Bridge and Tunnel Hordes

Manhattan: Crown Jewel of the five boroughs. It's glittering steel towers are iconic, not just of the city, but New York as a whole (go ahead, tell me that when I say New York that the skyline isn't one of three images in your head. Now try to tell me that one of those images is the Corning Glass Museum in Steuben County... nice try. That Glass Museum looks interesting actually... But I digress).

For generations, the Manhattan skyline, with the modern day Colossus, Lady Liberty, waiting serenely on the horizon, has served as inspiration and hope for those hoping to find the American dream; setting to sea and escaping their old lives to carve out a new one among the skyscrapers. As a result, NYC has one of the highest populations in the world, with more cultures and backgrounds mixed into it than you could shake a stick at, with Manhattan itself housing over one and a half million people. Punks and Poles, Rabbis and Rastas, Goths and Greeks, and even more alliterative pairings. The bizarre and often flawed masterpiece that is the psychological engineering that allows so many different people to live together in total indifference towards one another is incredible.

Even the parts of the city that are underground are an engineering masterpiece. Boasting over eight hundred miles of track work, servicing one and a half billion riders every year (five million plus every day), the New York City Subway truly deserves the capitalization I just gave it. It takes thousands of people, hard at work through all hours of the night, just to keep the subway running at basic capacity (so next time you see an MTA worker, say 'thanks').

This is all to say that both above and below the street (and the street itself while we're at it), NYC is an incredible place.

Manhattan, as the cultural icon for NYC, is a certifiable death trap.

When the undead come, the worst place you could be is in a densely populated area with choke points instead of exits. What do I mean choke point? Well, the only way off of Manhattan, is via one of its many bridges (fifteen that connect from Manhattan to another major borough) or tunnels (four for car traffic, and eighteen exclusively for MTA use), meaning that when the waves of panicked Manhattanites flood out of the city, looking to go hole up in their house in the Hamptons, or blaze west instead to... New Jersey I guess (although given a choice between the undead and Newark... I kid, I kid), they will be forced through the same narrow channels as everyone else. Imagine even a hundred thousand people all pushing through the GW bridge at once. And remember, I'm not even including the population from the outer boroughs yet! One hundred thousand people on foot, on bikes, but many in cars (75% of Manhattanites do not own cars... which still means four hundred thousand people do).
So what happens if someone fucks up?

Think back to any single traffic jam you've been a part of. More often than not it is the result of an accident clogging a single lane of traffic, and traffic is unerringly guided by local police. So what if they're not there? As the dumb and selfish animals we are, eventually some asshole will try to rush past the jam, swerving between lanes, pushing cars out of his way as best he can (he's probably a Jersey driver) and being a dick in general. Which of course, will result in at least another accident, further clogging traffic.

Imagine if you will, that due to humanity's inherent self-centered nature, someone at the far end of the bridge (rather than being an aggressive jerk as mentioned above), ditches their car or simply dies due to the infected bite they've been trying so hard to ignore, and the whole long snaking chain of cars back into Manhattan comes to a slow grinding halt. Now we have hundreds of thousands of cars with men women and children packed into them, carrying their belongings (like their fine silver and other valuables), becoming sitting ducks for the wave of undead sweeping up behind them, attracted by the incessant honking and screeching. Of course, I'm also assuming the undead are restricted to Manhattan. What if Jersey or the other boroughs have been infected? Caught between two waves of walking cadavers, any bridge between two major metropolitan areas will be less of a road and more of a meat grinder. Being on a bike might help... until some opportunistic driver clotheslines you to steal your bike and get the hell out of dodge, or until you run into the horde of undead waiting for you on the other side. Walking is equally dangerous. First, humans (opportunistic, panicky, murderous), next cars and their drivers (see: humans), finally zombies. Consider: the hordes are still waiting for you on either side and on top of that, anyone in a car who was turned when their windows were down has become a rotting claw grasping at you from the interior of their sedans, waiting to snag a backpack strap or a loose sleeve.

Are the tunnels any better? Hell no!

Reread the paragraph above, and give it the full sensory treatment: burnt rubber and fried radiators (someone will have crashed their car at some point), constant honking and terrified screams (of pain, seeking help, begging for mercy), the low horrific moans of the dead, the occasional swipe of a hand against your skin seeking to bring you closer to a hungry mouth. Notice I didn't use visual imagery? Yeah, because in a tunnel with the power cut the only available light will be from headlights already rendered less than effective considering the traffic will be bumper to bumper. The confused shadows thrown up on the walls of the tunnel, along with the echoes from the mouth of the tunnel will only enhance the chaos and your growing terror. Yeah, good luck making rational and informed decisions in that environment.
I'm not even going to discuss the subway tunnels.... until a later post.

So what do you do? Honestly, not much. If you live in Manhattan there is no way in hell you should try to evacuate in the face of an undead swarm. Obviously for other natural disasters the National Guard and other government forces will be working to direct evacuees, but here they will be focused on taking out the damned corpses filling the streets. You're on your own. The best would be to fortify your home or apartment, turning out the lights, and relying upon your emergency supplies (which you have of course stocked... right?). When things have calmed down, you can make your move, choosing a bridge based on density of swarm on either side and whether or not it has a train line running underneath it or a pedestrian path above it (to avoid the stuck cars and zombies within).

While Central park might be appealing, forget it. The park was designed to be easily patrolled (when the police bother to do so) and has clear line of sight pretty much everywhere. You will not be hidden.

Considering Manhattan is the best known and third most populated borough of the city, we will be coming back here to investigate more zombie related issues, as well as specific neighborhoods within Manhattan for specific zombie defensibility, but for now...

-Shamble On-