An evergreen topic: How freeways destroyed American cities and how removing some of them could improve the urban areas.
The latest report, complete with aerial before-and-after shots of American cities ruptured by swaths of concrete, comes from the New York Times.
Don’t bother to send it to the Arkansas Department of Transportation. They know that the only thing better than a gash of freeway concrete is a wider gash of freeway concrete. And if you can’t trust the agency that inspects the I-40 bridge, who can you trust?
The Times’ focus begins with freeway removal in Rochester but speaks of efforts elsewhere.
The project’s successes and stumbling blocks provide lessons for other cities looking to retire some of their own aging highways. Nearly 30 cities nationwide are currently discussing some form of removal.
Some, like Syracuse and Detroit, have committed to replacing stretches of interstate with more connected, walkable neighborhoods. Others, like New Orleans and Dallas, are facing pressure from local residents and activists to address the pollution, noise and safety hazards brought by the mega-roads.
And some like Little Rock, Ark., the article didn’t say, are spending hundreds of millions, at the outset illegally, to pour more concrete.
The growing movement has been energized by support from the Biden administration, which has made addressing racial justice and climate change, major themes in the debate over highway removal, central to its agenda.
In a wide-reaching infrastructure plan released at the end of March, President Biden proposed spending $20 billion to help reconnect neighborhoods divided by highways. Congressional Democrats have translated the proposal into legislation that would provide funding over the next five years. And the Department of Transportation opened up separate grants that could help some cities get started.
Pete Buttigieg, who heads the department, has expressed support for removing barriers that divided Black and minority communities, saying that “there is racism physically built into some of our highways.” Midcentury highway projects often targeted Black neighborhoods, destroying cultural and economic centers and bringing decades of environmental harm.
Mayor Pete is coming to Memphis on June 3 to take a look at the closed I-40 bridge. Maybe somebody could catch him for a second on some other topics.