Downtown need a makeover? More cities are razing urban highways

 

Construction equipment lines the old Interstate 195 in Providence, R.I. The city has closed this highway, which once ran through the downtown core.

 

In New Haven, Conn., a mistake of the past – one that displaced hundreds, razed a neighborhood, and physically divided a city – is finally set to be rectified: A highway is going to be demolished. Some people in New Haven have been waiting to see this for 40 years, ever since it became clear that a modern roadway slicing through the heart of downtown would not bring the hoped-for suburban shoppers and revitalization. That waiting list is long, it turns out, as cities across the United States look to erase some of the damage from urban highway construction of the 1950s and '60s – tearing up or replacing the roadways and attempting to restitch bulldozed neighborhoods.

 

- "For people who live and work around [urban highways], they always had huge negative side effects: They broke up the urban fabric, were noisy, and divided cities," says Ted Shelton, a professor of architecture at the University of Tennessee who has studied urban highway removal. Removing roadways presents an opportunity for wiser, gentler redevelopment that can – if all goes well – add vibrancy and livability to areas around city centers.

 

- That possibility has planners from Providence, R.I., and Baltimore to New Orleans and Seattle rethinking decisions to run highways through the hearts of cities. To that end, they are hoping to get some help from federal transportation programs (though budget-cutters in the US House have this program in their sights), as well as from local and state sources. New Haven's $16 million from Uncle Sam, for instance, will help demolish a short stub of highway – called the Oak Street Connector – that delivers visitors to a Walgreens and a parking garage.

 

- Two things are driving these extreme make-overs. One is the simple fact that many highways built in the postwar years are nearing the end of their useful lives, says Joseph DiMento, a professor of planning and law at the University of California, Irvine, who is at work on a book about urban highways. The other, he says, is a growing faith that urban centers, including some that have been long neglected, have development potential.

 

- Those who hope the post-highway landscape will right wrongs and make things the way they used to be will probably be disappointed. New Haven's removal project, set to evolve in phases, will try to reconnect city streets long separated by the highway. But where lower-end housing and a predominantly African-American neighborhood once stood, city officials now pin their economic hopes on a 10-story medical lab and office building.

 

- "It's pretty audacious to take out a highway," says Kelly Murphy, city economic development administrator. But "we're not going to build four-story walk-ups anymore." Restitching a city must accommodate the modern role of cities, not just nostalgic visions of the past, she notes.

 

More below:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0302/Downtown-need-a-makeover-More-cities-are-razing-urban-highways

I think out of the 3Cs that Cincinnati would benefit most from removing their downtown highway which is taking up valuable riverfront real estate. Unfortunately, I don't see any chance of this happening among any of Ohio's highway-obsessed populations: note that the cities mentioned in the article are all on the coasts. I don't know of any sort of citywide discussion over removing downtown highways in any of Ohio's cities. Over here, traffic volumes are down to an unprecedented low on our downtown highway (early 1980s levels) and ODOT responds by doubling the number of lanes  for $1.7 billion. Do Columbus residents even so much as raise a finger? No, none expect maybe about 20 max, including me. And even among those you have people who buy ODOT's cap solution as being good for reconnecting our neighborhoods when they're going to *double* the width of the existing barrier. Here's our answer to New Haven:

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071/publicmeetings/Documents/Jan2011DBE/January11DBE.pdf

 

The progressive, urban savvy individuals who understand that highways should lead *to* our downtowns and not *through* them just don't exist in any large numbers. Lots of vocal urbanites from various neighborhood organizations have their hearts in the right place, but are woefully misinformed about good urbanism, especially how transportation ties into that. By and large, they see the downtown highway as a necessity. Our downtowns desperately need this makeover, but aren't even willing to discuss the idea as though it were too ridiculous to even consider.

- "It's pretty audacious to take out a highway," says Kelly Murphy, city economic development administrator. But "we're not going to build four-story walk-ups anymore." Restitching a city must accommodate the modern role of cities, not just nostalgic visions of the past, she notes.

 

Not going to build four-story walk-ups anymore?  Dense housing is a "nostalgic vision of the past?"  What does she think "the modern role of cities" is?

I think out of the 3Cs that Cincinnati would benefit most from removing their downtown highway which is taking up valuable riverfront real estate.

