8 Monster Interchanges That Blight American Cities

[bugo]

I don't really understand the hostility some people have with driving to the grocery store.  I honestly prefer it.  Who wants to lug five bags of groceries down a few blocks?  It's not even an extra trip for me since I go after work.

+1

[bugo]

For a lot of these freeways, wouldn't a footbridge placed every 1/8 to 1/4 mile through the areas affected suffice?  Cut and cover tunnels are another alternative but they are expensive.  I wouldn't mind having to walk a few hundred yards to a footbridge if I were going to the riverfront.

[Duke87]

Some cities with interstates downtown are doing fine.  Others are doing terribly despite the access.  But this is ground well covered here and elsewhere.

Indeed. Freeways are a physically prominent thing and an easy scapegoat. They do influence the communities they pass through, but the consequences that their presence or lack thereof has on the ability of a community to thrive are vastly overstated. Look at any city in detail and you will be hard pressed to find any significant correlation between a neighborhood's economic success and its proximity to a freeway.

Hell, some of the worst parts of New York are some of the least freeway accessible, while some of the nicest have freeways running right through them.

Ultimately, two things cause blight:
1) The local economy going in the crapper, meaning people can't find good paying jobs or any jobs at all
2) Government policy encouraging or failing to prevent item 1

For most American cities the problem has been the collapse of the American manufacturing industry. The cities which survived the best or have bounced back the best are the cities which found other types of business to run a successful economy based on - banking and advertising for New York, TV and film for Los Angeles, etc. The cities which continue to be blighted are the cities that have been unable to replace the jobs lost when the factories closed down.

I don't really understand the hostility some people have with driving to the grocery store.  I honestly prefer it.  Who wants to lug five bags of groceries down a few blocks?  It's not even an extra trip for me since I go after work.

If you live alone the amount of groceries purchased in one trip is likely not prohibitive for carrying. And you can always get yourself one of those fold-up shopping carts if you want to save some effort, although it is unusual for a young and able-bodied person to do so.

There are practical advantages. I leave the front door of my building and walk in the front door of the grocery store five minutes later. It is difficult to have that short of a door to door time when driving, and if it is, you're close enough that you might as well just walk. I usually go grocery shopping on my way home from work but I can easily do so any time without needing to get in my car specifically to do so. This reduces the mental effort involved in a trip to the store and thus effectively gives me more flexibility in doing so.

Not to mention that when there's snow on the ground, I'd rather be walking somewhere than driving. I don't have to clean off and dig out my car, I can just go outside and start walking. While in transit the potential consequences of my feet losing traction are much less than the potential consequences of my wheels losing traction, and I have more latitude to compensate for the feet than I do for the wheels.


But the biggest issue is the broader picture of automobile dependence. I like that I have my car when I want it, but I don't need it on day to day basis and if for some reason I am temporarily unable to use it, my life goes on unhindered.

[froggie]

But the biggest issue is the broader picture of automobile dependence. I like that I have my car when I want it, but I don't need it on day to day basis and if for some reason I am temporarily unable to use it, my life goes on unhindered.

THIS.

[SP Cook]

THIS.

Your choice.  Millions have a different opinion.  The problems begin when the anti-choice crowd tries to make decisions for others.

[Brandon]

But the biggest issue is the broader picture of automobile dependence. I like that I have my car when I want it, but I don't need it on day to day basis and if for some reason I am temporarily unable to use it, my life goes on unhindered.

THIS.

Not everyone has the ability nor the will to live in such places.  You can keep NYC as far as I am concerned.  I'd rather live in a much smaller city with access to rural areas.

[on_wisconsin]

Articles like this are a dime-a-dozen now days, how is this one is any different? Especially coming from a blog focused on smart growth, bike paths, and transit.

[Pete from Boston]

THIS.

Your choice.  Millions have a different opinion.  The problems begin when the anti-choice crowd tries to make decisions for others.

What happened when city neighborhoods got leveled for highways to be put through them?  Choice, or a lifestyle imposition?

Not every lifestyle gets accommodated in every turn society takes.  Where I live, the places they're redistributing road capacity to better accommodate more modes are experiencing skyrocketing property values, which therefore doesn't accommodate me.  Such is the Market, though.  Here the Market chooses bike paths and traffic calming, and walkable supermarkets.

[Laura]

I don't really understand the hostility some people have with driving to the grocery store.  I honestly prefer it.  Who wants to lug five bags of groceries down a few blocks?  It's not even an extra trip for me since I go after work.

