City Freeway Teardowns: More on Their Way?

[Kacie Jane]

If you're buying groceries every day -- or even every week -- I can't fathom any reason you'd need a Costco-sized bag of cat litter.

(Personally, I do buy cat litter 40 lbs at a time -- 2 20-lb jugs.  But that's because Target is the only place here that carries my preferred type at a reasonable price, and I hate driving there.  Those two jugs last my one cat about a month.  If I didn't have a car, I'd just suck it up and buy regular litter closer, more often, and in far more maneuverable quantities.)

[kphoger]

First of all, living without a car is possible, including grocery shopping.  Proof?  Well, people do it, don't they?  And all over the world.

Secondly, who takes the freeway to go grocery shopping?  A very small percentage of shoppers, I'd say.  Freeways mainly serve longer-distance commuters and travellers than local streets.  Being able to run errands without a car is a separate issue from being able to commute to work without a car; having a cargo bike won't help you get across town for work, and having a commuter rail line won't help you transport garden mulch.

[Perfxion]

This issue of not hitting freeways for errands and grocery shopping is not including Houston. The only city besides LA where driving for 40 mins at highway speed and still not leaving the city limits. People in a lot of these teardowns with urban renewal don't think about the fact not everyone works downtown. And not every highway is burbs to downtown. Some work on North side but live on the south side of town. Some work on the east side, but live Northwest area.  Not all travelers are by passing the city.


The only time freeways should be discontinued is issues like the old westside highway which was a dangerous hot mess.

[rantanamo]

I think Stemmons(I-35E) from the 183 split/merge to downtown Dallas and the I-35E should be torn down.  But hear me out.  From the 183 split, I think if the highway followed the west shore of the Trinity it would be able to move I-35E thru traffic much better than going through downtown.  This would eliminate the weird downtown Mixmaster and create a more traditional one with I-30 on the west shore of the Trinity.  Access to downtown from I-35E would then be from one of the 4 bridges that cross the Trinity.  This would benefit Woodall Rodgers especially allowing more natural movement to its ramps that intersect with US75/I-45 on the other side of downtown.  Just from experience I think a lot of the downtown Dallas traffic is created from the movement to the various highway choices, which at the mixmaster is very complicated.  Moving one of these freeways would allow some far less complicated links.  One of these will be rebuilt in the near future and that is I-35E.  The bridge over the Trinity, the mixmaster, and the highway itself from downtown north. Beyond the traffic relief, you also open up the future park front/water front to downtown.

I would also contend that this would also kill the insatiable appetite for the Trinity Tollway.  The premise of that is to move Traffic from I-45 in south Dallas and across to 183/I-35 while bypassing Stemmons and the mixmaster.  This would be the opportunity.  I-45 could also ride the west shore/levee and merge with I-35E to the west.  Then there is your downtown bypass.  You could even toll the link from I-45 to I-35E if you want. 

[Darkchylde]

Secondly, who takes the freeway to go grocery shopping?  A very small percentage of shoppers, I'd say.

I do. The closest grocery store to me is about three miles away via the Interstate. The next closest one's five miles on normal highways.

[kphoger]

Secondly, who takes the freeway to go grocery shopping?  A very small percentage of shoppers, I'd say.

I do. The closest grocery store to me is about three miles away via the Interstate. The next closest one's five miles on normal highways.

Well, yes, obviously some people do.  But I'd say very few do.  And I'd also say that those who do are on the freeway for only a short while (such as yourself) and wouldn't be terribly inconvenienced by the addition of a few stoplights along their route.

[signalman]

I too use a short section of interstate when I go grocery shopping.  It doesn't matter much on the way to the store, but on the way home, using 1 mile of interstate to avoid 10 traffic lights around a shopping mall is a life saver.  Especially in the summer with frozen foods melting away.  But even in winter, when frozen food melting isn't an issue, I use the interstate.  Both of my vehicles are manual transmissions, so avoiding the stop and go of signals is always nice.  I always opt for less clutch work.  Especially through intersections and signals I've seen thousands of times.

