Space 134. Proposal for a freeway cap park over CA 134

[emory]

http://www.space134.net/

I found out about this today via a flyer I got in the mail. I live right off the 134 in Glendale. It's a proposed plan to cover up CA 134 through downtown Glendale with a community park, similar to the proposal for US 101 through Hollywood.

[kurumi]

Wow. TIL Glendale is about 27% Armenian (the "other" language on the poster). Some crosswalk stencils in the city are in 3 languages.

Imagine a bike/skate boulevard along one side of the greenspace.

[Bickendan]

I like these kinds of ideas. You don't generally see much in terms of scenery from freeways anyway, so if they're below grade, put a lid on it and reclaim the space above it for other uses.
The only things that need to be considered are tunnel ventilation and whether hazmat vehicles are suddenly badly impacted with reroutes (hazmat vehicles aren't allowed on US 26 through the Vista Tunnel in Portland and I believe on I-94/US 12/52 through the Lowry Hill Tunnel in Minneapolis, and probably won't be through the Alaskan in Seattle).

[The Nature Boy]

I generally like the idea of what Boston tried to do with the Big Dig. Freeways are generally eyesores and should be buried in cities.

The Big Dig was expensive so we need to figure out a way to make it cost efficient.

[noelbotevera]

I don't know. Isn't this the freeway that failed to be finished through Moorpark?

I myself like freeways in cities. Just gives it a little personality. But burying it is a little too much. Do it like the I-635 LBJ Express lanes (sink CA 134, then put the park on top of it, but don't cover CA 134).

[The Ghostbuster]

I don't mind the idea of capping existing freeways. It makes you forget there is even a freeway there, though perhaps not. Anyway, caps over freeways can help remedy the divisiveness a freeway has on its surroundings.

[emory]

I don't know. Isn't this the freeway that failed to be finished through Moorpark?

That's CA 118.

[MaxConcrete]

I could not find any price estimates on the project web site. But it will be super-expensive, which is probably why the project is shown as a phased project over 20+ years.

Klyde Warren Park in Dallas is about 1054 feet long and cost $110 million. The deck cost $45 million, but the contract was awarded at the depths of the Great Recession in 2009 so the bid price was low and probably would be significantly higher today (say $55-60 million).

The park web site says 1.25 miles of freeway would be covered, but I measure on 4750 feet on Google maps.

Since the Glendale deck must meet earthquake standards and will probably be cast-in-place concrete, it will be much more expensive than the prefabricated beam construction used in Dallas. So I'm thinking at least $75 million per 1000 feet for the deck and probably more like $100 million, or $375-$500 millon for a mile of deck.

In the meeting notice, the park looks very spartan and basic compared to Klyde Warren park. But the depiction on the "About" page looks much more complex, with buildings and fancy designs. So the actual park construction may be relatively cheap, maybe a few tens of millions, or could be very expensive, like a couple hundred million. So I'm estimating this to be a $400-600 million park at full buildout.

Klyde Warren park: http://dfwfreeways.com/spur366/roadside-klyde-warren-park
Construction showing prefab beam construction: http://dfwfreeways.com/spur366/construction-park
 
 

[andy3175]

Klyde Warren Park in Dallas is about 1054 feet long and cost $110 million. The deck cost $45 million, but the contract was awarded at the depths of the Great Recession in 2009 so the bid price was low and probably would be significantly higher today (say $55-60 million).

I'll add another picture-intensive link to Klyde Warren Park: http://www.ojb.com/project/32-Klyde-Warren-Park--1/. There are quite a few park amenities located on that bridge deck. I can't verify the size of the park based on the information I've found.

As for bridge deck proposals, another one that gets discussed from time to time is a cap over I-5 through downtown San Diego between Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue. Creating such a structure would provide a connection to the southwestern corner of Balboa Park, which lies just north of I-5 as it travels east-west through downtown. Some info is from this 2012 KPBS article: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/apr/26/freeway-lids-hold-hope-reconnecting-neighborhoods/, but I've not seen any webpage specific to the effort the way there is one for SR 134.

Freeways move traffic. They can also divide and devastate urban neighborhoods. And Little Italy wasn't the only near-downtown neighborhood that was devastated when Interstate 5 came to downtown San Diego.

"It killed Middletown. It killed, for a while, Little Italy. It killed Barrio Logan,"  said Marco Li Mandri, president of New City America. "The S-curve basically goes around downtown, so it didn't hurt commercial properties. It went through neighborhoods"

A lot of damage has been done. But there is something you can do about these deep gouges in the urban landscape. Vicki Estrada, president of Estrada Land Planning, spoke to me as she pointed to a stretch of I-5, between downtown and Balboa Park. She told me to imagine it covered by a freeway lid.

"Instead of seeing all this concrete and hearing all this noise, we could see a park, with trees and grounds and sports fields, perhaps,"  she said. "Or even a series of shops and restaurants."

