Goodbye-ways: The downfall of urban freeways

[marmar]

from Grist:



Goodbye-ways: The downfall of urban freeways

By Greg Hanscom
13 Mar 2012 6:47 AM



[font size="1"]The golden days -- when the traffic hadn't caught up with the lanes. (Photo by coltera.)[/font]


We can say this for our Great Urban Freeway Experiment: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The time was the 1950s and 60s, specifically, and U.S. cities were watching their residents flee to the suburbs in alarming numbers. Their solution: Build giant freeways connecting city centers to the ’burbs, thereby allowing citizens to live the good life on the outskirts and commute to work in the urban core. It was an attempt to hang on to urban industrial might even as the city’s population bled (or drove) out.

When all was said and done, these freeways did salvage some downtown commerce, but they only accelerated the flight from the inner city. At the same time, they carved up historic urban neighborhoods, turned whole sections of cities into slums, and cut off many downtowns from their waterfronts. Legendary urban activist Jane Jacobs was among the first to fight the scourge of the urban highway, and by the late 1970s and early 1980s, it had become all but impossible to gain approval for new highways through urban areas.

It’s one thing to stop building urban freeways, however, and another thing entirely to tear down existing ones. For many city centers, those highways still look a lot like lifelines. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/cities/goodbye-ways-the-downfall-of-urban-freeways/

[arcane1]

1. Fascinating, thanks fro posting this!

I'm printing out the actual study so I can read it on the train tonight

here:
http://www.itdp.org/documents/LifeandDeathofUrbanHighways_031312.pdf

[zipplewrath]

2. The Big Dig

Surprised they didn't mention the Big Dig in Boston. I think it vastly improved huge sections of downtown Boston.