Downtown Freeway Loops

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

I have no problem with cities having freeways if those freeways are meant for long distance travel, from one city to another city. An urban area like Vancouver is kind of isolated, I wouldn't expect it to have more freeways than Seattle no matter how auto-oriented it is. Likewise, not many other big US urban areas close to Seattle either.

I think in cases where the freeways are intended for intercity travel the highways would either terminate well outside of the central city and turn into local arterials like in Halifax or would skirt the central city without direct highway connections to downtown (like if the 401 wasn't connected to downtown by the DVP and Gardiner). Otherwise they're co-opted and clogged by downtown commuters. In the latter case they'd still often clogged by crosstown commuters but to a lesser extent. Being "meant" for something doesn't really accomplish anything if it's designed such that it facilities and encourages something else. Plus, if they're cutting through urban fabric they can still have the same downsides regardless of where the traffic is headed.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Doady

I have no problem with cities having freeways if those freeways are meant for long distance travel, from one city to another city. An urban area like Vancouver is kind of isolated, I wouldn't expect it to have more freeways than Seattle no matter how auto-oriented it is. Likewise, not many other big US urban areas close to Seattle either.

The problem about the US is not the freeways meant for long distance travel, but the way how those freeways went through their Downtowns razing communities and destroying the urban fabric.

In general, European freeways are usually graded better than the US, specially as they're newer and in most cases they avoided the level of destruction seen in the US. Ditto for East Asia and Latin America.

[Doady]

I'm just saying, don't give cities credit for something that's not really under their control. Relative lack of freeways in Vancouver especially in the core is great, but not really different from the rest of Canada, is it? See also Edmonton, Winnipeg, London, Victoria, etc. Canada is just different situation than USA.

But even in USA, you can see examples like Seattle being isolated from other US urban areas and San Francisco being located on a peninsula, and they have fewer freeways? It shouldn't be surprising.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Crawford

But I think it's inaccurate to claim that freeways, by themselves, destroyed urban America. They were harmful, to be sure. But if urban freeways were never built, urban America would have still declined.

The East Side of Detroit has one freeway, the West Side has many. But the West Side is generally much more intact. Freeways were bad, but there are many other factors.

I completely agree.

Freeways did indeed due horrid things to US inner cities but it is much more than that.

Many US cities began population decline well before the full inner freeway system was built. From poor planning, to ripping out streetcar lines, to not properly funding and maintaining the core city's infrastructure, to allowing urban schools to fall into disrepair, to not expanding city limits to include newer suburbs resulting in a plunge in revenue............... the reasons are multitude.

Much of this was due to racial issues as white flight took hold but it is too easy to just blame it on freeway construction.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Doady

I'm just saying, don't give cities credit for something that's not really under their control. Relative lack of freeways in Vancouver especially in the core is great, but not really different from the rest of Canada, is it? See also Edmonton, Winnipeg, London, Victoria, etc. Canada is just different situation than USA.

But even in USA, you can see examples like Seattle being isolated from other US urban areas and San Francisco being located on a peninsula, and they have fewer freeways? It shouldn't be surprising.

Freeway revolts were way much more important than geographic features. Cities where demonstrations were bigger and more organized, ended up with fewer freeways with lots of cancellation.

There's nothing inevitable about the destruction of vast swaths of American cities to give way to freeways. It was a choice they made.

[mhays]

Seattle isn't isolated. It's between Portland and Vancouver. It's also a linear region locally and regionally. with geographical and topographical limitations, so there's limited ability to spread much local or through traffic to smaller roads or ring roads. That's why we needed the SR99 bypass tunnel through Downtown, and it's why we'll always have I-5.

I do hope that someday I-5 will get a bypass tunnel so the core part can be downsized. And I hope that we build a second heavy rail corridor so some truck and passenger traffic can switch to that. The region's new commuter capacity is mostly transit of course.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

LOL claiming Chicago is "freeway-light" is beyond laughable. Maybe in an alternate universe. They have multiple giant highways that crisscross the city, nearly their entire waterfront is highway. There is certainly no absence. That guy is on drugs.

i think he took a misstep by labeling the video "freeway-lite cities", as there really is no such thing in the US. and as you pointed out, chicago is definitely not "light" on expressways.

what he was trying to tease out is which cities have fewer miles of freeway, relatively speaking, on a not clearly explained combined basis of per capita and in terms of total land area of the city proper.


the city of chicago has 74 total miles of freeways (or expressways as we call them locally), so that means:

2.7 miles of freeway per 100K people.

