Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Removal

McClatchy Muckrakers Expose Seedy Underbelly of the Highway Bonanza

By Tanya Snyder | Feb 12, 2013 | 13 Comments

The work of a sustainable transportation reporter can be a lonely lot. But it’s a lot less lonely now that two McClatchy reporters, Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon, have taken up the mantle of exposing wasteful road expansion. With their far-reaching and well-researched three-part series, published last Sunday, Tate and Gordon brought stories of highway […]

How Mayor Mick Cornett Fought Oklahoma City’s Brain Drain and Weight Gain

By Tanya Snyder | Jan 25, 2013 | 14 Comments

Part One of this interview was posted yesterday. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett (R) has made it his mission to make his city healthier and less obese, in part by improving its walkability. The city lost a million pounds during his weight-loss campaign — and then they took a freeway out of the middle of downtown […]

Oklahoma City Council Fends Off Highway-Like Highway Replacement

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 1, 2012 | 5 Comments

When Oklahoma City announced plans in 1998 to tear down the I-40 Crosstown Expressway near downtown, they envisioned a grand, tree-lined, at-grade boulevard that would help improve development prospects in the already resurgent “Core to Shore” area between downtown and the Oklahoma River. The route would be part of the planned five-mile streetcar corridor, buttressed by […]

When Livability Projects Meet Eisenhower-Era Design Standards [Updated]

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 25, 2012 | 3 Comments

Tearing down highways, as New Haven, Connecticut is planning to do to a short section of Route 34, is a rare (though increasingly sought after) outcome in American transportation policy. Some highway removals are unintended consequences of neglect or disaster, like the collapse of New York’s Miller Highway and the damage caused to San Francisco’s […]

NYC Rejects Highway Teardown Without Completing TIGER-Funded Analysis

By Ben Fried | Jun 8, 2012 | No Comments

The Bloomberg administration has abruptly ruled out the possibility of tearing down New York’s lightly-trafficked Sheridan Expressway and replacing it with mixed-use development, jobs, and parks. Neighborhood advocates and electeds from the Bronx are vowing to fight the decision, which they say fails to follow through on the comprehensive analysis the city promised to conduct […]

Instead of Reclaiming a Despised Highway, New Haven Plans a Close Replica

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 26, 2012 | 5 Comments

The “most defacing scar from the 1960’s Urban Renewal era” — that’s how local advocates describe the Route 34 Expressway through downtown New Haven. Just about a year and a half ago, this small New England city won a TIGER grant to heal that scar. But another disfiguration may be growing in its place. The […]

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