Downtown Freeway Loops

[Yuri]

One of the most peculiar characteristic of American big cities is the freeway loops that cut completely cut their Downtowns from the rest of the cities. The negative impacts are very well documented and they're one of the main responsible for the urban decline between the 1950's and 1990's.

As recently there are many projects about removals (Rochester, Detroit, Houston), I thought we could discuss those projects or potential ones.

I was map googling Dallas and to me the northern section of their loop seems completely useless: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7852...8057323,14.58z . They've buried part of it, but if they completely get rid of it, it doesn't look like it would have a major impact.

What are your thoughts?

[iheartthed]

Actually, Detroit's proposed removal will only eliminate one side of the downtown encircling. The others are remaining and are mostly just as bad.

[dave8721]

Tampa is pretty ridiculous. Did they really need 2 E-W freeways a couple of blocks apart?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ta...!4d-82.4571776

[Steely Dan]

I could conceivably see Chicago getting rid of the Ohio street feeder ramp (and most importantly it's stupidly large interchange with the Kennedy) and the Stevenson extension over to LSD, but I don't think the Kennedy/dan ryan will ever be going anywhere. Together they carry the co-routed I-90 & I-94 interstates, the two MAJOR east-west interstate trunk routes for the northern tier of the nation.

The best possible outcome for it would be to deck over the Kennedy trench for the mile or so it passes through the west loop.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I could conceivably see Chicago getting rid of the Ohio street feeder ramp (and most importantly it's stupidly large interchange with the Kennedy) and the Stevenson extension over to LSD, but I don't think the Kennedy/dan ryan will ever be going anywhere. Together they carry the co-routed I-90 & I-94 interstates, the two MAJOR east-west interstate trunk routes for the northern tier of the nation.

The best possible outcome for it would be to deck over the Kennedy trench for the mile or so it passes through the west loop.

I googled and is it the small section linking the street to I-90? Yeah, that's bad. Just 1 km of a massive freeway. It should go away.

BTW, the famous Cabrini Green is very close to it. I've always imagined it was somewhere far away on northwest. I thought this whole area north of the Loop was very wealthy.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I googled and is it the small section linking the street to I-90? Yeah, that's bad. Just 1 km of a massive freeway. It should go away.

yeah, that's the one. it's just a little expressway stub that carries traffic from the kennedy over the river and into river north where it dumps out onto city streets.

downtown chicago never got a full-encircling expressway loop.

the ohio feeder ramp is not so bad by itself, but the interchange it makes with the kennedy is a land monster: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8841.../data=!3m1!1e3

stupid fucking mid-20th century traffic engineers.

it needs to go away.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Tampa is pretty ridiculous. Did they really need 2 E-W freeways a couple of blocks apart?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ta...!4d-82.4571776

Tampa seems really bad. When I was working on my Downtown's thread, I read about every city on Wikipedia and Tampa's Channel District is doing very well. I imagine it would be great to remove this barrier between it and Downtown.

And this massive freeway link the two parallel ones is completely nonsensical.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Actually, Detroit's proposed removal will only eliminate one side of the downtown encircling. The others are remaining and are mostly just as bad.

About Detroit's, it's the northern or the eastern section they will be removing? It's the eastern, right?

The northern would make sense as well. It pretty much ends in the eastern one.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I hope someday Cincinnati will cap Fort Washington Way.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

I hope someday Cincinnati will cap Fort Washington Way.

I'm googling everything! It seems this is a very important link, to the bridges and to other highways.

On the other hand, there's this massive road just south of it, by the river. It seems to me completely useless. It should be removed and turned into a green area by the river. Cincinnati could make one of the greatest and most interesting urban parks in the US instead of it.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Yuri

One of the most peculiar characteristic of American big cities is the freeway loops that cut completely cut their Downtowns from the rest of the cities. The negative impacts are very well documented and they're one of the main responsible for the urban decline between the 1950's and 1990's.

As recently there are many projects about removals (Rochester, Detroit, Houston), I thought we could discuss those projects or potential ones.

I was map googling Dallas and to me the northern section of their loop seems completely useless: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7852...8057323,14.58z . They've buried part of it, but if they completely get rid of it, it doesn't look like it would have a major impact.

What are your thoughts?

The Woodall Rogers is actually pretty busy. Traffic around downtown during rush hour already is a nightmare so I think without it, it would be even worse. Plus, it's the best way to get to areas just north of it; McKinney Ave./ Victory Park areas.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by JManc

The Woodall Rogers is actually pretty busy. Traffic around downtown during rush hour already is a nightmare so I think without it, it would be even worse. Plus, it's the best way to get to areas just north of it; McKinney Ave./ Victory Park areas.

But it's like what? 3 km long? On the other side of the river, it ends in a regular avenue. It pretty much links one freeway to another that will be linked again just few kilometers through the southern section. Without it, the CBD and this highrise area just north of it would be fully connected and it would be quite urban despite the wide streets.

On the other hand, you can judge me, but this point on Commerce Street below the freeway, between CBD and Deep Ellum is quite cool: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7826...7i16384!8i8192 . A bit urban rough in a Los Angeles sort of way. It doesn't even have some São Paulo vibe going as well.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Yuri

But it's like what? 3 km long? On the other side of the river, it ends in a regular avenue. It pretty much links one freeway to another that will be linked again just few kilometers through the southern section. Without it, the CBD and this highrise area just north of it would be fully connected and it would be quite urban despite the wide streets.

