Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Expansion

The Tragic History of Highways Demolishing Cities — It’s Not Over Yet

By Angie Schmitt | May 23, 2016 | 2 Comments

This video from Vox provides an excellent overview of how the Interstate Highway System wiped out whole city neighborhoods in the post-war era. It’s hard to believe that federal and local officials ever thought it was a good idea to uproot urban residents to clear paths for highways, but what’s even crazier is that we’re still doing the same thing today.

The Problem With “Infrastructure Week”

By Angie Schmitt | May 20, 2016 | 5 Comments

You may have noticed that it’s “Infrastructure Week” in America — a time where engineering and construction industry groups beat the drum for more money, using big numbers and images of collapsing bridges. You can follow the dialogue on Twitter. It’s full of value-neutral statements like this one from Democratic members of the House Committee on Transportation […]

Highway Propaganda Vids Sell City Residents on the Wonders of Wider Roads

By Angie Schmitt | May 3, 2016 | 18 Comments

It’s not enough for highway builders to carve out land at great public expense so they can jam more cars into cities. Now they want you to believe their projects are great for the neighborhoods that bear the brunt of the added traffic and pollution. Up top is a video produced by the Colorado Department of Transportation to sell the […]

Will Cleveland Finally Get Serious About Confronting Sprawl?

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 22, 2016 | 2 Comments

The Cleveland region has been struggling with sprawl for a long time. Since the 1970s, the regional population has shrunk while housing and jobs have spread outward — a combination that has devastated urban areas in particular. Transportation policy is a big part of the problem. Northeast Ohio keeps widening highways, facilitating quick suburban commutes and fueling sprawl. This weakens the places that are […]

How San Diego Planners Spun the Press to Sell Highway Expansions

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 11, 2016 | 9 Comments

How far will transportation agencies go to spin public perception of their highway expansion plans? San Diego’s KPBS has produced a brilliant case study in this video and the accompanying report — a deep dive into the media operation mounted by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to defend its slate of highway expansion projects. In late 2011, SANDAG passed […]

Maine DOT Bullies Local Planners Into Voting for Highway Expansion

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 7, 2016 | 3 Comments

Here’s a story about how DOTs can ram through road projects that locals don’t even want. Regional planners in Bangor, Maine, say they were forced to approve a highway expansion project because the state DOT threatened to pull all of the region’s transportation funding. The 395-Route 9 Connector is a $61 million project that will link two other highways and speed freight […]

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