Ugly Interstate or Limited Access Highway Design

[RobbieL2415]

I'm looking for sections of Limited Access or Interstate Highways that were built with aesthetics completely thrown out the window.

Criteria:
-Can be any Interstate/State Highway/US Highway/CR as long as it's limited access.  Portions of routes that include both at-grade and limited access roadways are also fair game.
-Highways within a metro area that are clearly designed for utilitarian purposes (i.e. move traffic) are EXCLUDED.
-Jersey-style freeways are EXCLUDED.

[froggie]

-Highways within a metro area that are clearly designed for utilitarian purposes (i.e. move traffic) are EXCLUDED.
-Jersey-style freeways are EXCLUDED.

Why?  Some of the ugliest limited-access facilities out there are those in urban areas.

Not to mention those with zillions of billboards.  Combine the two and you have the worst of the worst.

[pianocello]

I'm struggling to think of highways what weren't designed for a utilitarian purpose. I mean, isn't a highway supposed to move traffic?

[Rothman]

Yeah, you excluded everything and made it impossible.

That said, the Gowanus came first to mind.

[ilpt4u]

This was awhile ago, but there were those that made arguments that I-64 between the Ohio River Bridge and I-65 is not only ugly, but unnecessary -- a blight on the Louisville Riverfront, and with the completion of the East End/I-265 bridge, the I-64 route could be rerouted that way, and the Riverfront road could instead be made an Urban Parkway/Boulevard -- I believe there were comparisons to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as an inspiration

There were probably threads about such in the Ohio River forum, 5-10 years ago when this "86 64" idea was floated -- basically when KY and IN were in the planning phases for the new Ohio River bridges and rebuilding the I-64/I-65/I-71 Downtown Louisville interchange

The crux of the argument: Thru Traffic doesn't need the Freeway route thru downtown, and City bound traffic don't need a Thru Freeway

And it is a bit ugly, the Elevated Freeway hugging what could be (at least part of) an Urban/Riverfront park -- instead the Riverfront is cut off from Downtown

I'm not saying I favored the idea of eliminating Riverfront I-64 (and I don't and have never lived in Louisville, so its not my place anyway), but I would at least color it in the "ugly" category

And I actually think I-64 in Louisville meets your exclusions, at least arguably

[ilpt4u]

I'm struggling to think of highways what weren't designed for a utilitarian purpose. I mean, isn't a highway supposed to move traffic?

I'm going to go ahead and suggest there are bridges (that carry highways) out there what are not utilitarian, and instead more artful in their design and architecture. Nothing wrong with that, either

[jp the roadgeek]

The pre-Big Dig Central Artery in Boston was pretty heinous.  An ugly above-ground viaduct running straight through the heart of downtown. 

[PHLBOS]

The pre-Big Dig Central Artery in Boston was pretty heinous.  An ugly above-ground viaduct running straight through the heart of downtown.

Such doesn't meet the OP's criteria (reposted below & bold emphasis added):

-Highways within a metro area that are clearly designed for utilitarian purposes (i.e. move traffic) are EXCLUDED.

While the Artery ran through downtown Boston; its presence actually helped preserve the North End from getting overrun with newer high-density development.

Happy Birthday (JP) BTW.

[Rothman]

How did the Artery prevent high density development in the North End and what prevents it now?

[silverback1065]

i don't think any highway in california would be in this list, at least from my experience in LA and bay area ventures. i'd say old 93 through boston was pretty shitty.  what about 81 through syracuse?  or the inner loop in rochester, those are pretty bad

[silverback1065]

This was awhile ago, but there were those that made arguments that I-64 between the Ohio River Bridge and I-65 is not only ugly, but unnecessary -- a blight on the Louisville Riverfront, and with the completion of the East End/I-265 bridge, the I-64 route could be rerouted that way, and the Riverfront road could instead be made an Urban Parkway/Boulevard -- I believe there were comparisons to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as an inspiration

There were probably threads about such in the Ohio River forum, 5-10 years ago when this "86 64" idea was floated -- basically when KY and IN were in the planning phases for the new Ohio River bridges and rebuilding the I-64/I-65/I-71 Downtown Louisville interchange

The crux of the argument: Thru Traffic doesn't need the Freeway route thru downtown, and City bound traffic don't need a Thru Freeway

And it is a bit ugly, the Elevated Freeway hugging what could be (at least part of) an Urban/Riverfront park -- instead the Riverfront is cut off from Downtown

I'm not saying I favored the idea of eliminating Riverfront I-64 (and I don't and have never lived in Louisville, so its not my place anyway), but I would at least color it in the "ugly" category

And I actually think I-64 in Louisville meets your exclusions, at least arguably

i think you may be right, 64 doesnt really need to be there anymore between 264 and 65 as a through route, could get by with a blvd with limited cross streets. 