 

The FWW redesgin minimized it as much as we could, but it didn't solve the problem

 

- "It's pretty audacious to take out a highway," says Kelly Murphy, city economic development administrator. But "we're not going to build four-story walk-ups anymore." Restitching a city must accommodate the modern role of cities, not just nostalgic visions of the past, she notes.

 

Not going to build four-story walk-ups anymore?  Dense housing is a "nostalgic vision of the past?"  What does she think "the modern role of cities" is?

 

Five-story buildings with elevators, maybe? :-)

Columbus is one of the prime examples of a boxed-in, suffocating downtown.

That stranglehold is only going to get tighter. In fact, suggestions by business owners on Long St next door in King-Lincoln, a majority black neighborhood, to make Long St two-way into Downtown was met by ODOT with a response of "no, there would be traffic" and the city council sided with ODOT to keep these functioning as one-way streets for rush hour traffic, not local residents and business owners. One of the business owners told me an ODOT rep said to her at a previous meeting, "Who would want to go to that neighborhood, anyway?". Of course, keeping the main, historical black neighborhood cut off from the downtown has no racist undertones at all and neither was that comment or the demolition of much of Hanford Village, comprised of homes constructed specifically for black WWII vets, where their neighborhood park is now located across I-70. Look at how progressive we are by maintaining the very highways that run through and ruined these neighborhoods that just so happen to be where most black people live in this city. That's pure coincidence, of course. These suffocation effects follow these highways just about everywhere immediately outside of Downtown, yet no one puts 2+2 together.

That stranglehold is only going to get tighter. In fact, suggestions by business owners on Long St next door in King-Lincoln, a majority black neighborhood, to make Long St two-way into Downtown was met by ODOT with a response of "no, there would be traffic" and the city council sided with ODOT to keep these functioning as one-way streets for rush hour traffic, not local residents and business owners. One of the business owners told me an ODOT rep said to her at a previous meeting, "Who would want to go to that neighborhood, anyway?". Of course, keeping the main, historical black neighborhood cut off from the downtown has no racist undertones at all and neither was that comment or the demolition of much of Hanford Village, comprised of homes constructed specifically for black WWII vets, where their neighborhood park is now located across I-70. Look at how progressive we are by maintaining the very highways that run through and ruined these neighborhoods that just so happen to be where most black people live in this city. That's pure coincidence, of course. These suffocation effects follow these highways just about everywhere immediately outside of Downtown, yet no one puts 2+2 together.

 

So why not run for city gov't?  Clearly you believe that almost everything the city has done is either wrong or not good enough, so why not stop complaining and run on a platform of correcting these issues? 

 

BTW, Columbus does not run ODOT.  ODOT didn't want a single cap on any of the bridges and just wanted a wider highway canyon, and Columbus wanted just about all of them done, at the very least.  They saw that the 670 cap was a success and it did make the neighborhood more cohesive even if it did not restore it to 1950.  ODOT has far more power on this issue than the city does.  I'm sorry, but as much as you or I would like it, we can't turn back the clock and erase two of the biggest highways in the nation through our Downtown areas.  The OT's quoted story is great, but that highway was clearly not a national artery like 70 or 71.  You can't just get rid of them.

 

I don't think this is a conspiracy against any particular neighborhood.  Our mayor is black, most of the city council is black.  Why would they intentionally try to keep a historic black neighborhood isolated?  Answer: they wouldn't.  Coleman has put a lot of focus on King-Lincoln and OTE trying to revitalize the area.  Not everything they want to happen is going to happen... yet.  ODOT, honestly, is full of *ssholes and, by nature, is going to be car-centric.  Again, I think you're getting yourself way too worked up here.  There's only so much the city can do about this.  Minimizing the damage is about as much as is possible. 

^ I don't think you realize what is easily capable today.  Please do some reasearch on how Cincinnati turned the left image, into the right image:

 

 

 

They added an entirely new street into the grid and built the highway with the possibility of being capped and developed over for four city blocks.  Previously, unthinkable. 

^ I don't think you realize what is easily capable today.  Please do some reasearch on how Cincinnati turned the left image, into the right image:

 

 

 

They added an entirely new street into the grid and built the highway with the possibility of being capped and developed over for four city blocks.  Previously, unthinkable.

