Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Freeways

How Fed Infrastructure Money Enables Highway Boondoggles

By James Horrox, Bryn Huxley-Reicher and Matthew Casale | Sep 12, 2022 | No Comments

Federal funding could be spent on fixing our aging roads, making our streets safer, and making it easier to travel on transit, by bike or on foot, giving Americans real options for getting around without a car. But it will more likely be spent on expanding highways.

Why Nearly A Fifth of Pedestrians Deaths Happen on Freeways — And How to Stop It

By Kea Wilson | Jun 9, 2022 | No Comments

A surprising 17 percent of U.S. pedestrian deaths last year happened on roads where people theoretically should never be walking — and that troubling finding should prompt a conversation about why so many of them are doing it anyway.

Houses next to the Claiborne Expressway in Treme, New Orleans. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Cracking the Code on Fighting Highway Expansion Projects

By Amy Stelly | May 18, 2022 | No Comments

"Treme and the 7th Ward, like many neighborhoods across the country, are saddled with an aging, unsafe, polluting piece of highway infrastructure. We have to do something about it."

A protest against the Lower Manhattan Expressway, 1968.

Freeway Fighters Across the U.S. Are Joining Forces — And They Want You

By Kea Wilson | Apr 27, 2022 | No Comments

America's midcentury freeway revolts never really stopped — and now, the advocates behind them are joining forces to create what may be the largest organized national effort to prioritize communities over highways yet.

The current Columbia River Bridge is slated to be replaced with one that has room for light rail. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Two Big Reasons States Keep Expanding Freeways

By Joe Cortright | Apr 22, 2022 | No Comments

Highway widening advocates offer up a kind of manifest destiny storyline: population and traffic are ever-increasing, and unless we accommodate them we’ll be awash in cars, traffic and gridlock. The rising tide of cars is treated as a irresistible force of nature. But is it?

A community walk organized by the organization Stop TxDOT I-45 which toured historic sections of town that stand to be destroyed by Houston’s proposed I-45 expansion. Photo: Anni Mulligan for the Houston Chronicle

Vision Zero Cities Op-Ed: How To Stop a Highway

By Susan Graham | Oct 19, 2021 | No Comments

Lessons from the frontline of the fight against a Texas highway expansion plan.

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