Freeways Without Futures - Replacing Urban Highways

Jan 31, 2017 • Mike Field

Report by the Congress for the New Urbanism identifies the ten greatest opportunities in America for replacing aging urban highways with boulevards or avenues and reconnecting the surrounding neighborhoods.

Interstate 70 Denver, Colorado

I-70 today. Image Credit: CDOT

For over half a century, urban highways in North America have disproportionately impacted minority communities. Running through historic neighborhoods, they have severed connectivity, demolished homes and businesses, and left blight in their wake. In Denver, the construction of Interstate 70 inflicted its ill effects on three urban neighborhoods: Elyria, Swansea, and Globeville.

In those historic minority communities, residents were cut off from opportunity, access, and needed services. Now, like many mid-20th Century highways, I-70 in Denver is reaching the end of its life cycle—and one viaduct along its route needs major repairs.

Instead, however, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has announced a $1.2 billion plan to tear down the viaduct, bury part of the highway, add four more lanes, and expand toll lanes, shoulders, and service roads. Along the way, the plan would require the state to acquire and demolish 80 residences and 17 businesses—including the neighborhood’s only source to purchase food.

Now, a group called Unite North Metro Denver has a better proposal: Reroute interstate traffic to the north, and redesign I-70 as a bike- and pedestrian-friendly boulevard. Such a plan would cut noise and air pollution while bringing new investment opportunity to neglected neighborhoods. Furthermore, the boulevard would cost less, open up developable land, and reunite areas that have been blighted by the highway.

As the debate over I-70 has grown, national and state groups have taken notice. Environmentalist leader the Sierra Club has filed a lawsuit against EPA over the proposed widening. Meanwhile, a recent report by Colorado Public Interest Research Group advises against the expansion. The report estimates $58 million in taxpayer dollars will be wasted on a project that encourages more driving and doesn’t include expansion of mass transit.

Above - Cut and cap plan, latest rendering. Image Credit: CDOT / Bottom - Tree-lined boulevard concept. Image Credit: Unite North Metro Denver

Interstate 375 Detroit, Michigan

I-375 today. Image Credit: Detroit Free Press

In Detroit, Michigan, a city built largely by and for the automobile industry, demolishing a highway seems as far from likely as anywhere. Now, however, the removal of the mile-long downtown freeway spur called Interstate 375 has emerged as a possible project—and a potential major breakthrough for the city’s urban renaissance.

Constructed in 1959, the four-lane below-ground spur that makes up Interstate 375 is a concrete barrier between Detroit’s Riverfront, Greektown, Eastern Market, and Stadium districts. To local residents, its legacy is tied to the failed urban renewal efforts that destroyed many of Detroit’s African-American neighborhoods—including several, like Black Bottom, legendary for their culture and nightlife.

In the 1940s and 50s, notes the Detroit Free Press, “The Black Bottom district…housed the city’s African-American entrepreneurial class, with dozens of thriving Black-owned businesses and the Paradise Valley entertainment zone, where Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie performed.” When I-375 was constructed, its designers plowed through the commercial heart of communities like Black Bottom and Lafayette Park—and the creation of public housing projects to the north leveled the rest.

Today, Detroit faces many challenges, including maintaining its outsize infrastructure burden despite a shrinking population. Annual daily trips on I-375 have decreased to approximately 80,000 vehicles at its north end and only 15,000 vehicles at the south, according to Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).

Above - East Edge Boulevard alternative. Image Credit: Future 375 / Bottom - East Edge Boulevard alternative cross-section. Image Credit: Future 375

An Environmental Impact Statement was written to expand the highway in the early 2000s, but a lack of funding and changing conditions in the city delayed the project. When downtown strongly recovered this decade, advocates pointed to the removal of I-375 as a potential catalyst for revitalization. Replacing I-375 with a boulevard could open up about 12 acres for redevelopment, said MDOT director Kirk Steudle. “This is a significant piece of downtown Detroit,” he said.

In 2014, a coalition including MDOT, Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, and the Detroit Downtown Development Authority began studying options for the I-375 corridor. A report with six alternatives was released in 2016—including an option for rebuilding the highway ($60-70 million), replacing the highway with a multimodal boulevard ($40-50 million), and replacing it with a sunken greenway ($40-50 million).

“Scenarios retaining the freeway would operate below capacity, but existing operational issues would persist,” the study concluded, and “Freeway removal scenarios increase travel time, but acceptable operations could be achieved.”

The report left the door open to a secondary study of Jefferson Street, an equally important thoroughfare that is impacted by I-375. A careful analysis of Jefferson Street is needed if freeway demolition is to succeed. At 7-9 lanes across and carrying 29,000 cars per day, crossing Jefferson is jarring. It used to be one of Detroit’s great urban streets.

Though the lack of consensus and funding questions have put a final I-375 recommendation on hold, the City of Detroit remains open to the idea of removing the highway. All six alternatives are on the table—including a boulevard that would better connect the rapidly redeveloping east riverfront district—and as the reemergence of downtown Detroit continues, the fate of Interstate 375 will only become more and more crucial.