0.32 miles of freeway per sq. mile of land area.



to use your home city of detroit as a counter-example, the city of detroit has 67 total miles of freeways, so that means:

10.5 miles of freeway per 100K people.

0.48 miles of freeway per sq. mile of land area.



so on a relative basis, chicago is a bit "lighter" on freeways than detroit, but the differences are in the margins.

it is not at all supposed to be indicative of chicago "not having freeways".

[plinko]

^interesting. I’ll bet in a cross section of US cities there would be some surprises in the list…

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i think he took a misstep by labeling the video "freeway-lite cities", as there really is no such thing in the US. and as you pointed out, chicago is definitely not "light" on expressways.

what he was trying to tease out is which cities have fewer miles of freeway on a not clearly explained basis of per capita and in terms of total land area of city proper, on a relative basis.


the city of chicago has 74 total miles of freeways (or expressways as we call them locally), so that means:

2.7 miles of freeway per 100K people.

0.32 miles of freeway per sq. mile of land area.



to use your home city of detroit as a counter-example, the city of detroit has 67 total miles of freeways, so that means:

10.5 miles of freeway per 100K people.

0.48 miles of freeway per sq. mile of land area.



so on a relative basis, chicago is a bit "lighter" on freeways than detroit, but the differences are in the margins.

it is not all supposed to be indicative of chicago "not having many freeways".

This list is by "urbanized areas" and has Chicago with the 2nd least freeway lane miles per population. Las Vegas is the least, Miami the 3rd least. Kansas City, Ft.Worth and Dallas have the most freeway lane miles.
http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-tti99ratio.htm

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by dave8721

This list is by "urbanized areas" and has Chicago with the 2nd least freeway lane miles per population. Las Vegas is the least, Miami the 3rd least. Kansas City, Ft.Worth and Dallas have the most freeway lane miles.
http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-tti99ratio.htm

Since 1999, Las Vegas has built quite a few freeways. Wouldn't be surprised that Chicago is now lower than Las Vegas.

[plinko]

^Phoenix as well. The southern and southeastern Loop 202, Loop 303, those combined are easily 50 miles…though the area has basically added the population of greater Kansas City during that time…

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Yuri

The problem about the US is not the freeways meant for long distance travel, but the way how those freeways went through their Downtowns razing communities and destroying the urban fabric.

In general, European freeways are usually graded better than the US, specially as they're newer and in most cases they avoided the level of destruction seen in the US. Ditto for East Asia and Latin America.

actually no. because unlike eurolandia most usa freeways are free to drive, if obviously if not to build and maintain. so they also wrecked interstate public transit travel. that's why we can't have nice bullet trains.

the unsung positive effect is of course that along with the major improvement in defense the highway system helped tie a very large and somewhat otherwise disparate country closer together. debatable if that happened for europe.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dave8721

This list is by "urbanized areas" and has Chicago with the 2nd least freeway lane miles per population. Las Vegas is the least, Miami the 3rd least. Kansas City, Ft.Worth and Dallas have the most freeway lane miles.
http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-tti99ratio.htm

it would be cool to see an updated list of freeway lane miles per capita by urban area. 1999 data is getting awfully long in the tooth now that we're well into the 3rd decade of the 21st century.


that said, one of the reasons that i think chicago often shows up towards the bottom of such lists is that, for such an absolute beast of a city, most of the expressways into the city aren't monsters.


lane configuration of city of chicago expressways:

- the edens expressway from the north: 3-3

- the kennedy expressway from the northwest: 3-3, changes to a 4-2-4 after the edens merge

- the eisenhower expressway from the west: 4-4, constricting down to 3-3 at places (planning to be fixed to a continuous 3-1-1-3)

- the stevenson expressway from the southwest: 3-3

- I-57 from the south southwest: 3-3

- the bishop ford expressway from the south: 3-3

- the skyway from the southeast: 3-3

- the dan ryan expressway from the south (after the merges of I-57, the bishop ford, and the skyway): 3-4-4-3

- the north and south lakefront expressway sections of LSD: mostly 4-4



the dan ryan turns into a true land monster of an urban expressway after its merges, but most of the others are somewhat modest in scale for a 2.75M person US city anchoring a 9M person metro area.

