StreetsBlog: Tear down these 10 freeways

[kalvado]

When the park east in Milwaukee was torn down back in the early 2000's we were all promised it was going to bring in all this development and how wonderful it would be. Now over a decade later it's still mostly vacant despite some claims it was the most valuable land in the state. What a joke just keep that mind next time you propose tearing a freeway down will bring in economic development.

Well, at least there's room for additional development. You can't build under a viaduct (not effectively, at least). Tearing down a viaduct does not automatically result in increased development. The city has to be in a situation where additional development is feasible. And from the looks of it, Milwaukee has begun to develop quite nicely as of late. And there's nothing that says the development has to be exactly where the viaduct formerly stood. Tearing down a viaduct helps improve the walkability of areas not just where the viaduct stood, but also miles away (perhaps increasing the demand for lots up to 15 or 20 blocks away).

Last time I checked, US was still third largest country by area with modest population density.
Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

[Rothman]

Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

Any proposal to add more lanes to avenues on Manhattan.

[kalvado]

Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

Any proposal to add more lanes to avenues on Manhattan.

Well.. it is difficult to get more room for that by demolishing existing roads...

[froggie]

Know what the reroute would do? Put more trucks and buses on I-390 and NY 63.

Unless someone has hard numbers showing otherwise, there isn't a lot of through traffic that would be impacted by this viaduct removal.  It's mostly Onondaga County traffic that would be impacted.  Sure, some would shift to 481 (which isn't as bad as val and cl94 claim, BTW)...probably enough to warrant 6 laning.  And as val noted the interchanges on either end would need to be addressed.  But it's also safe to say that such would be less expensive than rebuilding the viaduct.  And I believe the earlier project studies confirmed that.

[RobbieL2415]

Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

Any proposal to add more lanes to avenues on Manhattan.

Yea, I could see adding lanes to a grid network laid out in the 1810s being difficult.

[kkt]

Last time I checked, US was still third largest country by area with modest population density.
Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

And many other cities.  Lack of land has been a principal reason for the freeway revolts in San Francisco, Portland, Or., Seattle, other places.  It's not so much the 1810 gridwork, which is not the case in any of those western cities, as expensive buildings built right up to their lot lines.

[kalvado]

Last time I checked, US was still third largest country by area with modest population density.
Can you show me ANY projects in US that didn't take off because there was not enough land to be found? Of course, land may be an issue on Manhattan or within Beltway...

And many other cities.  Lack of land has been a principal reason for the freeway revolts in San Francisco, Portland, Or., Seattle, other places.  It's not so much the 1810 gridwork, which is not the case in any of those western cities, as expensive buildings built right up to their lot lines.

There is a huge difference between "no room for road" and "lets demolish road to make room for something else".
My point is, I am not aware of any business, university, hospital, government organisation etc. giving up an idea to build something on US soil because there is no land.
Different state, maybe, but even that primarily due to tax giveaways. Sometimes expansion is difficult, but usually ends up with moving to a new location or second campus. In those cases value of road connections is readily recognized.
Squeezing something into existing footprint is mostly done in cities with old fixed borders, where all land is developed. Hope is new business would bring money with no new expenses as old city is mostly trashed and cannot pay for what is there. Common wisdom tells that you cannot have a cake and eat it too. Best double use, as it turns out, is to demolish the cake - so you nether have it, nor eat it too - which seems a preferred option.

[jakeroot]

That makes absolutely no sense. Tearing the freeway down had no effect on walkability at all. If your not going to build anything there what was the point of tearing it down? Yeah there is room for development all right but if it ain't happening what's the point anyways? We were promised this was going to bring in development. I would think if this land was so valuable as they claim anyone would have built there in a heartbeat.

Okay, sorry they couldn't predict the future. Would you rather they rebuild the freeway? Unless Milwaukee is done growing, I don't see any sort of timeline where that land doesn't come into play, eventually.

By the way, walkability is a measure of how friendly an area is to walking. Viaducts are not friendly to those walking, because they are dark, cold, drippy, shelter lots of homeless people, among other things. They're more of a psychological barrier than a physical one, but they're a barrier nonetheless.

[vdeane]

Know what the reroute would do? Put more trucks and buses on I-390 and NY 63.

Unless someone has hard numbers showing otherwise, there isn't a lot of through traffic that would be impacted by this viaduct removal.  It's mostly Onondaga County traffic that would be impacted.  Sure, some would shift to 481 (which isn't as bad as val and cl94 claim, BTW)...probably enough to warrant 6 laning.  And as val noted the interchanges on either end would need to be addressed.  But it's also safe to say that such would be less expensive than rebuilding the viaduct.  And I believe the earlier project studies confirmed that.