But the biggest issue is the broader picture of automobile dependence. I like that I have my car when I want it, but I don't need it on day to day basis and if for some reason I am temporarily unable to use it, my life goes on unhindered.

THIS.

I like having the option of both, honestly. I live within walking distance of two supermarkets, a dollar general, and a Walgreens. Unless I'm in a serious rush, I will always walk to Dollar General and Walgreens. It's also rare that I'm buying a bunch of stuff from those places at once, so I can easily fit all of my purchases into my backpack.

As for walking/driving to the grocery stores, it honestly depends on how many groceries I'm buying and whether or not I'm in the middle of cooking/baking something and realize that I forgot an ingredient. I have one of those folding shopping carts, so if I'm not in a rush, I can easily walk and wheel my groceries home. Most of the time, it's a moot point: I try to shop at a discount grocery store that I pass on my (driving) commute home from work because the prices are significantly cheaper.

[bugo]

THIS.

Your choice.  Millions have a different opinion.  The problems begin when the anti-choice crowd tries to make decisions for others.

If you live somewhere like I do, you really don't have a choice.  The mass transit system here is awful, and if you relied on buses you would lose 2-3 hours a day just waiting for the next bus.

[bugo]

But the biggest issue is the broader picture of automobile dependence. I like that I have my car when I want it, but I don't need it on day to day basis and if for some reason I am temporarily unable to use it, my life goes on unhindered.

THIS.

Not everyone has the ability nor the will to live in such places.  You can keep NYC as far as I am concerned.  I'd rather live in a much smaller city with access to rural areas.

THIS.

[jakeroot]

I hope I'm not jumping into this conversation too late, but isn't automobile dependence a result of freeways?

Let's take a hypothetical walk-through of a world without freeways, as thought up by me:

1950s: The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is defeated and funding for interstates and freeways is not allocated.

1960s: Without interstates, citizens find it very difficult to move throughout the city, and move closer to their place of work. Most people cannot afford to live in the downtown areas, so small business-areas start to sprout up in outlying areas (remember, expressways existed before the 50s which is how suburbs got created in the first place - interstate funding defeat eventually made expressway development worthless)

1970s: Citizens are finding it difficult to reach their friends house in neighbouring towns, and a mass-transit system is developed. Light rail, heavy commuter rail, subways, and busways are developed to quickly move mass-amounts of people to nearby areas

1980s: Mass transit continues to grow and soon most places can be reached without car

1990s: The need for cars mostly dries up as everything can be reached by either plane, train, etc. (remember, car culture never really developed)

The concept of being able to move freely about one's geographic residence is hard to ignore, but in a world where mass transit is the norm, such a mindset became rare at best.

I'm sure my "world without freeways" is flawed in more than one way, but maybe it can start a conversation?

[Duke87]

THIS.

Your choice.  Millions have a different opinion.  The problems begin when the anti-choice crowd tries to make decisions for others.

For what it's worth, I agree on the point of having options. Depending on where I am going and why, I have my car, I have transit, and I have my own two feet all at my disposal. It is damn nice having all three. In most places you only have one or two of those as practical options.

I do find it disheartening then, that NYC seems to be moving in a direction of making itself less car-friendly. Anti-choice indeed.

Of course, a majority of households in the five boroughs (55.7%) do not own a car. Given this it does make actual practical sense that other modes of transportation be given priority and focused on.

Not everyone has the ability nor the will to live in such places.  You can keep NYC as far as I am concerned.  I'd rather live in a much smaller city with access to rural areas.

Especially as a roadgeek I can certainly understand this sentiment. I tell some people in the city that on such and such weekend I was driving around random places in Pennsylvania and their reaction is usually "WTF? Why?"

The congestion of the city does add time to how long it takes to get places outside of the city. But living in the city shortens my commute greatly. It makes the most sense for me to live in the city because I work in the city. The convenience of a trip I make five days a week is much more important than the convenience of trips I only make on weekends.

I will grant you, though, that this lifestyle is not for everyone. It's a question of what you're used to. I am a city boy at heart so I don't mind the hustle and bustle, it's normal to me. Rural areas are great fun to drive through and stuff but at the same time I see them and say "man, it must be awful to live out here in the middle of nowhere". But I am sure that the people who live out there enjoy being in the middle of nowhere and find the city to be an awful place.

I hope I'm not jumping into this conversation too late, but isn't automobile dependence a result of freeways?

