HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Global Projects & Construction > General Development


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #41  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2021, 1:51 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Quote:
Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist View Post
There are plans to cap over the trench that Connecticut Avenue sits in north of Dupont Circle. A park would be built above this section of Connecticut Avenue. This is one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Washington.

Dupont will get a new park over Connecticut Avenue


Greater Greater Washington
June 3, 2014

"Besides simply adding park space, which is always valuable, this would better connect the two sides of Connecticut Avenue, and add plenty of room to enjoy food from the eateries nearby. Further, since this would not be National Park Service land, it would be possible to program this space with events much more flexibly than NPS regulations allow for the circle itself.

Behind the buildings on the west side of Dupont Circle is a fairly large surface parking lot, which is a rarity in the neighborhood and not the best use of space when it could have needed housing. However, one argument against developing this space (besides it being up to the property owner) is that the farmers’ market uses that parking lot and adjacent 20th Street. This park could possibly become the new site of the farmers’ market."

https://ggwash.org/view/34930/dupont...ecticut-avenue

Here is some more information about this proposal: https://ctavestreetscapeplaza.com/ .
GGWash is my go to source for DMV urbanist issues! There is a similar proposal for North Capitol in Bloomingdale.

https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/bl...romenade/16393



__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."

Last edited by TouchTheSky13; Apr 8, 2021 at 8:54 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #42  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2021, 2:06 PM
Busy Bee's Avatar
Busy Bee Busy Bee is offline
Show me the blueprints
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: on the artistic spectrum
Posts: 10,260
Quote:
Originally Posted by TouchTheSky13 View Post
Of course you can ...it makes you wonder what civil engineers were smoking in the latter half of the 20th century...
Transverse and evacuate urban cores via the auto at the highest rate of speed possible. It wasn't so much a drug but a misguided priority and depending on where you are in the country, many of them are still smoking it.
__________________
Everything new is old again

There is no goodness in him, and his power to convince people otherwise is beyond understanding
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #43  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2021, 8:53 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee View Post
Transverse and evacuate urban cores via the auto at the highest rate of speed possible. It wasn't so much a drug but a misguided priority and depending on where you are in the country, many of them are still smoking it.
True. That, and straight up racism.
__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #44  
Old Posted Apr 8, 2021, 10:43 PM
Pedestrian's Avatar
Pedestrian Pedestrian is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 24,177
Quote:
Originally Posted by TouchTheSky13 View Post
I'm seeing a pattern here with SF. Tear down a freeway and make it a boulevard, and then redevelop former waterfront industrial sites into thriving mixed use neighborhoods.
You've just about got it. Pretty much all the industrial port activity moved across the Bay to Oakland a century ago because it added an extra day to transporting goods to and from ships docked in San Francisco up the peninsula vs Oakland which has a direct connection to railroads headed east. That left most of the former railroad rights of way as well as associated warehouse and industrial space ripe for redevelopment.

And also because San Francisco is at the tip of a peninsula, building freeways THROUGH the city (as opposed to TO it), was pretty pointless. The only one that ever really made sense--the north/south route up the peninsula and across the Golden Gate Bridge--was never built and has always been a surface boulevard for much of the way inside the city (called Park-Presidio Blvd).
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #45  
Old Posted Apr 9, 2021, 1:09 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
The Feds Might Nudge Cities Toward Highway Removals

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburne...hway-removals/

This article talks specifically about the push to use federal community justice grants under Biden's American Jobs Plan to remove I-345 in Dallas. It is on the list of the Congress for New Urbanism's "Freeways Without Futures" and would be an excellent candidate for removal and boulevard replacement.


Photo Credit: Congress for New Urbanism


Photo Credit: Congress for New Urbanism
__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #46  
Old Posted Apr 9, 2021, 6:50 PM
Pedestrian's Avatar
Pedestrian Pedestrian is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 24,177
Quote:
Originally Posted by TouchTheSky13 View Post
The Feds Might Nudge Cities Toward Highway Removals
Ever since the 1960s, the desirability of highways that run THROUGH cities seems to have been replaced by those that run AROUND cities. Around 1960, I can recall how wonderful it was to be able to drive from Washington DC to New York and go around Baltimore on its new "beltway" which was the first such I am aware of.

Right around that same time, though, Washington DC began building its own "beltway" and I recall driving my "go-cart" on the new paving before that project opened to traffic. Soon these beltways became all the rage and just about every city now has one. If you are driving long-distance you no longer need to (or want to) go through a downtown area so there's no reason to have limited access highways completely traversing a city. Highways entering the city should terminate there, consistent with the city's street grid and traffic patterns.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #47  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2021, 12:22 PM
202_Cyclist's Avatar
202_Cyclist 202_Cyclist is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 5,905
Neighborhoods united: Highway removal gains steam in U.S. cities

By Carey L. Biron
Reuters
Apr. 12, 2021

"WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Through the years that she has been fighting against it, Amy Stelly’s opponent has remained unmoved, looming nearby and covering her New Orleans home with filth: an elevated highway, towering above her once-thriving neighborhood.

Since its construction in the 1960s, the section of Interstate 10 running above Claiborne Avenue has decimated what used to be the center of the city’s Black community, said Stelly, including businesses and greenery.