 

Reworking 70/71 IS possible.  Getting rid of them is not.  Again, the city of Columbus is not the final decision maker on this.  ODOT is, and they didn't even want us to get caps on the overpasses. 

^- That pair of photos is wierding me out. After studying it for some time, I figured out that they were taken not only at different times about a decade apart, but that they are taken from different directions, and the one on the right is mirrored.

 

 

Correct-  They are about a decade apart, and in order to show the real space difference, the creator of the image mirrored one.

 

simply googling fort washington way will show the amazing waste of space in most urban freeway designs. 

 

^- That pair of photos is wierding me out. After studying it for some time, I figured out that they were taken not only at different times about a decade apart, but that they are taken from different directions, and the one on the right is mirrored.

 

 

 

Yeah, that image is really strange.  If the river is off to the right of that picture, doesn't that mean that GABP is west of the Freedom Center (which it is not)?  What exactly does mirrored mean??

^Look at the photo on the right in a mirror and it will appear correctly.

 

Getting rid of an urban highway, even here in the midwest, isn't impossible, it's just politically difficult for many reasons.  There's no technical reason the interstates that currently go through the inner cities couldn't be rerouted around the existing beltways, with the old mainlines converted to surface boulevards or removed entirely.  Would that be an easy thing to do?  No, but it's not impossible. 

That stranglehold is only going to get tighter. In fact, suggestions by business owners on Long St next door in King-Lincoln, a majority black neighborhood, to make Long St two-way into Downtown was met by ODOT with a response of "no, there would be traffic" and the city council sided with ODOT to keep these functioning as one-way streets for rush hour traffic, not local residents and business owners. One of the business owners told me an ODOT rep said to her at a previous meeting, "Who would want to go to that neighborhood, anyway?". Of course, keeping the main, historical black neighborhood cut off from the downtown has no racist undertones at all and neither was that comment or the demolition of much of Hanford Village, comprised of homes constructed specifically for black WWII vets, where their neighborhood park is now located across I-70. Look at how progressive we are by maintaining the very highways that run through and ruined these neighborhoods that just so happen to be where most black people live in this city. That's pure coincidence, of course. These suffocation effects follow these highways just about everywhere immediately outside of Downtown, yet no one puts 2+2 together.

 

So why not run for city gov't?  Clearly you believe that almost everything the city has done is either wrong or not good enough, so why not stop complaining and run on a platform of correcting these issues? 

 

BTW, Columbus does not run ODOT.  ODOT didn't want a single cap on any of the bridges and just wanted a wider highway canyon, and Columbus wanted just about all of them done, at the very least.  They saw that the 670 cap was a success and it did make the neighborhood more cohesive even if it did not restore it to 1950.  ODOT has far more power on this issue than the city does.  I'm sorry, but as much as you or I would like it, we can't turn back the clock and erase two of the biggest highways in the nation through our Downtown areas.  The OT's quoted story is great, but that highway was clearly not a national artery like 70 or 71.  You can't just get rid of them.

 

I don't think this is a conspiracy against any particular neighborhood.  Our mayor is black, most of the city council is black.  Why would they intentionally try to keep a historic black neighborhood isolated?  Answer: they wouldn't.  Coleman has put a lot of focus on King-Lincoln and OTE trying to revitalize the area.  Not everything they want to happen is going to happen... yet.  ODOT, honestly, is full of *ssholes and, by nature, is going to be car-centric.  Again, I think you're getting yourself way too worked up here.  There's only so much the city can do about this.  Minimizing the damage is about as much as is possible. 