No. Automobile dependence is a result of development patterns that put basic services (grocery store, etc.) too far away to walk to and create population densities too low to sustain transit as a complete door to door mode rather than only as part of an intermodal ("park and ride") commute.

Or to put it more bluntly, automobile dependence is the result of low-density suburbs.

Yes, without freeways, suburbs become nonviable as places to live, so the two are related. But a hypothetical city that has freeways but not suburbs is not impossible to fathom, you could theoretically build one. The reason this hasn't happened is that when you give people the option of traveling by car, some people will voluntarily choose to rely on it exclusively, and there are many reasons both psychological and practical why one might do so. The theoretical city with freeways but not suburbs would require the imposition and enforcement of zoning laws prohibiting low-density development in all surrounding areas to sustain itself in that state. Either that, or it would require driving being too expensive to be an affordable means of commuting.

[bugo]

As pro-car as I am, I would still like to have better transit options as a backup in case something happens to my car.  If it broke down, I would have no way to go to work because I live several miles away and I have to cross the Arkansas River and the I-44 bridge doesn't have a sidewalk.

[SP Cook]

I hope I'm not jumping into this conversation too late, but isn't automobile dependence a result of freeways?

Yes, it is one of its gifts.

Let us run through a world without freeways.

First, it is a far poorer world.  Businessmen are trapped into dealing with their one and only monopoly railroad for transport.  The economic boom, and the move south and west, of the 50s and 60s never happened. 

Second, it is a dank, crowded, and unhappy world.  Without the individual mobility of the automobile, people have to live in the city.  At the mercy of old-money landlords.  Government responds, not with mass transit schemes, but with housing projects and rent control.  Not for the lifewelfarist as in reality, but for everyone.  Everyone living in tenaments.  And, able to work only where one can walk to, people are tied into going into the factory dad worked at.  For life. 

Third, it is a less moble society.  Remember that it took airline deregulation to turn the plane into something useful for common people (1979).  A vacation means a train, or risking you life on some two lane deathroad, taking three or four days to get from the northeast to Florida.  If you make it.  So mostly people just stay home and live out their dark lives on the street they were born on.  Riding bikes and being crammed in even more.

No thank you.

[Brandon]

I hope I'm not jumping into this conversation too late, but isn't automobile dependence a result of freeways?

No.  It's actually the reverse.

Let's take a hypothetical walk-through of a world without freeways, as thought up by me:

1950s: The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is defeated and funding for interstates and freeways is not allocated.

States build their own systems of freeways, tollways, and expressways not unlike Ontario and Quebec.  Freeways inside of cities get built anyway as many of them were already in progress prior to 1956.  We still have a similar system, but out west it looks more like the Canadian Prairies with more at-grade expressways, and out east, more tollways.

A world without freeways does not exist.  Look north, young man, and see what the US would've been like without the Interstate Highway bill being passed.

1990s: The need for cars mostly dries up as everything can be reached by either plane, train, etc. (remember, car culture never really developed)

I'm sure my "world without freeways" is flawed in more than one way, but maybe it can start a conversation?

Car culture, much to the chagrin of folks from Southern California, started in Detroit in the late 1910s and 1920s.  There was already a vibrant car culture well prior to 1956, and it started, of course, where the automobile was made in the US.  The Ford Model T, starting production in 1908, had its price lowered in 1913-14 to become the first real "people's car" in the world.  And, of course, those who built it bought it (as well as many others - a worker on the line in 1914 could buy it with 4 months' pay).  The price continued to drop into the 1920s.

Car culture also took off in rural areas by the 1930s and replaced short haul passenger rail (long-haul passenger rail was mostly killed off by airplanes) and the horse and wagon.  The reason for the Interstate System in 1956 was not to push economic growth or to grow the car culture, it was to alleviate traffic congestion already there from a preexisting car culture.

[TheStranger]

States build their own systems of freeways, tollways, and expressways not unlike Ontario and Quebec.  Freeways inside of cities get built anyway as many of them were already in progress prior to 1956.

To put that in perspective: wasn't NYC's parkway system first started in the 1930s?  Some freeway-type roads also emerged as the result of certain projects (i.e. the East Bay approaches to the Bay Bridge and the Doyle Drive/Golden Gate Bridge/Presidio Tunnel complex in San Francisco), even before iconic limited access roads such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Arroyo Seco Parkway were thought up.

[Brandon]

States build their own systems of freeways, tollways, and expressways not unlike Ontario and Quebec.  Freeways inside of cities get built anyway as many of them were already in progress prior to 1956.

