During the Beaver Cleaver era of American history, it was almost impossible to conceive of a bad road–after all, paving things over was synonymous with “improvement.” Sadly, planning mistakes made at highway speed back then will require a huge amount of effort and money to undo today. But as we discussed in an earlier article, doing so is often the best decision a city can make: razing an ill-conceived highway can have huge social, economic, and aesthetic pay offs for a city. And if it’s done right, it can actually improve traffic flow. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Due to efforts of organizations like the Congress for the New Urbanism–which has made and eloquent case for urban freeway removal (we’re echoing a few of their top candidates )–this idea is starting to go mainstream. A number of US cities are poised to follow the examples set by Portland, Milwaukee, and San Francisco and start knocking down poorly planned roads. Here are seven elevated highways doomed to meet the reaper at some point in the not-to-distant future, and views of how their respective cities might look like after they’re gone:

Cleveland: West Shoreway

Today, the West Shoreway freeway divides downtown and west Cleveland from Lake Erie and makes walking between the city center and, say, the Browns Stadium or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unpleasant at best. The city, working with the Ohio Department of Transportation, has been pushing for a transformation of its waterfront for years and the Shoreway remains the major obstacle. The current plan is to take down the old road without building a replacement. Instead the route will be modified into a pedestrian-scaled avenue, including new and renovated parks, a beach, new housing and offices.

One reason this is possible is that Cleveland’s population has been shrinking in recent decades and is now about half of what it was in 1950. The bright side of that is that the city has more flexibility and potential for redevelopment–as planners hope will the new lakefront boulevard will demonstrate.

Before:

After:

Seattle: Alaskan Way Viaduct

Local and state authorities have a plan in place to take down this two-level freeway, which sustained structural damage in a 2001 earthquake, and replace it with a new surface boulevard and a streetcar line. Doing so would reconnect Seattle’s downtown area to its natural waterfront on spectacular Puget Sound and remove an enormous–and very noisy–eyesore from the cityscape. To make up for the loss of a freeway that handles more than 100,000 cars a day, the $4 billion plan also provides for a four-lane tunnel under the city center with a daily capacity of 85,000 vehicles. The balance of the old traffic would be served by public transit and surface routes.

Before:

After:

Oklahoma City: I-40

The capital of the Sooner state isn’t getting rid of I-40, but it is doing away with the elevated section–which has cut through downtown since 1965. The new highway will be much less intrusive, situated below street level in an old rail right of way, while a much smaller surface street will trace the path of the old I-40.

The best part of OKC’s plan, however, has nothing to do with transportation. Rather, the municipal government will use the highway teardown as the basis for a full-scale urban renewal, adding new parks and denser development in a 1,375-acre zone between downtown and the Oklahoma River.

The plan doesn’t include many provisions for public transportation though, which is a shame–but losing the elevated roadway remains a big step in the right direction.

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After:

New Haven: Route 34

New Haven’s Oak Street Connector has retained the earned reputation of being a road to nowhere since the mile-long freeway was built by Mayor Richard Lee in 1960. Though it was originally intended to continue as a fully grade-separated road into West Haven, construction was (fortunately) halted before it had made it a few blocks out of downtown.

Even in truncated form, the Connector led to the demise of hundreds of homes and businesses in the Oak Street neighborhood and destroyed a healthy swath of the city. To this day, it acts as a barrier between New Haven’s downtown Green and the Union Station rail depot.

The good news is that city officials are planning a new neighborhood in the highway’s place. Mayor John DeStefano envisions a “Downtown Crossing” community that would heal the gash and reestablish the urban grid. The city has been enjoying a downtown renaissance in recent years, and eliminating the Oak Street Connector will be a huge boost to that effort.

New Haven before and after Route 34 was built:

And after the freeway is gone?

Buffalo: Skyway

Like Cleveland, Buffalo has seen its population decline sharply since the 50s. In fact, when the city’s Skyway was built in 1953, the town had 300,000 more people than it has today. It’s very reasonable then to do away with this elevated route which right now makes development on the Lake Erie Outer Harbor area very difficult. Together with I-190, the Skyway effectively serves as a wall between downtown and the lake and makes the commute there — even by car — needlessly difficult.

The Skyway is also costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year in maintenance costs because of its decrepit condition.

While the New York State Department of Transportation has looked at a plan to demolish it, the agency foolishly opted to leave the road in place. Many of the city’s citizens have greeted that decision with loud boos. Fortunately, some local politicians seem to be understand the situation and are now seeking stimulus funds to rid Buffalo of the Skyway.

Before (Pic)

After

Syracuse: I-81

A few hundred miles a away, Syracuse is hoping that state authorities will be a tad more open-minded in moving ahead with a proposal to get rid of I-81–a.k.a. that structure that divides the city in half. The road was built five decades ago, and today several governmental organizations are considering replacing with a surface street.

A local citizens group is making the sensible argument that tearing down the highway would reconnect the downtown street grid and re-energize city center. Their solution is to route I-81′s traffic onto I-481, which encircles the city.

After

(Pics)

Baltimore: Jones Falls Expressway

Recently, mayor Sheila Dixon has been discussing tearing down of the first few blocks of the Jones Falls Expressway. The six-lane elevated road is an obstruction to movement between two sections of downtown and divides the Johns Hopkins Medical complex–one of the city’s economic engines–from the revitalized Inner Harbor district.

Because the expressway already turns into a smaller surface road at its southern tip, converting a few more blocks to a boulevard wouldn’t dramatically affect traffic. It would, however, ensure connectivity for the people who live and work in Baltimore’s urban core. The city, however, has no money for the $1 billion project, and neither does the State of Maryland (which is currently contemplating a scheme to spend $5 billion widening an exurban highway). So, for the moment anyway, the proposal hangs in limbo.

After: (Baltimore Sun conception)

Tags: HIGHWAY MILEAGE