I recall reading that the through traffic numbers are somewhere between 10-15k.  Still leaves what to do with the 70k people going into the city (whose destination is assumed to be downtown; don't remember if it was tracked or not).  I-481's traffic counts near the Thruway are at the level of the recently widened part of the Thruway between exits 23 and 24.  It has felt congested the past few times I've driven on it.  Traffic flow was around 55 despite the 65 mph speed limit, and due to traffic levels, getting around the slowpokes was impossible.

[triplemultiplex]

Two blocks of the former Park East corridor will become a new basketball arena for the Bucks.
The area has been filling in considerably in the last few years and adjacent blocks have seen significant development including a residential high rise that is among the 10 tallest buildings in the city.

Removing the barrier created by the Park East has lead to a renaissance on the west bank of the Milwaukee River in Schiltz Park and Brewers Hill.  The physical and psychological barrier between the established part of downtown and these formerly neglected neighborhoods made these areas much more attractive to redevelopment.  All stuff that wouldn't have happened with a big ugly freeway across the street.

It was more than worth the extra 90 seconds (or whatever) it now takes to get to MSOE from I-43.  The removal saved a huge amount of money in maintenance and simplified the Marquette Interchange rebuild considerably.  I do not miss it one bit.  One of the best decisions the city has made in recent decades was to tear down that freeway to nowhere.

[Jmiles32]

Surprised no one has yet to mention  the US-40/former I-170 freeway to nowhere in Western Baltimore. It's really unfortunate what that highway did to the nearby community and I think if it was made into a nice blvd or something it would really help out that area. Also I wouldn't mind seeing the Whitehurst in DC being torn down either, as it would greatly improve the waterfront.

[froggie]

Also I wouldn't mind seeing the Whitehurst in DC being torn down either, as it would greatly improve the waterfront.

The problem that (mostly-) out-of-state drivers will bring up here is what do you do with the Whitehurst traffic when M St through Georgetown is already gridlocked most days?

[dvferyance]

Two blocks of the former Park East corridor will become a new basketball arena for the Bucks.
The area has been filling in considerably in the last few years and adjacent blocks have seen significant development including a residential high rise that is among the 10 tallest buildings in the city.

Removing the barrier created by the Park East has lead to a renaissance on the west bank of the Milwaukee River in Schiltz Park and Brewers Hill.  The physical and psychological barrier between the established part of downtown and these formerly neglected neighborhoods made these areas much more attractive to redevelopment.  All stuff that wouldn't have happened with a big ugly freeway across the street.

It was more than worth the extra 90 seconds (or whatever) it now takes to get to MSOE from I-43.  The removal saved a huge amount of money in maintenance and simplified the Marquette Interchange rebuild considerably.  I do not miss it one bit.  One of the best decisions the city has made in recent decades was to tear down that freeway to nowhere.

My whole point is we are all told when the freeway was torn down it would lead to all this development and it was going to be so wonderful. They even called that land some of the most valuable in the state. Well if it was really so valuable why is it taking well over a decade to see any development? Ok perhaps with the Bucks arena coming in we will finally see some development. But I think it's pathetic that it took so insanely long after we were promised how wonderful this was going to be. If this land was such a gold mine like city leaders said it was I would think development would have happened a long time ago. As I recalled former mayor Norquist who was so obsessed with tearing this freeway down did absolutely nothing to try to bring in any economic development. It just amazes me that even after all this time supporters of this still won't admit uh perhaps this land wasn't as attractive as we thought.

[triplemultiplex]

In fairness to your position, much of the newly vacant land in the Park East Corridor got caught up in bureaucratic garbage.  The city got some of it and the county kept the rest.  Neither entity wanted to just turn around and sell it to the highest bidder.  They wanted concrete proposals that matched certain criteria that were considered 'worthwhile.'  I think the reasoning was they didn't want someone scooping up this land and just sitting on it until the value went up enough for them to turn a profit.  But it also meant prospective buyers had to come to the table with a fully fleshed out plan of what they wanted to build, how they were going to pay for it and who was going to live there.  Basically, there are people in local government and NGO's who want projects that are not just up-scale residential.  They want affordable housing in the mix.

There are others who want to keep some of the land available to lure a large corporation to town to build their headquarters.  That always seemed like an optimistic reach to me.  But it came close to working with Kohls when they were looking to either expand in or move from Menomonee Falls.

But to my point, the debates about what to do with land made available by freeway demolition can only really happen in earnest once it's actually gone.  Until then it's all just speculation.  Prior to actually demolishing the Park East, there were years of thought experiments about what to do with the land.  The Harley-Davidson Museum was going to go there.  Before that, it was considered as a location for County Stadium's replacement.  But none of those ideas could go forward because the freeway was still in place.