To put that in perspective: wasn't NYC's parkway system first started in the 1930s?  Some freeway-type roads also emerged as the result of certain projects (i.e. the East Bay approaches to the Bay Bridge and the Doyle Drive/Golden Gate Bridge/Presidio Tunnel complex in San Francisco), even before iconic limited access roads such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Arroyo Seco Parkway were thought up.

Yep.  Even depressed urban freeways predate the Act with the first being the Davison Expressway in Detroit and Highland Park (1942).  Lake Shore Drive in Chicago was turned into a limited access road as early as the 1930s.  Then, of course, was the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940.

After the war, many freeways and tollways were built well before 1956.  Maine had their turnpike as early as 1947, followed by New Jersey, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Indiana (among others).  There were many freeways built as well.  I'll use Chicagoland as an example.  The Bishop Ford (Calumet) and Kingery were built in 1950, followed by the Eisenhower (Congress), Edens, and Borman (Tri-State Hwy).

[jeffandnicole]

When you look back at bridges and tunnels built from 1900-1950, many of them were congested well before it was thought they would become congested. 

[Brandon]

When you look back at bridges and tunnels built from 1900-1950, many of them were congested well before it was thought they would become congested. 

They seriously underestimated the demand and how it would grow.  One must remember that between 1900 and 1950, the US only had 76 million (1900) to 151 million (1950), and increase of 75 million, or almost double in 50 years.  Currently, we have about 317 million (2014 estimate), and increase of 166 million, or more than double since 1950.  People who complain about congestion and growth often overlook that.  These folks need to live somewhere, work somewhere, shop somewhere, and of course, travel somewhere.

[vdeane]

It's also worth noting that women weren't in the workforce in 1950.  On its own, this essentially doubled the number of commuters, and led to the rise of multi-car families.

[Duke87]

States build their own systems of freeways, tollways, and expressways not unlike Ontario and Quebec.  Freeways inside of cities get built anyway as many of them were already in progress prior to 1956.

To put that in perspective: wasn't NYC's parkway system first started in the 1930s?  Some freeway-type roads also emerged as the result of certain projects (i.e. the East Bay approaches to the Bay Bridge and the Doyle Drive/Golden Gate Bridge/Presidio Tunnel complex in San Francisco), even before iconic limited access roads such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Arroyo Seco Parkway were thought up.

Yep. If we hadn't created the interstate system we would still have freeways, but they would have been built on an ad hoc basis state by state rather than forming a smoothly continuous national network.

Western states would likely have opted to build a lot of corridors as divided highways but not as complete limited access.

A lot more of the freeways that did get built would have been tolled - Pennsylvania and Illinois would have turnpike networks forming webs across the whole state, the Maine turnpike would have made it to Bangor, etc.

States would not have built segments of freeway which serve regional interests but not interests to much of anyone within the state - for example, there would not be a freeway or even a divided highway through the northwestern corner of Arizona where I-15 now is, and either it would be a notorious bottleneck on US 91, or Nevada and Utah would have collectively decided to reroute the road when improving it to avoid Arizona entirely.

[jakeroot]

When you look back at bridges and tunnels built from 1900-1950, many of them were congested well before it was thought they would become congested. 

They seriously underestimated the demand and how it would grow.  One must remember that between 1900 and 1950, the US only had 76 million (1900) to 151 million (1950), and increase of 75 million, or almost double in 50 years.  Currently, we have about 317 million (2014 estimate), and increase of 166 million, or more than double since 1950.  People who complain about congestion and growth often overlook that.  These folks need to live somewhere, work somewhere, shop somewhere, and of course, travel somewhere.

In regards to the imbeciles who get angry at congestion, they feel that their tax dollar wasn't used to its full potential, which is of course bullshit because they're the same people who refused to sell their land for a new freeway interchange.

[hbelkins]

In regards to the imbeciles who get angry at congestion, they feel that their tax dollar wasn't used to its full potential, which is of course bullshit because they're the same people who refused to sell their land for a new freeway interchange.

You can't refuse to sell your land for a new interchange. The state can condemn it for public use under eminent domain. Then it's a question of negotiating a price or having a court determine how much you'll be paid.

[NWI_Irish96]

According to the idiots who wrote that, Spaghetti Junction in Louisville is south of downtown.

Downtown Jeffersonville, Ind., maybe.

People who fail basic geography are definitely not going to succeed at highway engineering.

Basic rule of journalism: Use the most important city in the area as your reference point