Ten North American Freeways Without Futures
by Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel on 09.28.08
San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway. Torn down after the 1989 earthquake, the freeway was replaced with a vibrant, multi-use boulevard. (photo via Flickr)
Back in the 1950's and 60's, when gas was cheap and there was plenty of federal money to go around, highways were built on a massive scale in North America, often slicing through city centers or blocking off waterfronts. While they added little charm to American downtowns at the time, today many of these freeways are not only eyesores but downright dangerous.
So what is to be done with all this aging infrastructure in an era of rising gasoline prices and scarce funding for repairs? "Tear them down!" suggests the Congress for the New Urbanism, which has come up with a list of ten North American highways that have passed their prime and are ripe for demolition and replacement by functional, attractive and sustainable urban boulevards.
Oklahoma City recently announced plans to knock down 4.5 miles of elevated freeway running through its downtown and replace it with an old-fashioned boulevard and an urban park. According to the Congress for the New Urbanism's "Freeways without Futures - Highways to Boulevards" initiative:
Cities around the world are replacing urban highways with surface streets, saving billions of dollars on transportation infrastructure and revitalizing adjacent land with walkable, compact development. Transportation models that support connected street grids, improved transit, and revitalized urbanism will make reducing gasoline dependency and greenhouse gas emissions that much more convenient. It pays to consider them as cities evaluate their renewal strategies — and as the U.S. evaluates its federal transportation and climate policy.
After an open call for nominations, and an analysis of age, redevelopment potential, savings, mobility, existing plans and local support, the new urbanists compiled the following list of highways with the greatest potential for teardown and urban regeneration:
1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, WA. Built in 1953, the Viaduct carries some 105,000 vehicles a day. After an earthquake damaged the structure in 2001, Washington State proposed either an expanded elevated highway or a tunnel. Both of the costly proposals were rejected in a 2007 referendum, and civic groups are now pushing to knock the whole thing down and open up the city's waterfront, while state, county and city officials are considering eight different planning alternatives for redesigning the road.
2. Sheridan Expressway, Bronx, NY. Designed by Robert Moses along the Bronx River, local opposition stopped it from extending into New York's Botanical Gardens in the 1960's. Today, a local coalition is calling for replacing the highway with a surface street that would stimulate redevelopment along the waterfront.
The Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance's proposal for replacing the Sheridan Expressway.(image via SBRWA)
3. The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, NY. A waterfront bridge dating from the 1950's, the NYSDOT is planning to investment in ramps and access roads that will necessitate replacing the bridge with a similar expressway.
4. Route 34, New Haven, CT. Built in 1959, 600 families and 65 businesses were displaced in order to build an extension of this highway that never actually materialized. New Haven's mayor has identified the site as a good place for urban infill development, and a conceptual plan was even developed by RKG Associates.
5. Claiborne Expressway, New Orleans, LA. In the 1950's, Interstate 10 replaced Claiborne Avenue, a prosperous street lined with oaks and local businesses. After Hurricane Katrina, the Unified New Orleans Plan proposed removing the two mile elevated freeway and its associated blight from 35 to 40 blocks and restoring another 20-25 blocks of open space along its route.
6. Interstate 81, Syracuse, NY. Its construction in 1957 destroyed a historic black community, today it is nearing the end of its life and serves 75,000 cars a day. A coalition of diverse bodies are checking out alternatives to the road, and there is even a blog about it.
7. I-64, Louisville, KY. Separating downtown Louisville from its waterfront park is I-64, part of which locals have nicknamed "Spaghetti Junction". Citizens' groups have proposed removing the highway to make way for a riverfront boulevard. However, if this "freeway without a future" does not come down soon, the States of Kentucky and Indiana and the Federal Highway Administration want to expand it in a 13-year, $4.1 billion project that would look like this:
(Image via 8664.org)
8. Route 29, Trenton, NJ. Built in the 1950's, renewal plans for this highway were drawn up back in 1989. The State of New Jersey is interested in converting the highway into a boulevard, but only if the city pays for it out of its own pocket.
9. Gardiner Expressway, Toronto, ON. Canadian cities made many of the same mistakes that US cities did during the mid-century highway-building era. The Gardiner Expressway, built to carry 70,000 cars a day in 1960's, now serves some 200,000 daily and requires millions of dollars in repairs annually. Part of it was removed in 1999, and Toronto Mayor David Miller supports tearing down the rest of it as well.
10. 11th Street Bridges and the Southeast Freeway, Washington D.C. The DC Office of Planning refers to this 1.39 stretch of highway as a "formidable psychological barrier." The Federal Highway Administration wants to reconstruct the 11th Street Bridges interchange, but citizens' groups support removing the Southeast Freeway altogether.
