Just a half century ago, they cost million of dollars to build. Now a handful of cities across America are tearing down their urban freeways.
Hey! That’s what Portland did!
According to this article, Baltimore, New Haven, and Providence are all in the process of tearing down freeways that fifty years ago razed neighborhoods and cut off pieces of downtowns. Baltimore’s experience is the most moving:
“It tore apart the social fabric of the community, and it created division. For those communities, it was the last nail in the coffin,” says Jamie Kendrick of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation. The highway’s removal was motivated in part, he says, by the “idea that these communities that suffered injustice 40 years ago are finally able to correct some of that injustice.”
In other news, did you see that people in the Pacific Northwest are driving less than we were 10 years ago? When will the era of new freeways be over?
The era of new freeways will be over when we have true high speed rail in place. Which isn’t even in the works right now (No, 150mph does not count as high speed rail). Because then, it will be cheaper and quicker to transport people / goods over long distances that way than by road. It’ll create jobs and money. Until we have trains that can get us to Seattle in under two hours, and San Francisco in 4-5 hours, freeways are still needed. China are doing it; why aren’t we?
Oh, that’s right, it’s because we live in one of the most corrupt countries in the world where car and oil companies bribe politicians with “campaign contributions”…
Hey I was in Baltimore over Christmas and saw the highway to nowhere. It had all the negative impacts on the community that any highway would, and it didn’t even carry any traffic. Get rid of that thing!
@Stu – you’re missing the point. The article is about the impact freeways have on urban environments. They are still needed to connect cities, but they don’t need to be ramrodded THROUGH cities in order to do that.
Yes, but once there is less long-distance traffic (in particular freight) on the roads passing through cities, there is less need for freeways within those cities. The CRC people keep talking about the need for a new bridge to facilitate interstate commerce; finally building a first-world rail service would remove that need entirely. (and adding a passenger stop in Vancouver allowing a 5-minute journey into central Portland would get rid of much of the rest).
>China are doing it
>China are doing it
>are doing it
I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH YOU STU, BUT
>China are doing it
@stu, actually I think that 150 mph would count as high speed rail… It would be more than 3 times as fast as what we have now and would be far faster than driving.