It has been a longer process than I think most had hoped.  There are lessons to be learned by other cities from Milwaukee's example.  The best one seems to be "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."  Don't pass on okay projects because you are so focused on an ideal of urban infill.
I would also advise other cities to take some of the land and turn it loose on the market.  Take a block, auction it off and see what happens.  At least that way you're collecting taxes on it.

Even with large chunks of the land sitting idle, it was still worthwhile to remove the Park East.  Because realistically, this dead-end road had very limited functionality.  When I lived in Milwaukee I used McKinley Ave to get to and from I-43 all the time, so if the Park East had still been there, I would have used it.  But it would have saved me all of 60 seconds.  It wasn't an especially useful highway.  The trade off in land use and the visual barrier it created wasn't worth it.  I will continue to be patient with redevelopment and satisfied with all the beneficial changes the removal has brought to that part of the city.

[silverback1065]

I don't get it, how could you possibly remove I-84? it's the busiest interstate in the area, what the hell are they going to do with the traffic? 

[ethanhopkin14]

and the fact that you now have at-grade intersections where you previously didn't reduces safety for drivers, bikers, and pedestrians alike.

I think the jury is still out on this one.  But it demonstrates how a study on the before/after safety of those few freeway deconstruction examples we've done in this country (San Fran, Manhattan, Milwaukee)  could provide useful data.

If the concern is that cars do not use space as efficiently as bikes or public transit do, that's true, and it's worth promoting the use of those alternative modes of transportation when practical. But those modes lack the versatility of automobile travel, so there will always be a lot of trips you cannot reasonably divert to them.

I will disagree with you to a degree on bikes.  A strong argument could be made that bicycling is more versatile than driving for short distances, especially in urban areas.  Easier to park...less delay due to traffic.  Case-in-point:  it takes me an average of about 4 minutes from when I walk out of my apartment to when I get my car out of the complex's parking garage.  In that 4 minutes, by bike, I can be halfway to Ghent or anywhere downtown.  I can be to pretty much anything I would want or need outside of base within 10 minutes by bike.

This is an example of why adding bike infrastructure in cities is important, and WILL make a difference.  Not only does it cut down on traffic and parking needs (1 car parking spot can, on average, hold 10 bikes), but recent studies have suggested that bike infrastructure brings economic benefits far in excess of its cost, including an increase in business customers to businesses along the bike route.  Another factor to consider is that, per the 2009 National Household Transportation Survey (data extractable here), one-third of all vehicle trips are under 3 miles in length (and half of all vehicle trips are less than 5mi).  This is a trip pool that could easily be tapped into if we had better bike/ped infrastructure.  Unfortunately, we've been so car-happy in this country for the past 50 years and cash-strapped for the past 20 that we've forgotten how to build a decent all-mode transportation network (nevermind forgotten how to build community and "place")...

I disagree.  I do not think a bike is ever more efficient than a car, even for short distances.  even if I can zoom by on my bike rather than sit in traffic (by the way, that's illegal, since bike have to obey all the laws that cars do), I still have to do something with the bike since a bike is easier to steal than a car.  So I find somewhere to lock it up, and I have to carry in all the things I was carrying on the bike since I can't have them out there for anyone to steal.  So the mess of unlocking the bike at home, strapping down my crap for work for the day to the bike, riding to work, unstrapping my crap off the bike, messing with all the time it takes to lock up the bike in a way that it is a deterrent to thieves (because we all know it is one thing to lock the bike up, and entirely another thing to lock it up in a way to keep people from stealing it) I have wasted more time than if I drove.  Plus, you're argument only works regionally.  I live in Austin, TX, where you cannot even stand outside in the summer without being drenched with sweat when the temperature reaches 108 degrees, much less ride a bike.  There is no way I am riding a bike to a destination when I have to be business causal even in the summer without standing in front of clients looking like I don't care about myself at all because my shirt and pants are sweated completely through.  remember again, just because you are on a bike doesn't mean you get to play by your own rules.  You are not supposed to be on the sidewalk ever.  So in areas where there are not bike lanes, you better be in the lane with the cars, and pedaling your butt off so you don't get run over by a car.  And the same lights you stop at by car, you had better be stopping at by bike.  To me it will never work out unless I am going less than a block.