[RobbieL2415]

I excluded urban freeways and Jersey freeways because their design is inherently necessary for the environment they were build in.

[froggie]

I would disagree.  As others have indicated, aesthetics can and does play a role even with urban/suburban freeways.  It even caught FHWA's attention in the 1960s (read "The Freeway In The City" if you can find a copy).

[jeffandnicole]

I excluded urban freeways and Jersey freeways because their design is inherently necessary for the environment they were build in.

A Jersey Freeway is generally a road with a center barrier that prevents left turns.  It's not limited access though because you have driveways, side streets and/or traffic lights.  And most Jersey Freeway setups aren't a combo of limited access with at-grade intersections.  Thus, except in limited circumstances, it doesn't meet your criteria anyway.

So, based on what we can talk about, I would throw in I-195 in NJ.  The highway itself is fine.  However, the overpass supports used a different style than one will find on most other NJ highways, which involves supports that flair out larger at the bottom than the top.  I'm having trouble thinking of similar type designs in other states as well.  I never found this design pleasing to the eye as I drive that highway.

[PHLBOS]

How did the Artery prevent high density development in the North End and what prevents it now?

The Artery served as a physical delineation barrier.  East of it, the North End neighborhoods stood largely intact.  Had the Artery not been there; there would've been no physical barrier to prevent the larger, more modern development from encroaching into the area.

When the Big Dig was being planned; the concern regarding the North End neighborhoods being desecrated with potential new development afterwards was indeed very real.  Such was one reason why buildings weren't erected on top of the tunnels; parks & greenways were put in place instead.

[Rothman]

How did the Artery prevent high density development in the North End and what prevents it now?

The Artery served as a physical delineation barrier.  East of it, the North End neighborhoods stood largely intact.  Had the Artery not been there; there would've been no physical barrier to prevent the larger, more modern development from encroaching into the area.

When the Big Dig was being planned; the concern regarding the North End neighborhoods being desecrated with potential new development afterwards was indeed very real.  Such was one reason why buildings weren't erected on top of the tunnels; parks & greenways were put in place instead.

So, it was a matter of just development happening on the I-93 corridor itself, rather than in the heart of the neighborhood (Hanover, etc.?).

Even with the Artery gone, I haven't seen many, if any, old buildings being demolished and replaced with new ones right in the North End.  Has to be some other factor coming into play.  I'd bet zoning laws are quite stringent there in the name of historical preservation.

If they did allow it, the real loss would be that you wouldn't be able to find the "Hey, Anthony!" window anymore.

[formulanone]

I'm looking for sections of Limited Access or Interstate Highways that were built with aesthetics completely thrown out the window.

Criteria:
-Can be [...] CR as long as it's limited access.

I'll bite: Osceola Parkway...It's an odd patchwork of local roads strung together.

It's a rural back road, then suburban, then traffic-infested due to big-box construction, then a rural spot, then a limited access toll-road, and finally there's the Disney section...All of this stretching over about one dozen miles.

[PHLBOS]

How did the Artery prevent high density development in the North End and what prevents it now?

The Artery served as a physical delineation barrier.  East of it, the North End neighborhoods stood largely intact.  Had the Artery not been there; there would've been no physical barrier to prevent the larger, more modern development from encroaching into the area.

When the Big Dig was being planned; the concern regarding the North End neighborhoods being desecrated with potential new development afterwards was indeed very real.  Such was one reason why buildings weren't erected on top of the tunnels; parks & greenways were put in place instead.

So, it was a matter of just development happening on the I-93 corridor itself, rather than in the heart of the neighborhood (Hanover, etc.?).

Such would've started with the old Artery corridor first; then it would've eventually spread.

Even with the Artery gone, I haven't seen many, if any, old buildings being demolished and replaced with new ones right in the North End.  Has to be some other factor coming into play.  I'd bet zoning laws are quite stringent there in the name of historical preservation.

When the original Artery was built, historic preservation laws did not yet exist.  Such came about decades later. 

As I stated in my earlier post, the parks & greenways in the old Artery's footprint still serve as a delineation barrier.  That's likely why development hasn't spilled into the North End post-Artery.  When the Big Dig was originally proposed during the 70s; such was envisioned to open the land for development (which would've spread as time goes on).  The parks & greenways were incorporated into the plans later on.