 

Typical apologist rhetoric that I should run for mayor/city council/etc. Maybe I don't want to be a council member, maybe I just want to live in a city that supports its urban areas. To say that Columbus is powerless is absolutely incorrect. Council members had a chance to say "no" to approval of the first phase of the project during a meeting to vote on this. After sitting through three hours of ODOT selling the project to city council, I used my three minutes to present data showing that the figure of 175,000 motor vehicles a day that they use to justify this $1.7 billion project was extremely misleading, as they were using data from 1998-2000 to bolster their case when in reality anyone can check to see right on MORPC's website to see that traffic on the split ranges from 119,000-155,000 in 2006 before the number of highway drivers dropped significantly from then on due to the recession. That data comes from ODOT itself. I did more than anyone in this city to show that this project was an unjustifiable waste of money and I did so just by digging up some simple, publicly available data which I printed out for city council members to see themselves. City council then asked ODOT to explain the disparity and a rep said that different stretches of the split do vary quite a bit in their numbers and that yes, since the recession the number of vehicles using highways has dropped considerably. The result? Each and every council member voted in favor of the project going forward. Again, that's a $1.7 billion project which they then knew didn't have to be done and will cost the city of Columbus (us) around $2 million for the first phase, IIRC. There's just no outrage from anyone but myself. You yourself can ask city council why they went ahead with this knowing what they now know, but you'd be the only aside from myself. Other neighborhood activists from the Near East area present at the meeting already knew that the result was already decided among ODOT and the city government, who has very close ties, including a shuffle of employees between the two.

 

That aside, what you missed from those pics is that unlike the 670 caps the ones on Long and Spring will not function the same way. The 670 cap provides a direct link between the Short North and the convention center. With these caps it'll basically be just like walking across Gay St and crossing 3rd & 4th: totally different.

 

Rerouting 70/71 onto our other plentiful highways, which have likewise seen a downturn in the number of users overall, would be the practical thing to do, but ODOT only wants to build more new highways that we don't need all while they're unable to pay for maintenance of their current infrastructure. And you won't hear any measurable opposition from locals or the city government. And the fact of the matter is that instead of going with what local small businesses want (mainly black owned and operated in King Lincoln) the city went against them and is siding with ODOT to widen the current gap between King Lincoln and Downtown while also preventing the two-way traffic flow which entrepreneurs want for their businesses. The acquiescence of the continuation of a policy that was racist back when these black neighborhoods were leveled for a highway isn't any less racist today and they still continue to funnel investments away from these areas today.

A major problem with the situation is that highway interests (which include nearly all state DOT's) can very easily sell capacity expansion projects as a way to "kill two birds with one stone" when heavy maintenance is needed.  When that bridge needs replacing we "might as well" add one lane while we're doing that.  We need to "plan for the future" by widening those crumbling flyover ramps.  It's "only prudent" to expand that infrastructure that is "functionally obsolete" even if it isn't actually "structurally deficient."  It's difficult to counter those arguments because nobody cares about the higher future maintenance costs. 

That stranglehold is only going to get tighter. In fact, suggestions by business owners on Long St next door in King-Lincoln, a majority black neighborhood, to make Long St two-way into Downtown was met by ODOT with a response of "no, there would be traffic" and the city council sided with ODOT to keep these functioning as one-way streets for rush hour traffic, not local residents and business owners. One of the business owners told me an ODOT rep said to her at a previous meeting, "Who would want to go to that neighborhood, anyway?". Of course, keeping the main, historical black neighborhood cut off from the downtown has no racist undertones at all and neither was that comment or the demolition of much of Hanford Village, comprised of homes constructed specifically for black WWII vets, where their neighborhood park is now located across I-70. Look at how progressive we are by maintaining the very highways that run through and ruined these neighborhoods that just so happen to be where most black people live in this city. That's pure coincidence, of course. These suffocation effects follow these highways just about everywhere immediately outside of Downtown, yet no one puts 2+2 together.

 

So why not run for city gov't?  Clearly you believe that almost everything the city has done is either wrong or not good enough, so why not stop complaining and run on a platform of correcting these issues? 

 

BTW, Columbus does not run ODOT.  ODOT didn't want a single cap on any of the bridges and just wanted a wider highway canyon, and Columbus wanted just about all of them done, at the very least.  They saw that the 670 cap was a success and it did make the neighborhood more cohesive even if it did not restore it to 1950.  ODOT has far more power on this issue than the city does.  I'm sorry, but as much as you or I would like it, we can't turn back the clock and erase two of the biggest highways in the nation through our Downtown areas.  The OT's quoted story is great, but that highway was clearly not a national artery like 70 or 71.  You can't just get rid of them.