[kalvado]

I disagree.  I do not think a bike is ever more efficient than a car, even for short distances.  even if I can zoom by on my bike rather than sit in traffic (by the way, that's illegal, since bike have to obey all the laws that cars do), I still have to do something with the bike since a bike is easier to steal than a car.  So I find somewhere to lock it up, and I have to carry in all the things I was carrying on the bike since I can't have them out there for anyone to steal.  So the mess of unlocking the bike at home, strapping down my crap for work for the day to the bike, riding to work, unstrapping my crap off the bike, messing with all the time it takes to lock up the bike in a way that it is a deterrent to thieves (because we all know it is one thing to lock the bike up, and entirely another thing to lock it up in a way to keep people from stealing it) I have wasted more time than if I drove.  Plus, you're argument only works regionally.  I live in Austin, TX, where you cannot even stand outside in the summer without being drenched with sweat when the temperature reaches 108 degrees, much less ride a bike.  There is no way I am riding a bike to a destination when I have to be business causal even in the summer without standing in front of clients looking like I don't care about myself at all because my shirt and pants are sweated completely through.  remember again, just because you are on a bike doesn't mean you get to play by your own rules.  You are not supposed to be on the sidewalk ever.  So in areas where there are not bike lanes, you better be in the lane with the cars, and pedaling your butt off so you don't get run over by a car.  And the same lights you stop at by car, you had better be stopping at by bike.  To me it will never work out unless I am going less than a block.

Of course, you cannot leave a lot of stuff at bike parking that you leave at the car - EZpass, spare tire, pile of paper and empty bottles on a back seat, spare boots, umbrella... what not.
BUt at the end of the day, you actually need to carry only things you carry to the destination - in my case, laptop, phone and travel coffee mug. I could dump everything else from the car..

Dedicated bike lanes help bypassing traffic, and that is OK - with some fine print regarding collisions with turning cars.

But weather is really a big deal. You have +100F in summer, we have -10F in  winter - both are uncomfortable for bike. Rain, snow, what not.
Hot shower and dry clothing  at the destination (I can bring dry stuff, but we have no showers here) is a must for bike commute  from my perspective. With that.. I can see the point if I still keep car as a plan B.

[ethanhopkin14]

I disagree.  I do not think a bike is ever more efficient than a car, even for short distances.  even if I can zoom by on my bike rather than sit in traffic (by the way, that's illegal, since bike have to obey all the laws that cars do), I still have to do something with the bike since a bike is easier to steal than a car.  So I find somewhere to lock it up, and I have to carry in all the things I was carrying on the bike since I can't have them out there for anyone to steal.  So the mess of unlocking the bike at home, strapping down my crap for work for the day to the bike, riding to work, unstrapping my crap off the bike, messing with all the time it takes to lock up the bike in a way that it is a deterrent to thieves (because we all know it is one thing to lock the bike up, and entirely another thing to lock it up in a way to keep people from stealing it) I have wasted more time than if I drove.  Plus, you're argument only works regionally.  I live in Austin, TX, where you cannot even stand outside in the summer without being drenched with sweat when the temperature reaches 108 degrees, much less ride a bike.  There is no way I am riding a bike to a destination when I have to be business causal even in the summer without standing in front of clients looking like I don't care about myself at all because my shirt and pants are sweated completely through.  remember again, just because you are on a bike doesn't mean you get to play by your own rules.  You are not supposed to be on the sidewalk ever.  So in areas where there are not bike lanes, you better be in the lane with the cars, and pedaling your butt off so you don't get run over by a car.  And the same lights you stop at by car, you had better be stopping at by bike.  To me it will never work out unless I am going less than a block.

Of course, you cannot leave a lot of stuff at bike parking that you leave at the car - EZpass, spare tire, pile of paper and empty bottles on a back seat, spare boots, umbrella... what not.
BUt at the end of the day, you actually need to carry only things you carry to the destination - in my case, laptop, phone and travel coffee mug. I could dump everything else from the car..

Dedicated bike lanes help bypassing traffic, and that is OK - with some fine print regarding collisions with turning cars.

But weather is really a big deal. You have +100F in summer, we have -10F in  winter - both are uncomfortable for bike. Rain, snow, what not.
Hot shower and dry clothing  at the destination (I can bring dry stuff, but we have no showers here) is a must for bike commute  from my perspective. With that.. I can see the point if I still keep car as a plan B.

I would love to ride my bike around town.  I would.  I have no issues with it.  I just am a realist.  I have 2 jobs, and need to bring stuff to both jobs, so I have more than a laptop and a coffee mug. 

I am not saying that it's not a bad idea, it's just not universally a perfect fit.  I am sure you are not this way, but it seams like the ultra liberals here in Austin think because they can ride their bike from their loft a block to work, then everyone can. 

Of course if you say "I am not riding my bike around town" then you look like an uneducated hick.  Whatever, if I look like that fine.

[kalvado]

I am not saying that it's not a bad idea, it's just not universally a perfect fit. 

I am trying to think of a single thing which is a universally perfect fit. So far breathing air and drinking water are the only two things I could come up with..