A freeway lid is a concrete shelf that covers a sunken freeway, allowing development on top of it. San Diego's Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) developed a downtown development plan that called for a freeway lid over Interstate 5, between 3rd and 8th avenues. ...

So why not cap all our sunken freeways to create parks and reconnect neighborhoods? Well, putting a lid on just one block of I-15 in City Heights cost $70 million 15 years ago. The cost estimate, for capping the I-5 between downtown and Balboa Park, is just under $300 million.

[sdmichael]

Klyde Warren Park in Dallas is about 1054 feet long and cost $110 million. The deck cost $45 million, but the contract was awarded at the depths of the Great Recession in 2009 so the bid price was low and probably would be significantly higher today (say $55-60 million).

I'll add another picture-intensive link to Klyde Warren Park: http://www.ojb.com/project/32-Klyde-Warren-Park--1/. There are quite a few park amenities located on that bridge deck. I can't verify the size of the park based on the information I've found.

As for bridge deck proposals, another one that gets discussed from time to time is a cap over I-5 through downtown San Diego between Third Avenue and Eighth Avenue. Creating such a structure would provide a connection to the southwestern corner of Balboa Park, which lies just north of I-5 as it travels east-west through downtown. Some info is from this 2012 KPBS article: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/apr/26/freeway-lids-hold-hope-reconnecting-neighborhoods/, but I've not seen any webpage specific to the effort the way there is one for SR 134.

Freeways move traffic. They can also divide and devastate urban neighborhoods. And Little Italy wasn't the only near-downtown neighborhood that was devastated when Interstate 5 came to downtown San Diego.

"It killed Middletown. It killed, for a while, Little Italy. It killed Barrio Logan,"  said Marco Li Mandri, president of New City America. "The S-curve basically goes around downtown, so it didn't hurt commercial properties. It went through neighborhoods"

A lot of damage has been done. But there is something you can do about these deep gouges in the urban landscape. Vicki Estrada, president of Estrada Land Planning, spoke to me as she pointed to a stretch of I-5, between downtown and Balboa Park. She told me to imagine it covered by a freeway lid.

"Instead of seeing all this concrete and hearing all this noise, we could see a park, with trees and grounds and sports fields, perhaps,"  she said. "Or even a series of shops and restaurants."

A freeway lid is a concrete shelf that covers a sunken freeway, allowing development on top of it. San Diego's Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) developed a downtown development plan that called for a freeway lid over Interstate 5, between 3rd and 8th avenues. ...

So why not cap all our sunken freeways to create parks and reconnect neighborhoods? Well, putting a lid on just one block of I-15 in City Heights cost $70 million 15 years ago. The cost estimate, for capping the I-5 between downtown and Balboa Park, is just under $300 million.

In fairness to the costs regarding Route 15 and I-5, Route 15 was built with the park deck in mind, I-5 wasn't. I'm at least for more connections from one side to the other, 8th Ave being one good example.

As to "killing" a neighborhood, I doubt it was the sole factor for that decline though it was indeed a part of it. Creating more connections within the neighborhood would help them grow, even without creating a park.

[MaxConcrete]

A freeway lid is a concrete shelf that covers a sunken freeway, allowing development on top of it. San Diego's Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) developed a downtown development plan that called for a freeway lid over Interstate 5, between 3rd and 8th avenues. ...

So why not cap all our sunken freeways to create parks and reconnect neighborhoods? Well, putting a lid on just one block of I-15 in City Heights cost $70 million 15 years ago. The cost estimate, for capping the I-5 between downtown and Balboa Park, is just under $300 million.

From 3rd to 8th avenue is about is about 1400 feet, according to Google maps measure distance tool. That's about 0.26 miles. If you apply that cost per foot to 4750 feet of CA 134 Glendale, it is right at $1 billion.

That section of CA 134 looks fairly "clean" (minimal complications for deck construction), so I'm thinking it would be less than $1 billion. But I'm also thinking my rough estimate of $400 to $600 million is low.

In Dallas, TxDOT contributed only $20 million to the construction of Klyde Warren park, or 18% of the total cost. ARRA (recession stimulus) provided $17 million. The rest was raised locally, including large private contributions and including about $10 million from Kelcy Warren, who used the naming rights to name the park for his son.

TxDOT seems to be careful to make only token contributions to these parks. For the planned massive (ballpark $6 billion) rebuild of downtown Houston freeways and I-45 north (currently in the environmental process, see my analysis http://houstonfreeways.com/analysis), TxDOT is saying they will design the trenches to accommodate a deck, but will not actually pay for the decks or parks. The story is similar for signature (i.e. architecturally distinctive) bridges over the trenches - local money will be needed.

CalTrans would be smart to make only token financial contributions to these projects since Caltrans is already seriously underfunded. Also, if Caltrans starts funding freeway decks, there's no telling how many communities will want one. My guess is that Glendale is going to have to fund most of this project on its own, and they'll have to settle for a lot less than the vision shown on the web site. I'm thinking they'll need to scale it back to a length between 1000 and 2000 feet.