If they did allow it, the real loss would be that you wouldn't be able to find the "Hey, Anthony!" window anymore.

All joking aside, the real issue would've been gentrification.

[J N Winkler]

I would disagree.  As others have indicated, aesthetics can and does play a role even with urban/suburban freeways.  It even caught FHWA's attention in the 1960s (read "The Freeway In The City" if you can find a copy).

There is a whole literature on aesthetics of highway design, with two main threads:

*  Architectonic aspects.  Besides the FHWA publication mentioned, which gives a lot of prominence to the BQE triple-decker section, there is also a book by Lynch, Appleyard, and Myers that deals with how to evaluate cityscape views from a freeway, using the then-proposed I-695 in Boston as a case study.

*  The "flowing line" approach to highway design.  Much of the early literature is in German and deals with perspective evaluation of proposed alignments to determine whether they are "kink-free,"  von Ranke's "Raumperspektiv" (1942) being the seminal paper.  Hans Lorenz's Trassierung und Grundsätze is definitive, but literature in English also includes papers in several British highway engineering journals, a major chapter in Tunnard and Pushkarev's Man-made America, and several NCHRP reports dealing with alignment faults on early Interstates.

[sparker]

One aspect of the CA 99 facility through the San Joaquin Valley has, over the years, seemed a bit "jarring" to me -- and it concerns something that has been partially addressed in another thread -- the numerous times the highway crosses the largely parallel UP/former SP railroad tracks (currently 14 between Bakersfield and Sacramento).  Aside from the two long-bypassed Fresno city crossings (one at grade, the other an underpass), by 1953 US 99 grade crossings of the SP main line had been eliminated in favor of one overpass and 7 underpasses; after WWII the upgrade of the route to expressway involved rebuilding several of these underpasses as 4-lane facilities.  And when the upgrade of the route to a full freeway commenced in the early '50's, it involved adding a number of rail crossings within the bypasses of several cities (Merced, Atwater, and Modesto).  The original 2-lane underpasses were usually on a tight radius so as to utilize as little space as possible; most of the expansion within the expressway mode simply expanded the undercrossing to 4 lanes with only a marginal increase in radius if at all.  As has been outlined in other threads, originally 4 of the undercrossings were "doubled" with parallel overpasses.  Prior to the mid-60's, the format of the newer overcrossings (including those at Merced and Atwater) maintained the tight-radius standard, likely because those freeway facilities originally connected at their respective ends to existing expressway which was situated immediately adjacent to the railroad tracks.  When upgrades to full freeway were constructed, at least up through 1963 (the Merced bypass opened late that year), the Division of Highways practice was to utilize as much of the existing expressway as possible for the new freeway alignments; this meant that many of the tight-radius rail crossings remained intact although now part of full freeways.  The banking of those curves varied; some (North Delano) had very little to speak of (possibly because the apex of the curve was and is in an underpass within a diamond interchange).  Goshen (the 198 junction) was also flat to accommodate the merging lanes from the other route.  The only 4-lane underpass to be banked was Livingston, between Merced and Modesto.  Still, the presence of the tight curves on a relatively straight road corridor always was a bit disconcerting -- and annoying, as while traversing city streets in those towns not yet bypassed was a predictably slow process, encountering lightly banked tight curvature -- particularly in winter when rain and "tule fog" posed hazards -- was an unexpected obstacle.

The "flowing line" approach to highway design.  Much of the early literature is in German and deals with perspective evaluation of proposed alignments to determine whether they are "kink-free,"......

Prior to 1964, the combination of straight-line facility interspersed with tight curvature hardly produced a "kink-free" environment; the overarching gestalt of the highway was a bit bipolar albeit understandable from the POV of the Division of Highways, which, at least in the early stages of improvements to the route, elected to expend as little funds as possible on new ROW acquisition, which was reflected in the alignment design and execution.  From 1964 on, it appears a new set of criteria were applied; the freeway upgrades, starting with the 1965 Modesto bypass,  featured higher standards of curvature and overall architecture; speed could by and large be maintained, and safety was likewise enhanced by the improved banking techniques evident on those portions of the route constructed after that timeframe.  By the time the Turlock bypass was opened in 1973, the newer portions of then-CA 99 were indistinguishable from any other modern state-maintained facility of that type.  After the "lull" in construction during the later '70's and early '80's (the Brown/Gianturco years), the upgrades became even more advanced; the original cramped Livingston 4-lane expressway underpass, which resembled a concrete drainage ditch, was replaced (1996) by a very broad radius facility with a very wide median, with a staggered-bent rail crossing that looks like it came out of Architectural Digest! 

