gt; I don&#x27;t think this is true. One of the reasons the green line is so overcrowded is because so many people work on that line. It&#x27;s not only about where people live. If you put people next to the E, it doesn&#x27;t mean they only take the E.<p>First, I&#x27;m not sure that&#x27;s the case. Most of the jobs in Manhattan are in midtown and downtown. Downtown all the lines converge and in midtown there&#x27;s multiple crosstown subways. Sure if you work at Hunter College you have to take the Lexington line, but that&#x27;s a relatively small number of people.<p>Second, inasmuch as its about where you work rather than where you live it doesn&#x27;t matter whether or not you put new housing in Manhattan. If you put it in Jersey City or Brooklyn you still need to get those people to work. A moritorium on new housing in the entire metro area is a non-starter. So from that POV, you might as well put them in Manhattan.<p>--<p>Certainly though I agree that Albany and Washington should quit ripping us off so hard and that the MTA should be less dysfunctional. We could use more and better running mass transportation.