Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Removal

Birmingham to Widen Downtown Highway While Other Cities Tear ‘Em Down

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 18, 2013 | 5 Comments

Downtown freeways are unmitigated disasters for cities. They ruin the development potential of central city neighborhoods and create dead zones that divide downtown areas. That’s why Milwaukee, San Francisco, New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Oklahoma City, New Haven and Syracuse have either torn them down or are seriously considering it. But Birmingham, Alabama, is on track to […]

Minneapolis-St. Paul: Ripe for a Highway Teardown?

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 12, 2013 | 13 Comments

When I was a college student in the Twin Cities, I moved between Minneapolis and St. Paul on the 21 bus or the 16 bus or by bike, traversing vibrant corridors like Lake Street and Washington Avenue. I rode past art cinemas and pancake houses and Mexican supermarkets and puppet theaters. Or I didn’t ride […]

The Grassroots Campaign for a Highway Teardown in Dallas

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 3, 2013 | No Comments

Three years ago, Dallas-based planning consultant Patrick Kennedy and his friend, developer Brandon Hancock, started wondering why you couldn’t do a highway teardown in the Big D. They picked a highway: IH345, an elevated connector route between downtown and the Deep Ellum neighborhood. Then they thought, “Why not? Let’s do a study.” Between the two […]

St. Louis Punts on Highway Teardown, for Now

By Angie Schmitt | Jun 27, 2013 | No Comments

For three years, grassroots advocates in St. Louis have been pressing for the removal of elevated portions of I-70 through downtown. This group of urbanists and architects, with little to no financial support, came together to make the case for highway removal. Calling themselves City to River, the group built a website and a nonprofit […]

Too Bad Captain America Can’t Rescue Cleveland From Ohio DOT

By Angie Schmitt | May 3, 2013 | 5 Comments

Where advocates in Cleveland fell short, Captain America has triumphed. For decades, many in Cleveland have dreamed of transforming the West Shoreway — a state highway separating the city from its tantalizingly inaccessible waterfront — into a tree-lined boulevard with at-grade intersections, so that residents of nearby neighborhoods could cross the street to Edgewater Park […]

Niagara Falls, New York, Gets Go-Ahead for Highway Teardown

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 26, 2013 | 7 Comments

Beginning at Niagara Falls State Park, you can hike around the great gorge carved out of the base of the falls over thousands of years. But you’d best arrive in a car. If you want to access this area from Niagara Falls neighborhoods on foot, you have to climb fences, scale embankments and race across […]

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