 

I don't think this is a conspiracy against any particular neighborhood.  Our mayor is black, most of the city council is black.  Why would they intentionally try to keep a historic black neighborhood isolated?  Answer: they wouldn't.  Coleman has put a lot of focus on King-Lincoln and OTE trying to revitalize the area.  Not everything they want to happen is going to happen... yet.  ODOT, honestly, is full of *ssholes and, by nature, is going to be car-centric.  Again, I think you're getting yourself way too worked up here.  There's only so much the city can do about this.  Minimizing the damage is about as much as is possible. 

 

Typical apologist rhetoric that I should run for mayor/city council/etc. Maybe I don't want to be a council member, maybe I just want to live in a city that supports its urban areas. To say that Columbus is powerless is absolutely incorrect. Council members had a chance to say "no" to approval of the first phase of the project during a meeting to vote on this. After sitting through three hours of ODOT selling the project to city council, I used my three minutes to present data showing that the figure of 175,000 motor vehicles a day that they use to justify this $1.7 billion project was extremely misleading, as they were using data from 1998-2000 to bolster their case when in reality anyone can check to see right on MORPC's website to see that traffic on the split ranges from 119,000-155,000 in 2006 before the number of highway drivers dropped significantly from then on due to the recession. That data comes from ODOT itself. I did more than anyone in this city to show that this project was an unjustifiable waste of money and I did so just by digging up some simple, publicly available data which I printed out for city council members to see themselves. City council then asked ODOT to explain the disparity and a rep said that different stretches of the split do vary quite a bit in their numbers and that yes, since the recession the number of vehicles using highways has dropped considerably. The result? Each and every council member voted in favor of the project going forward. Again, that's a $1.7 billion project which they then knew didn't have to be done and will cost the city of Columbus (us) around $2 million for the first phase, IIRC. There's just no outrage from anyone but myself. You yourself can ask city council why they went ahead with this knowing what they now know, but you'd be the only aside from myself. Other neighborhood activists from the Near East area present at the meeting already knew that the result was already decided among ODOT and the city government, who has very close ties, including a shuffle of employees between the two.

 

That aside, what you missed from those pics is that unlike the 670 caps the ones on Long and Spring will not function the same way. The 670 cap provides a direct link between the Short North and the convention center. With these caps it'll basically be just like walking across Gay St and crossing 3rd & 4th: totally different.

 

Rerouting 70/71 onto our other plentiful highways, which have likewise seen a downturn in the number of users overall, would be the practical thing to do, but ODOT only wants to build more new highways that we don't need all while they're unable to pay for maintenance of their current infrastructure. And you won't hear any measurable opposition from locals or the city government. And the fact of the matter is that instead of going with what local small businesses want (mainly black owned and operated in King Lincoln) the city went against them and is siding with ODOT to widen the current gap between King Lincoln and Downtown while also preventing the two-way traffic flow which entrepreneurs want for their businesses. The acquiescence of the continuation of a policy that was racist back when these black neighborhoods were leveled for a highway isn't any less racist today and they still continue to funnel investments away from these areas today.

 

You raise a good point about traffic being less right now than in 2000 due in part to recession/high gas prices, etc.  However, let's say that the city continued to grow.  Even with the addition of mass transit, when the economy improves and adding more and more people to the area would, at the very least, sustain traffic levels, would it not?  Aren't you assuming that traffic patterns will remain as they are now and that growth will remain stagnant?  And wasn't part of the reason for rebuilding the split was because of poor traffic flow and not necessarily lack of capacity?  I know I personally try to avoid doing 70/71 because of all the mergers.  I've almost been hit many times travelling through there.  As far as the caps, it is my understanding that they are going to build them with the intention of future buildings, at least the ones going to the East Side.  Perhaps I have not seen the most recent plans.     

 

And rerouting 70/71 where??  670?  315?  270?  Come on, that's a fantasy even for the most ambitious of urban supporters. 

Columbus is undertaking a Downtown Parking Study in the next few years and this will impact any 1 to 2-way street changes. I'd just be patient.