On the other hand, you can judge me, but this point on Commerce Street below the freeway, between CBD and Deep Ellum is quite cool: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7826...7i16384!8i8192 . A bit urban rough in a Los Angeles sort of way. It doesn't even have some São Paulo vibe going as well.

You are kind of missing the point of this segment of freeway. It is an alternative link to the two major north south freeways passing through central Dallas. The southern link you mention is swamped with traffic and makes for a clumsy connection for traffic headed to or from the north. The connection to the new bridge to West Dallas was, while not exactly an afterthought, not the main reason this segment was built. The connection to West Dallas is sort of a work in progress. There are a lot of powerful business interests in Dallas that are hoping to see that under-developed area take off with new large scale projects. My only real objection to Woodall Rogers is that the whole thing should have been built below grade, and more of it should have been capped.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by austlar1

You are kind of missing the point of this segment of freeway. It is an alternative link to the two major north south freeways passing through central Dallas. The southern link you mention is swamped with traffic and makes for a clumsy connection for traffic headed to or from the north. The connection to the new bridge to West Dallas was, while not exactly an afterthought, not the main reason this segment was built. The connection to West Dallas is sort of a work in progress. There are a lot of powerful business interests in Dallas that are hoping to see that under-developed area take off with new large scale projects. My only real objection to Woodall Rogers is that the whole thing should have been built below grade, and more of it should have been capped.

To me it's still a bit confusing. For instance, one person is heading south in the 35E and use this Woodall Rogers section to go once again to north? If the origin/destin is Central Dallas, it's also confusing as one could drive a coulple blocks to access either the 35E or the 345 directly.

And as Dallas it's the subject, there's this massive amount of land around the river, something uncommon in the US. I imagine it's due seasonal floods. However, couldn't they make a better landscape and turn it into a full park for most of the year? At least from pics, it seems underutilized.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Yuri

To me it's still a bit confusing. For instance, one person is heading south in the 35E and use this Woodall Rogers section to go once again to north? If the origin/destin is Central Dallas, it's also confusing as one could drive a coulple blocks to access either the 35E or the 345 directly.

And as Dallas it's the subject, there's this massive amount of land around the river, something uncommon in the US. I imagine it's due seasonal floods. However, couldn't they make a better landscape and turn it into a full park for most of the year? At least from pics, it seems underutilized.

30 is a parking lot as it is with commuters also using the Roger Woodall. Both will dump you onto 75/ 35E and into the suburbs.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Yuri

To me it's still a bit confusing. For instance, one person is heading south in the 35E and use this Woodall Rogers section to go once again to north? If the origin/destin is Central Dallas, it's also confusing as one could drive a coulple blocks to access either the 35E or the 345 directly.

And as Dallas it's the subject, there's this massive amount of land around the river, something uncommon in the US. I imagine it's due seasonal floods. However, couldn't they make a better landscape and turn it into a full park for most of the year? At least from pics, it seems underutilized.

Yes, Stemmons Fwy (35 north) serves another huge and busy part of North and Northwest Dallas (also towards DFW airport), and it is hard to access North Central Expressway (US 75) directly on surface streets coming from the Stemmons Freeway corridor. The only direct connect is busy Northwest Highway or way up on the LBJ Freeway. It's important to point out that Woodall Rogers also funnels traffic to and from IH30 (the main freeway from Fort Worth and mid-cities) over to North Central Expressway. I don't think you understand the importance of IH35, IH30, and US 75 to the overall traffic flow in central Dallas area.

The "river" you mentioned is actually a flood plain. The puny little Trinity River threads its way through here, but every now and then it can cause massive flooding, hence the large undeveloped area. Plans are underway to convert this river bottom into parkland with residential and other commercial development on the fringes, but, like all things that happen in Dallas, plans are often grandiose and the reality on the ground is painfully slow to follow.

[Pedestrian]

This battle is largely over in San Francisco, partly due to citizen activism that prevented the completion of large scale freeway development in the 1950s and 1960s, and partly due to Mother Nature that damaged what was built to the degree that repair was either very costly or near impossible.

Freeways that were mostly never built:


https://www.google.com/search?rls=en...ftcnd0LAKVkzOM

Freeways that are gone:

- The Embarcadero Freeway can be seen in its entirety here, peeling off from the Bay Bridge ramp (I-80) and heading north along the waterfront


https://opensfhistory.org/news/2021/...a-closer-look/

Its replacement is a surface roadway/streetcar line:


https://www.shutterstock.com/search/embarcadero

- The Central Freeway

All but the northward terminus seen here:


https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/ne...oto/1321921841

Also replaced by a surface boulevard:


https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&r...sybhk0uio_C75M

The current battle is over removal of the terminus of I-280:


https://www.cnu.org/highways-bouleva...-francisco-280

And replacement by something like:


https://www.cnu.org/highways-bouleva...-francisco-280

[Innsertnamehere]

Canadian Cities generally faired much better for true urban expressways, with Toronto being the only one with a big, downtown expressway that isn't buried. And even then, it's only one which was built through lakefront industrial areas at the time and only removed a relatively small amount of residential areas in it's construction.

Montreal does also have a downtown freeway, but it's buried through the core so it doesn't really feel like it does.

Some Cities had big plans for freeway loops though..

not a single one of these was built in Edmonton:



Toronto, like many cities also had a larger planned network (only the solid lines got built):

[jigglysquishy]

Tampa has some of the best natural geography in the States, but it feels squandered with the excessive freeways and lack of mid-density.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

Tampa has some of the best natural geography in the States, but it feels squandered with the excessive freeways and lack of mid-density.

What's so great about Tampa's geography?