Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Expansion

Arkansas Wants to Widen Highway, Eliminate Streetcar for “Safety”

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 26, 2015 | 8 Comments

Where to even begin with this? Officials in Arkansas are pushing a plan to widen a partly elevated highway through the center of Little Rock from six lanes to 10 lanes at a cost of $600 million. It’s bad enough that the state wants to ram an elevated highway through downtown at a time when many cities […]

Dallas Council Member: Texas Poised to “Compound Errors of the Past”

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 21, 2015 | 4 Comments

The entire Texas highway machine — suburban real estate moguls, the construction industry, the governor, and the legislature — is pushing voters to approve Prop 7, a constitutional amendment that would mandate spending $2.5 billion in state sales tax revenue on un-tolled roads. The highway interests are telling Texas voters in unison that this measure, if approved in November, will fix congestion […]

Will Texas Voters Enshrine Failed Transpo Policy in the State’s Constitution?

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 20, 2015 | 19 Comments

When Texas voters go to the polls this November they will decide an issue of enormous consequence to the future of the state. A proposed amendment to the state constitution — on the ballot as Proposition 7 — would shift about $2.5 billion in sales tax revenues to highway spending each year. All the money must be spent […]

Do Environmental Reviews for Road Projects Help the Environment?

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 19, 2015 | 8 Comments

It’s been more than 40 years since the National Environmental Policy Act was enacted. In that time, America has built a lot of emissions-inducing, land-devouring highway infrastructure despite the environmental review process mandated by NEPA. It’s fair to ask: When it comes to transportation infrastructure, does environmental review make a difference for the environment? To comply with federal environmental […]

Here’s What a Billion-Dollar Interchange Expansion Looks Like

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 12, 2015 | 9 Comments

In case you were wondering what a $1.1 billion highway interchange looks like, feast your eyes on this rendering from the Georgia Department of Transportation. In an effort to “ease congestion” on this confluence of highways north of the city, Georgia will spend three-and-a-half years widening about four miles of I-285 and about one mile of SR 400, […]

Ghost Parcels Show How Urban Highways Squandered Valuable Land

By John Greenfield | Oct 7, 2015 | No Comments

Love that Cook County still keeps track of the parcels under the expressways punched through Chicago pic.twitter.com/wcLXNcbZmM — Neil Freeman (@fitnr) September 22, 2015 Here’s a great illustration of how incredibly destructive and wasteful it is to run elevated highways through cities. New York City-based artist and planning consultant Neil Freeman, who grew up in Chicago, […]

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