[homebucket]

For SF, we have:

101: 4-4, which turns into a 3-3 after the 80-101 interchange, and then into a 2-2 where it descends onto Octavia (https://goo.gl/maps/ozgVTEu1MJww9JMW6).

280: 4-4 which turns into a 3-3 double decker after the 101-280 interchange, before turning back to side by side 3-3, and then splitting off into a pair of 2-2s to descend onto King (https://goo.gl/maps/GTG3FkRqNi6c8GHs7) and 6th (https://goo.gl/maps/fhJwvFGmTHZrjoBEA).

80: Waffles between 3-3 and 4-4 before turning into a 5-5 double decker, aka the Bay Bridge (https://goo.gl/maps/VRvMm3Zeq3VXxppG9).

[homebucket]

Ah I forgot to add the portion of 101 that connects to the Golden Gate.

That part waffles between 3-3 and 3-4 if you include some of the entry and exit lanes.

https://goo.gl/maps/4w7b5pcMASKBoeNW6

It's certainly hard to beat these freeway views:
https://goo.gl/maps/m3356QbBYdeHFtT26
https://goo.gl/maps/3Qs3dA48Zv8WCgAm6

[JManc]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Ah I forgot to add the portion of 101 that connects to the Golden Gate.

That part waffles between 3-3 and 3-4 if you include some of the entry and exit lanes.

https://goo.gl/maps/4w7b5pcMASKBoeNW6

It's certainly hard to beat these freeway views:
https://goo.gl/maps/m3356QbBYdeHFtT26
https://goo.gl/maps/3Qs3dA48Zv8WCgAm6

Well, with the Bay Bridge, the traffic is so damn awful on it, you can get out of the car and set up a tripod and take some great photos. lol

I refuse to ever drive into SF that way again.

[Yuri]

Archdaily:

Highway Removals: Restoring the Urban Fabric and Unlocking New Development Opportunities

The article highlights possible removals in the US (I-81 at Syracuse), the covering of Dallas, Brooklyn Queens freeway, Rochester's removal and the very good examples abroad (Seoul, Madrid, Paris).

There are nice pics illustrating it as well.

[Innsertnamehere]

Chicago as a whole may not have a ton of freeway miles, but it consistently amazes me at the sheer number of freeway lanes which provide access to the downtown.

It's lack of a real "bypass" highway forces most traffic through downtown, but it's employment distribution is also heavily focused on downtown as well.

The city has a whopping 29 lanes of peak-hour inbound/outbound freeway lanes into the core, including the reversible lanes on the Kennedy.

Compared to:

- NYC - ~24 lanes
- Toronto - 6 lanes
- Los Angeles - 25 lanes
- Boston - 16 lanes
- Washington - 21 lanes
- Detroit - 12 lanes


Texas is the only place that really beats Chicago in terms of downtown freeway lanes.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Chicago as a whole may not have a ton of freeway miles, but it consistently amazes me at the sheer number of freeway lanes which provide access to the downtown.

It's lack of a real "bypass" highway forces most traffic through downtown, but it's employment distribution is also heavily focused on downtown as well.

The city has a whopping 29 lanes of peak-hour inbound/outbound freeway lanes into the core, including the reversible lanes on the Kennedy.

Compared to:

- NYC - ~24 lanes
- Toronto - 6 lanes
- Los Angeles - 25 lanes
- Boston - 16 lanes
- Washington - 21 lanes
- Detroit - 12 lanes


Texas is the only place that really beats Chicago in terms of downtown freeway lanes.

That's incredible. The amount of prime downtown real estate used to provide parking facilities must be enormous.

[Crawford]

How can Toronto only have six lanes? Gardiner eastbound and westbound access, and Don Valley. Toronto has few highway miles, but not that few.

Also, how do you figure the NYC and Washington numbers? What freeways? For DC there's just I-695. For NYC core there's nothing unless you're counting the FDR, which isn't a freeway, but is grade separated, like Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.