Also discussed here: Urban Highways Offer Cities New Opportunities for Revitalization (Erica Schlaikjer, The City Fix, Mar. 21, 2012)
The report reviewed today summarizes the social, economic and environmental benefits that have resulted from the removal of urban highways in five cities: Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Seoul, South Korea; and Bogotá, Colombia. Each city used the new urban space in different ways but it is clear that the assumptions that went into the vast expansion of urban highways during the 20th century have changed or are changing to meet the needs of the 21st. One observes that all Canadian cities except for one have a freeway through their centre. The one that doesn’t has been rated one of the world’s top cities in terms of quality of life and environmental benefits. Care to guess which one? (Vancouver)
Key Quotes:
“While the following report is about urban highways, more importantly, it is about cities and people. It is about community vision and the leadership required in the twenty-first century to overcome the demolition, dislocation, and disconnection of neighborhoods caused by freeways in cities.” (Peter Park, former planning director of Milwaukee)
“In the past fifty years, tens of thousands of miles of urban highways were built around the world…Today, some of the same urban highways that were built in that period are being torn down, buried at great expense, or changed into boulevards”
“Freeways are simply the wrong design solution for cities..they rely on limited access to minimize interruptions and maximize flow.. [but] they create barriers that erode vitality.. during traffic peaks, freeways actually worsen congestion”
“expressways eviscerate cities.” (Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961)
“After Seoul removed the Cheonggyecheon, the average price for apartments in the area rose by at least twenty-five percent, as compared to only a ten percent growth in neighborhoods further away”
“In Portland, the removal of their expressway cleared the way for the creation of the Downtown Waterfront Urban Renewal Area in 1974 and the creation of a large new waterfront park. Land values in the area have increased 10.4 percent annually on average, from $466 million in 1974 to over $1.6 billion in 2008”
“When San Francisco replaced their double-decked freeway with the street-level boulevard, the “Embarcadero,” they saw an increase in property values in the adjacent neighborhoods of 300 percent and a dramatic increase in development in the area” “Instead of constructing new urban highways, cities can consider:
- managing existing capacity more effectively..congestion pricing and time of day pricing, parking policy to discourage unnecessary car trips
- Investing in mass transit..reallocate highways construction funds to expand mass transit, revenues from pricing program can also fund transit expansion or improvement”
- implementing land use policies that discourage sprawl..encourage infill development, providing high quality bicycling and walking facilities”
Related articles
- Turning Parking Lots and Urban Highways into Parks (pollutionfreecities.blogspot.com)
- Urban highways offer cities new opportunities for revitalization (eco-business.com)
- Urban Highways Offer Cities New Opportunities for Revitalization (thecityfix.com)
- Goodbye-ways: The downfall of urban freeways (grist.org)
- Turning Parking Lots and Urban Highways into Parks (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
- Off-ramp: How demolishing freeways is reviving American cities (grist.org)
- Can Urban Highways Be Fixed? (theatlanticcities.com)
- Urban highway removal (cdevroe.com)
- The Forces of Urban Highways (cairofrombelow.org)
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