One of the plazas that replaced the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (image via cora.org).
For an account of how a highway teardown actually happens in practice, check out this great video on the removal of the Embarcadero from Streetfilms.org.
Via:: Congress for the New Urbanism
More on highways:
Big Surprise: Highways Don't Pay for Themselves
Using the Space Above our Highways for Wind Power
Time to Build Highways Underground?
Solar Powered LEDs Light Up Highways
Rare Plant Thought Extinct Re-discovered in Upstate New York
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The Harvest of the Month Program Brings Seasonal Favorites to Portland Schools
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Turcot interchange in Montreal, Quebec.
Sorry no English version:
http://brub.cc/turcot
This is an excellent post , I'm grateful to you , thanks a lot.
As a New Yorker, I'm happy to see the Sheridan Expressway on the list, but what about busier freeways in the city that are also huge eyesores that have torn neighborhoods apart. If you want to see real changes in the landscape, the Brooklyn-Queens expressway and the Cross Bronx expressway should either be tunnelized along their entire legnth or torn down.
Tearing them down would be a great waste.
Each one, has a large amount of land, which would be ideal to turn each into one of the following.
1. Garden/parks.
2. Canal.
3. Urban Agricultural farm.
4. Free Orchard. Where ayone can eat the fruit grown and the tree's improve the quality of living and the astetic.
Dude,
I KNEW the Viaduct was going to be #1 on this list. The state has been arguing this one for years. This list was made for the Viaduct!
1. Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle, WA
What a lot of this "tear it down, it's an eyesore," vein of things fails to understand is that the viaduct is the only North/South alternative to I-5 running through Seattle.
Sure, go ahead and do away with, what, 40 or 45% of your capacity, because people can use the wonderful public transportation system that Seattle offers.
Yes, the A.W. Viaduct is an eyesore, and as seismically sound as a child's couch fort, but for the time being, it is going to have to be replaced by some other limited access, higher speed roadway until Seattle matures enough to get a working public transit system in place.
You can only do away with freeways when there is another effective way to get from point A to point B. And in Seattle, you pretty much have to have a car, since there is no effective alternative.
@ TB:
It's a bit of a catch22 though. If they don't tear it down, will there be any demand for better alternative transit systems?
If you build it (or in this case, unbuild it) they will come.
How about tearing down these monstrosities and replacing them with localised industry and jobs so that people can actually walk to work or even cycle?
The whole business of transport is to facilitate the centralisation of industry and commerce thus increasing profits and reducing overheads. Its not there for your convenience whatsoever.
Tearing down these behemoths was/is/will be a terrible waste.
There is a huge amount of embodied energy in these structures, most constructed of concrete and steel. To relegate these huge constructions to landfills is as big a mistake as it was to build them in the first place. What is more, all of these structures occupy public right-of-ways, public land seized and carved out of cities, connecting disparate neighborhoods and locales.
Instead of viewing these structures as waste, why not see them for the potential they offer? Imagine what might be gained by repairing, fixing, reimagining, rather than simply throwing away...
It is true, that elevated freeways carrying tens of thousand of cars, belching soot and noise day after day, can indeed be a blight; but perhaps it is like many of the mistakes we have made over the decades of the industrial age--an opportunity to reimagine and reinvent!
Imagine an elevated bicycle and pedestrian path with a view of the waterfront, passing through an elevated garden carved out of the hollows of concrete decking....
Imagine infill housing and buildings built into forgotten, odd-shaped nooks and crannies of the urban fabric, shaded by an elevated avenue of quiet wind turbines...
Imagine a vibrant, double-decker street filled with shops and craftspeople displaying their wares...
Imagine live-work spaces catering to those willing to live in more experimental settings, between the realm of warehouses and downtown...
Imagine a long linear park, winding its way through the city, touching down at various points, creating hubs and nodes of activity and community...
The possibilities are endless! And these are not pipe dreams. One need only look to many examples which abound already: elevated train ways in Paris and Berlin transformed into vibrant neighborhoods; Abandoned amphitheaters from the Roman age embedded with homes and parks in Italy; shops and restaurants tucked under elevated train tracks in Japan...
The challenge of the future is not to decide what to demolish and discard, but rather to see, find, and harness the potential in the landscape of excess that we have created. The challenge will be to reinvent what has been made, building upon the past, instead of trying to erase it.
How much more profound to make the grotesque into the beautiful, to transform an object of hatred and dismay into that which uplifts and grows?