The other irony for Columbus is that as the core rebuilds demand on the roads that area could very well rebound. The multi-nodal metropolis has very different infrastructure needs that the hub-spoke city or the dense grid. You simply won't have the kind of focused demand on a single location - which is what the urban expressways were designed to serve. But you may have plenty high demand on 3-10 spots throughout the region and you have to be able to get from one part to another efficiently. The biggest downsides to the most sprawling metropolis (Atlanta, DC, LA, NYC) is that getting from one-node to another within the region is often harder than leaving the region altogether - which only exacerbates sub-regional differences and expanding sprawl (evidence along 270, 95, and 66 in DC).

Columbus is undertaking a Downtown Parking Study in the next few years and this will impact any 1 to 2-way street changes. I'd just be patient.

 

They have already started to take away some of the one-ways.  Gay Street is a great success in this. 

The other irony for Columbus is that as the core rebuilds demand on the roads that area could very well rebound. The multi-nodal metropolis has very different infrastructure needs that the hub-spoke city or the dense grid. You simply won't have the kind of focused demand on a single location - which is what the urban expressways were designed to serve. But you may have plenty high demand on 3-10 spots throughout the region and you have to be able to get from one part to another efficiently. The biggest downsides to the most sprawling metropolis (Atlanta, DC, LA, NYC) is that getting from one-node to another within the region is often harder than leaving the region altogether - which only exacerbates sub-regional differences and expanding sprawl (evidence along 270, 95, and 66 in DC).

 

That was my question.  If growth continues, traffic will most likely go up, even when we do add mass transit.  The 70/71 split is one of the worst places for accidents in the entire state, with or without lower traffic levels.  It is poorly designed and even if the city overall tries to remove itself from being as car-centric, the rebuild should very probably still happen.  The end question for me becomes, is the final design the very best way to both help traffic and help reconnect neighborhoods? 

The other irony for Columbus is that as the core rebuilds demand on the roads that area could very well rebound. The multi-nodal metropolis has very different infrastructure needs that the hub-spoke city or the dense grid. You simply won't have the kind of focused demand on a single location - which is what the urban expressways were designed to serve. But you may have plenty high demand on 3-10 spots throughout the region and you have to be able to get from one part to another efficiently. The biggest downsides to the most sprawling metropolis (Atlanta, DC, LA, NYC) is that getting from one-node to another within the region is often harder than leaving the region altogether - which only exacerbates sub-regional differences and expanding sprawl (evidence along 270, 95, and 66 in DC).

 

That was my question.  If growth continues, traffic will most likely go up, even when we do add mass transit.  The 70/71 split is one of the worst places for accidents in the entire state, with or without lower traffic levels.  It is poorly designed and even if the city overall tries to remove itself from being as car-centric, the rebuild should very probably still happen.  The end question for me becomes, is the final design the very best way to both help traffic and help reconnect neighborhoods? 

 

I think the solution is here is to stop thinking of the "final design" as "final."  I was one of the supporters of including freeway caps in the initial design along the lines of Union Station Place, but it was nixed.  So?  I'm hardly about to give up on what was a vision for years out anyway.  If the idea is sound, it can be revived later when economic times are better and when the population rebound in the area has gained some more force (so that the projects look better in demand models).

 

I don't think that Columbus has any urban highways that cry out to be razed.  Akron may--the Innerbelt really is just a feeder highway that dumps into the north end of downtown, much like the highway in the original article in this thread.  The highway literally just trails off, and takes up an enormous amount of space.  However, I don't think that that matter much because even with all that space lost to the highway, downtown Akron still *has* an enormous amount of space, including some that is much more economically accessible: ugly surface parking lots on major commercial arteries, for example.  The same logic is even stronger in Columbus.  The area between 670, 70, 71, and 315 is already massive and there are plenty of parcels ripe for redevelopment, particularly in the eastern regions of downtown.  In addition, all of those highways going through Columbus actually *go* somewhere.  They're not just spurs to get rush hour traffic into and out of downtown.

 

Ideological hostility to highways and car commuters is a losing political platform, even in urban areas.

Having downtown highways lead to downtown while re-directing through traffic onto other existing interstate highways is not hostile.

 

^Ah, but what really is the definition of "through traffic?"

 

Most traffic occurs within cities, not between cities. This was a fact recognized by Robert Moses, who advocated freeways in cities. People go where the transportation is, not the other way around. Building a circle freeway around a city just encourages development near the circle freeway instead of in the older core.