randya

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/03...urban-highways

Standalone 

I'm hopeful, but skeptical. It's not necessarily all that green and connected...



Just because they color the parking garage and hi-rise green on some plan doesn't make it "green" or somehow progressive and visionary. That "center road" connects nothing. Why is it not a ped. plaza? Probably just an entracnce for the parking garage. More auto centricity.

I guess I'm glad to hear about it though-- they literally cut a whole swath across New Haven and never even built most of the highway. I'll reserve judgement until I find out or see more.

They do seem to be building a giant arcing ramp just to get to Rte. 34--- and at the same time planning on REMOVING route 34???

A billion dollar project-- and we couldn't even get anyone to fix the horrible curving angled train tracks on the tomlinson ave. bridge right under it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOAITwySMIU

randya

When they cancelled the Mt, Hood Freeway back in the 80s, which would have cut right through my neighborhood, and removed one of the highways along the Willamette River, they replaced it with a park, and not with parking garages.

Standalone 

freakin' west coast hippies. where is the money in a PARK?

kjmillig

Cut I-10, I-45, and US-59 out of the center of Houston? Hahahaha. How would people get around? It'll never happen until after the apocalypse.

bikecrate

The highways basically destroyed the old urban core neighborhoods in Tampa back in the 70's - 80's. It's taken 20 years for them to rebound. Unfortunately, there is more interested in widening the roads than looking for any real traffic solution.

rydabent

At first blush these ideas sound wonderful. But when examined under the hard light of logic they generally unworkable. Closiing a direct route just puts traffic on a longer roundabout route. That wastes time money and gas. We do not live in a fairy tail world.

Northwestrider

One can only hope.

I-Like-To-Bike

Obviously some people, including University professors, do.

crhilton

The hard light of observation as indicated by some of these neighborhoods seems to disagree. When your logic doesn't sync up with the world it's time to examine why you're wrong and stop taking pride in your ability to predict the world.

The residents in Frisco where they did something similar, because the freeway fell down, seemed pretty happy with the result. I suppose they may have ignored the unhappy people, but Frisco hasn't exactly shut down as a center of commerce and based on how absurd the property values are I'm guessing lots of people still want to live there.

Routes are not the only thing in life that's flexible. Destinations are as well. As is time of travel, method, etc. Sometimes building these freeways just seems to move commerce out to the cheap land and end up making everyone travel farther. (That's just a personal observation).

randya

Vancouver BC is a world-class city that never let the interstate be built into/through their downtown core in the first place.

I've seen the proposed plan and it would have absolutely ruined the city.

mikeybikes

I remember talk of a couple years ago, moving I-70 east of the I-25 in Denver up north and rebuilding the existing I-70 as surface streets. It would reconnect a few neighborhoods that are divided by the big expanse of a freeway and allow them to expand I-70 at the same time. The realignment would go through some industrial and undeveloped land. They need for the ten lanes of freeway CDOT says we need.

Unfortunately, I don't think anything ever came of it. No money.

Standalone 

You guys ought to look at some of the maps of the potential depaving sites before dismissing them out of hand.

The rt. 34 site in New Haven was always a travesty. It is an arterial that literally tunnels down as if to go under some buildings as originally planned, and just stops. all four or six lanes or whatever. It is completely absurd. And unused. And one of the worst parts about it is that the swath it would have cut through the western part of town was razed anyway, leaving nothing but a vacant strip of land.



And they're building this redculous giant ramp to go to route 34. All this to access a one mile or so strip of superhighway that runs right into a subterranean retaining wall.



the top part of this photo shows the swath of destruction that has been left fallow for decades, with a cheesy plan of development as a bandaid on the neighborhood, which has descended into low property value, minority concentration and crime.

[img]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vtVzglyvlE0/SiftaAMKITI/AAAAAAAAArc/j6PfNHqRQpU/s320/Rt34_Montage_NewHaven.jpg[img]

here you can see the original raw clear-cutting of the project. Off to the left is just where it ends, abruptly. Beyond are the minority neighborhoods (Legion Avenue--- once an Italian neighborhood)



another mechanized wall between the city and its waterfront. This is literally the ENTIRE highway you're looking at in this view. What is the point???

Standalone 

furthermore, those that argue that highway routes around the city causes longer driving routes aren't taking into consideration the reduction in necessity of cars for those living in these concentrated urban areas. I'd argue that net travel time and fuel consumption would be less without so many of these mercilessly swath-cutting highways.

randya

you know, the original interstate highway plan actually did have the routes bypassing the cities, but at the time a lot of cities begged the feds to bring the roads into town, only to regret that decision later....

rydabent

When interstate highways went thru down town areas blame the city b'crats. They wanted to use the interstate money for urban renewal. Originally interstates were to all go around cities. Omaha Ne is a classic example of the interstate going thru downtown. It BTW was a huge waste of interstate funds. And even worse as traffic gets heavier they are taking more and more high priced land from the city core. Stupid money grubbin b'crats!!!!!

randya

Actually, most inner city interstates didn't gobble up high priced land; rather, for the most part they were installed through impoverished low income neighborhoods and waterfront wetlands.

BengeBoy 

here's what we are going to do w/the Alaskan Way viaduct in Seattle:

crhilton

That last fix they did to it seems to have really improved the area (on the freeway) around 13th street on I-80 though. But it seems like they repave a stretch of that, and a year later it's a mess again. Plus it's a all a big eye sore and too congested for a 60mph freeway.

TheHen

I like the idea of putting the morlocks underground. Can we keep them down there so they don't kill/eat the rest of us?