[lamsalfl]

The Quarter didn't flood, but parts of downtown did get about a foot of water....especially on Canal St. and the area around North Claiborne.

I will go on record and also say there's no justification for taking down I-10 in the North Claiborne median.

Only 17% of the traffic on the I-10 from Calliope to St. Bernard Ave. is N.O. East and Slidell traffic.  I don't see what the big deal is about a few extra minutes by descending to the ground level at St. Bernard Ave.  It's not the city's problem that some folks who live all the way across the lake will have a slightly longer commute time.  If they want to live over there, then work over there.  Otherwise they'll have to deal with it.  The city shouldn't have to have a blighted corridor just to benefit people who don't even live there.  It's not like we're talking about a thru-route.  This isn't like proposing we tear down the I-75/85 in downtown Atlanta.  The good news is there is significant support for a tear down on both the citizens and government level.  

I think in 5-10 years we'll have a beautifully restored Claiborne Ave. with 6 lanes with live oak trees on the neutral ground.

[bugo]

Time is time.  5 minutes you don't have to sit in traffic is 5 minutes you can have for your family, friends, hobbies, etc.  The viaduct adds usable minutes to thousands of lives.

[J N Winkler]

Secondly, who takes the freeway to go grocery shopping?  A very small percentage of shoppers, I'd say.

I do. The closest grocery store to me is about three miles away via the Interstate. The next closest one's five miles on normal highways.

I would venture to say that this situation indicates one of two things:  (1) living in an extremely rural area, or (2) planning failure.  In Wichita, for example, the norm is to have at least one full-service supermarket per square-mile area that has been subdivided primarily for residential housing.  Most people living in the adjoining subdivisions don't actually go to their nearest supermarket on foot and provision for parking is typically generous, but as a rule it is reasonably accessible by foot and even more so by bicycle.  My neighborhood supermarket is only fifteen minutes' walk away and although we typically do major shops by car, I have often walked there to pick up odd items while getting my daily exercise in.

In my experience, foot access to supermarkets is not really what separates us from allegedly more walkable western Europe.  Rather, it is access (either by foot or by some form of reasonably frequent public transport) to more diversified retail--i.e., the kinds of shops which sell general merchandise such as clothing, household goods, electrical appliances, etc. and which in Europe tend to be clustered in city centers, and in the US in big-box complexes and enclosed shopping malls which are designed for easy access from the freeway.

Years ago I backpacked in several continental European countries and found myself in Vienna when I had to replace a pair of flipflops.  I went out and bought a new pair, of reasonable quality at a reasonable price, from a shopping mall in the Favoriten Bezirk which was only ten minutes' walk from where I was staying at the time.  I couldn't do the same in Wichita--it is a ten-minute drive from where I live to the nearest shop where I could look for flipflops.  My hair was also getting long and starting to hang into my eyes, so I went looking for a barbershop where I could get myself a proper Bürstenfrisur.  I found one fifteen minutes' walk away; in Wichita this would have been five minutes' drive at the very minimum.

[lamsalfl]

Time is time.  5 minutes you don't have to sit in traffic is 5 minutes you can have for your family, friends, hobbies, etc.  The viaduct adds usable minutes to thousands of lives.

That's not New Orleans' problem.  Even more "thousands of lives" in the city have to deal with the blight that this ugly substandard elevated hunk of concrete creates.  Besides that's completely retarded to think saving 5 minutes of time >>> a ridiculously blighted, dark (little sunlight), loud, dungeon-like area.  We're taking our city back because this is a worthless highway.  If you want to do it your way then let's build an elevated highway down Canal Street to the river.  It'll save us 5 minutes to get to the foot of Canal St, right?  RIGHT?!

This is NOT a thru-route!  Level the ****er. But you know what, at the end of the day, the road will probably come down and Northshore people will have to accept it.  Why?  Because majority rules!