Nevertheless, several "old school" facilities remain, such as the Atwater (1955) and Merced (1963) bypasses, which except for spot repairs and a few safety improvements, remain largely unchanged since their construction.  Two of the "over/under" RR crossings (Famoso, South Goshen) have been replaced by twin overpasses with vastly improved geometry, but the other two remain -- although Chowchilla, one of these, poses few issues (except for the under-15-foot vertical clearance on the NB underpass) because NB it continues on the Chowchilla town bypass rather than curving around back toward the RR line like the original 2-lane facility, and SB features the CA 152 interchange, which was constructed as a single project with the overpass in 1958, featuring gentler curvature than seen elsewhere.  The other is further north near Elk Grove, and crosses the rail line at a very acute angle that never required significant curvature on US/CA 99.  This places most of the "ugly" and annoying old-school curvature on the Tulare County segment of the route and the segment featuring the Merced and Atwater bypasses, only a few miles apart.  The route is decidedly better than it was in the late '70's, when there was more of a mixture of older expressway mixed with older & newer freeway segments -- and plenty of "ghost" stubs where freeway sections were planned (especially between Fresno and Manteca) but not yet built.  But the remaining tight-radius features still pose a perennial safety hazard as well as a hindrance to maximum corridor efficiency; the "99 Master Plan" addresses those issues -- at least on paper -- but for the time being they remain ugly and occasionally hazardous portions of this massively-traveled route. 

[Bickendan]

Proponents of their removal like to tout the Marquam Bridge and the Eastbank Freeway as this.

[jakeroot]

This is a  s t r e t c h  due to the metro-area ban set forth by the OP; it's the only thing I could think of.

The Coquihalla Highway (British Columbia Route 5) toll booths, before they were removed, didn't much fit in with the mountainous surroundings. I mean, they were toll booths, so it's not like they had to be some grand design. But the Coke (so I've been told) was built to help ferry Expo 86 visitors between the Lower Mainland and the BC interior, which means more than a few tourists passed through the tollbooths. I'm surprised more attention wasn't paid to the design. They could have made something more attractive like the Banff National Park entrance plaza.

Minus a thousand for using comic sans on the open/closed banners.

[1995hoo]

I would disagree.  As others have indicated, aesthetics can and does play a role even with urban/suburban freeways.  It even caught FHWA's attention in the 1960s (read "The Freeway In The City" if you can find a copy).

In terms of suburban freeways, I'd suggest MD-200 (the Intercounty Connector) and portions of Raleigh's Beltline (I-440) of examples where attention was paid to aesthetics. The northwestern portions of the Beltline have rather spiffy brick sound walls (not true of the entire road, to be sure). The ICC has decorative overpasses and brown gantries that look less industrial than the standard truss designs.

[jeffandnicole]

This is a  s t r e t c h  due to the metro-area ban set forth by the OP; it's the only thing I could think of.

The Coquihalla Highway (British Columbia Route 5) toll booths, before they were removed, didn't much fit in with the mountainous surroundings. I mean, they were toll booths, so it's not like they had to be some grand design. But the Coke (so I've been told) was built to help ferry Expo 86 visitors between the Lower Mainland and the BC interior, which means more than a few tourists passed through the tollbooths. I'm surprised more attention wasn't paid to the design. They could have made something more attractive like the Banff National Park entrance plaza.

Minus a thousand for using comic sans on the open/closed banners.

There aren't too many toll plaza designs that look great.  Even in the example you sighted, rain would be an issue without a canopy.  They probably could've incorporated a canopy to match those buildings with relative ease.

The NJ Turnpike built this new plaza at Interchange 1: https://goo.gl/maps/iH36bvhm1Et  It made it a little more spiffy than the original design, but unfortunately using "Turnpike Green" (my term) takes away any potential attractiveness the plaza could've had, such as that watch tower in the center of the plaza ( https://goo.gl/maps/5gExwJ39Zn82 )  which I don't believe has any functionality to it whatsoever.  I worked this interchange for a little bit and I don't recall if there's even access up there.  The supervisor's area is below it, overlooking the exit plaza (a standard NJTA design).

At the time when it opened (2004) the width of the plaza was greatly needed.  Today, with the vast majority using EZ Pass, the plaza is greatly overbuilt.

[seicer]

Are there plans to remove the center lanes and make them high speed lanes?