Once a bustling retail corridor shaded by mature oak trees, the street satisfied all of the community’s needs, the designer and urban planner told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Doctors, dentists, groceries. It was the place to be.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN2BZ0VF
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #48  
Old Posted Apr 13, 2021, 1:38 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
It's good to see the Biden Administration expressing support for freeway removal with both words and dollars, but it is also good IMO to see them intervening to stop bad highway expansion projects like the I-45 expansion in Houston which would have had disparate impacts on poor people and people of color.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...hway-expansion
__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #49  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2021, 1:33 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Metro Board Unanimously Approves Motion to Delay 605/5 Freeway Widening and Instead Study Alternatives

https://la.streetsblog.org/2020/10/2...-alternatives/
__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #50  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 1:20 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Wanted to mix in some global examples.

Freeway removal in Madrid.

Before vs. After


Roadway Removal in Utrecht. Before and After (with a restored canal!)

__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #51  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 1:57 PM
Busy Bee's Avatar
Busy Bee Busy Bee is offline
Show me the blueprints
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: on the artistic spectrum
Posts: 10,260
To be honest, those incredibly well engineered (trenched, undercrossings, architectural features, ped accommodations etc) urban highways in those photos make the typical American elevated viaduct or slash and burn cut look all the worse.
__________________
Everything new is old again

There is no goodness in him, and his power to convince people otherwise is beyond understanding
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #52  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 3:05 PM
ardecila's Avatar
ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,352
What freeway removals in the US actually have community support (instead of just astroturfing by CNU?) This whole thing seems like a lot of urbanist hype but the only completed projects are those that were stubs to begin with.

Removal of Claiborne in New Orleans is favored by the neighborhoods along the route, but never saw support in the metro area overall. Even city residents in the rest of the city wanted to keep it.

SF (Embarcadero, Central), Rochester (Inner Loop) and Milwaukee (Park East) are done, but those were always half-finished projects that were basically useless. Recently St Louis has removed another useless freeway spur next to Union Station so they can build a soccer stadium. Really NY removing the West Side Highway is the only actually useful route that came down, but only in the context of multiple parallel subway lines and a city bankruptcy. Plus the structural collapse in 1973 forced the city's hand and showed New Yorkers they could get by just fine without it.

To be clear, I support freeway removals but I see no evidence that the majority of Americans feel the same way...
__________________
la forme d'une ville change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel...

Last edited by ardecila; Apr 15, 2021 at 3:18 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #53  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 3:37 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
What freeway removals in the US actually have community support (instead of just astroturfing by CNU?) This whole thing seems like a lot of urbanist hype but the only completed projects are those that were stubs to begin with.

To be clear, I support freeway removals but I see no evidence that the majority of Americans feel the same way...
I think that the tide is starting to change. There's no metrics really that anyone, even the most data-driven, community-oriented planners, can produce to show concretely that Americans support highway removal. Americans have a tendency to hate things until they happen. Whether its healthcare, public transit, renewable energy, etc., Americans resist change until the underlying economics of the status quo start to unravel and people feel the impact of change. There probably weren't very many people that were happy about the decisions to tear down the Embarcedero Expressway or the West Side highway at the time, but you'd be hard pressed to find a San Franciscan or New Yorker today who wants them back.

Furthermore, there are sharp racial divides here that cannot be ignored. For decades, the policies of urban renewal meant running white men's roads through black men's homes and neighborhoods. Not only were blacks redlined out of white suburban neighborhoods, they saw their soles sources of community wealth - entire business districts - leveled to make way for these roads. It may or may not prove causation, but there is a strong correlation between the rise in African American political power and black community activism and the popularity of freeway removal. Because African American communities have always seen these roads for what they are - barriers and tools of segregation.
__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #54  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 3:50 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
It’s a Crumbling Road to Despair. Can New York Fix the B.Q.E.?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/a...ction-nyc.html







__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #55  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2021, 6:29 PM
ardecila's Avatar
ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,352
Quote:
Originally Posted by TouchTheSky13 View Post
I think that the tide is starting to change. There's no metrics really that anyone, even the most data-driven, community-oriented planners, can produce to show concretely that Americans support highway removal.
What are you talking about? This is an eminently poll-able question.

Quote:
There probably weren't very many people that were happy about the decisions to tear down the Embarcedero Expressway or the West Side highway at the time, but you'd be hard pressed to find a San Franciscan or New Yorker today who wants them back.
The West Side Highway collapsed in 1973 and sat as a crumbling eyesore, closed to traffic, for almost 10 years because of NYC's bankruptcy. By the time it was finally torn down most New Yorkers had adjusted to life without it.

The Embarcadero Fwy was another useless stub, so it probably didn't have a lot of defenders once it was clear it could never be extended.
__________________
la forme d'une ville change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel...
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #56  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2021, 1:53 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Why Highway Teardowns Make Great Infrastructure (and Equity) Investments


https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/12/...y-investments/

__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #57  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2021, 1:58 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
The Big Picture: A Plan for Buffalo

https://www.buffalorising.com/2021/0...n-for-buffalo/







__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #58  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2021, 3:07 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Bridging the gap: Richmond 300 plan envisions reconnecting Jackson Ward

https://richmondbizsense.com/2020/07...on-ward/#djPop

__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #59  
Old Posted Apr 22, 2021, 4:24 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Even small cities like Peoria, IL are getting in on the action. The city is seeking funding to conduct a feasibility study for capping I-74 through downtown.



__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."

Last edited by TouchTheSky13; Dec 12, 2021 at 10:30 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #60  
Old Posted Apr 22, 2021, 6:42 PM
TouchTheSky13 TouchTheSky13 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posts: 263
Visionary plan to cap Chicago's Kennedy Expressway with a park might still happen

https://chicago.curbed.com/2020/1/14...park-west-loop



__________________
"They told me that I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability."
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Global Projects & Construction > General Development
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 10:33 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.