Is It Time To Take Highways Out Of Cities?
 

Is It Time To Take Highways Out Of Cities?


Nov 21, 2019

By Adam Millsap

Read More: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammil...-out-of-cities

Study: http://www.eh.net/eha/wp-content/upl.../Kitschens.pdf




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There are people who like to drive cars. We may not like driving cars but there are people who do like driving cars. We don’t handle this by taking away access to roads that get you across long distances. Cities should have all options available. So you can drive across town if you want, take the train across town if you want, walk and bike in your own neighborhood if you want.

Yes, it is.

No, it’s not

See: Singapore, which has the highways and high density coexisting peacefully

I hate to be a nerd but...

When I got to the second sentence of the second paragraph in the quote, I had to read it over and over again to try and figure out what the author was trying to say. The word "than" just comes out of nowhere and it's like you're suddenly transported to a different sentence. I wondered how on earth someone who writes for Forbes could write this poorly so I clicked on the link...

The em-dashes are missing from your quote. One got turned into a comma and the other is just gone. You should stick those dashes back in there. I know it's not easy to make en-dashes or em-dashes outside of word processing software, so maybe just put a space before and after a hyphen - like I do. (A double hyphen is another option I notice a lot of people use.)

Sorry. :redface:

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As for the topic at hand, I feel like the damage is already done in terms of ripping apart neighborhoods to make way for freeways. At this point, the transportation networks of most American cities are so dependent on those big freeways, that we're now stuck with them. Removing them would benefit the economies of certain neighborhoods but damage the economy of the greater region - and the latter would far outweigh the former.

Denver is currently putting a chunk of I-70 underground - a section that is currently all viaduct with a street that runs underneath it (it always reminds me of that Blues Brothers chase scene). It's hideous, imposing and divides the neighborhood in two. A section of the new highway will be capped with a park that IMO will help stitch the neighborhood back together. I suppose putting them (at least partially) underground could be considered a "solution," but man is it expensive.

This cheesy video does a good job of explaining CDOT's whole decision making process for why/how to do an expansion:

• Video Link

Flyover animation of the finished product:

• Video Link

nm

As a point of bragging, Houston is burying large parts of its downtown loop with a park above it, while other parts of the downtown loop will be transformed from a highway to regular avenues.

if a big area of portland wasnt on a grid and they didnt start putting light rail in almost 35 years ago freeways would have been put in and messed up the neighborhoods.

i guess we learned that wont really do much after the city keeps growing. the only way for a city to work good is have half the city drive and the other half ride trains and buses.

This is highly controversial and related to one's personal ideals, views and ideology.
As for myself, it doesn't bother me to use Paris's mass transit system because I was born in there. It's simply natural when you've always been used to it.

However, people who live in real remote suburbs or in rural areas don't have any subway or RER trains at all in their neighborhoods and have been complaining about the fact that cities are turning less and less accessible to them, because they don't have anything but cars to commute.
That is a serious issue. That's why we need to find some balanced solution, so cities remain open to cars somehow. Besides, having some (not too many, though) cars in the streetscape is actually cool. Especially when it's good looking vehicles. I like pretty cars. They are cool products of industry. There's nothing wrong about them when you're free from any political bias.

Sure, the socialists would literally ban cars from cities, but it's a rude and downright tyrannical attitude. No one is entitled to enforce their own lifestyle upon other people. It's just stupidly rude.
So the most convenient would be good manners. People in dense areas should use their mass transit system. Others have nothing but cars.

Highways should take you from city to city, not from one side of town to the other. The problem isn’t the main Interstates with two-digit designations ending in 0 or 5, but with the ones that cut right through town.

Chicago’s I-94, for instance, should reduce and turn into a surface road somewhere between O’Hare and Irving Park. On the South Side it should do so at maybe Bronzeville. And no one should be driving from Wisconsin to Indiana on I-94... that’s what I-294 is for.

Houston isn’t a “traditional” city (I’ve tried to be civil), so I don’t think it’s what this thread is about.

Removing highways from cities is extremely pro-capitalism.

I had an idea.

Instead of building tolled express lanes inside of freeways, do the opposite and make exits tolled. That way intercity traffic is not disrupted, but sprawl inducing local traffic is inhibited. Exits would be free at certain points in middle ring suburbs and again in rural areas,

Well I didn’t say anything about Houston.

Highways are roads without stoplights. That is why they were invented and that is why you need them to get across cities.

But you don’t really need them to get across urban cities.

Interstates city to city-ok(obviously)
Interstates leading to a downtown from outside-ok in most circumstances
Extra interstates(loops around downtown etc.)-not needed

Yes you do.

And not everyone wants to live in an urban city and that’s ok.

i think dont have the freeway circle the downtown. just have the freeway circle the metro area. then have one freeway go close to downtown or through it (if there is commuter rail and many train lines that would work)

What about those who do?

The problem for many metropolises - and even for many cities in the core of those metropolises - is that they were largely planned and built around freeways and the automobile. They're stuck with those freeways now because it's the heart and soul of their transportation systems and they don't have the density to support alternative transit options. Removing their freeways would cause parts of town that were once minutes away to become hours away and it would be economically stifling.

So I guess it depends on the city. Some could possibly do without; some could do with less; and I know it's blasphemous but some would actually be better off with more.

Politics also plays a role. It's more feasible to change zoning, increase density, and add or remove transportation options in some cities than others. There are vast, automobile-dependent parts of my town that will never change. If their local government(s) even tried, it would be "off with their heads!"