[agentsteel53]

Because majority rules!

here, let's have you and two wolves decide what's for lunch.

[NE2]

Actually the majority argument is used by proponents of fucking up cities so large numbers of suburbanites can get to other places faster.

[Revive 755]

This is NOT a thru-route!

I'm sure someone going from I-10 east of New Orleans across the Crescent City Connection would disagree with you.

But you know what, at the end of the day, the road will probably come down and Northshore people will have to accept it.  Why?  Because majority rules!

[sarcasm]I'm sure the majority of people in the New Orleans metro are going to get a fair vote on the issue.[/sarcasm] I'm seeing a metro population of 1.2 million, while the city has 344,000 (and I-10 gets an ADT varying from 80,000 to 109,000).

[Bickendan]

If you want to restore Claibourne that badly, just Big Dig I-10 and pray that you don't get another Katrina.

[TXtoNJ]

This is NOT a thru-route!

I'm sure someone going from I-10 east of New Orleans across the Crescent City Connection would disagree with you.

That person also has an alternative that would only add a few minutes to travel time. If North Shore to Westbank travel is so critical, why not focus on something like trying to extend I-510 across the river rather than cling to an expressway that adds far less to the city than it detracts from it?

[Brandon]

This is NOT a thru-route!

I'm sure someone going from I-10 east of New Orleans across the Crescent City Connection would disagree with you.

That person also has an alternative that would only add a few minutes to travel time. If North Shore to Westbank travel is so critical, why not focus on something like trying to extend I-510 across the river rather than cling to an expressway that adds far less to the city than it detracts from it?

He said from NO East to the Westbank, say Algiers.  The current Claibourne Expressway is better for that than say some asinine surface boulevard.  Otherwise, go ahead and plow a bypass through the Lower Ninth before tearing down the Claibourne.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Or take I-610 west to I-10 east (Pontchartrain Expwy) which would lead into the Crescent City Connection.

And one more thing...
New Orleans has had a love/hate relationship with its freeways since they've been built.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/neworleans.cfm

[Interstate Trav]

I hope they don't treardown more freeways

[vdeane]

Seriously, who wants to stop at lights every 2ft on surface boulevards?

[Alex]

Seriously, who wants to stop at lights every 2ft on surface boulevards?

Its just a few extra minutes to your drive, come on! 

[Perfxion]

Its a few minutes non rush hour, but during rush hour with a couple blocking the box and the whole thing derails for 30 to an hour. Adding an hour for 10 stop lights doesn't help traffic move. Besides not everyone is going from suburbs to downtown. Some are going through downtown to work on the other side. Why replace freeways with non freeways. And btw, if you don't build a mass transportation at the same time, you just add grid lock the system.

Sometimes these people need to fully play Sim City and not just pause and think the problem stops.

[Alps]

Seriously, who wants to stop at lights every 2ft on surface boulevards?

Its just a few extra minutes to your drive, come on! 

I've had enough of your trolling this forum

[Brandon]

Seriously, who wants to stop at lights every 2ft on surface boulevards?

Its just a few extra minutes to your drive, come on! 

I've had enough of your trolling this forum

LOL!           

[froggie]

If you want to restore Claibourne that badly, just Big Dig I-10 and pray that you don't get another Katrina.

He said from NO East to the Westbank, say Algiers.  The current Claibourne Expressway is better for that than say some asinine surface boulevard.  Otherwise, go ahead and plow a bypass through the Lower Ninth before tearing down the Claibourne.

I have cited several times on this forum what could be done to allow for Claibourne to be restored.  For simplicity, here it is again:

- Rebuild both I-10/610 junctions.
- Add a 3rd lane each way on the connection between I-10 West and the Crescent City Connector.

It's technically feasible and would still provide an all-freeway route to/from the bridge.

Secondly, surface boulevards are not all that bad.  Timing the signals to allow for steady progression of traffic neatly solves the problem of "stopping every 2ft on surface boulevards".