"Cities, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, are rethinking their street plans."

Except in Louisville.

Why Would You Have a Highway Run Through a City?, by Daniel C. Vock (Governing)

That’s what a growing number of cities are asking themselves -- Syracuse being the latest that may tear down its elevated urban expressway.

... At the same time, cities, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, are rethinking their street plans. Amenities such as bike lanes, wide sidewalks, streetcars and green space are becoming more common. Traffic engineers, (John) Norquist says, are moving away from the old model of channeling cars from residential roads with cul-de-sacs, to service roads, on to arterial roads and ultimately to freeways. Instead, he says, engineers are using much more nuanced models for the roads they create.

Changes in society are at work too. The automobile, while still by far the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S., has lately lost some of its appeal. It used to be that the number of miles Americans drove went up every year. Since the recession, though, the country’s driving has leveled off. Teenagers are waiting longer to get their driver’s licenses. And young adults flock to cities and neighborhoods where restaurants, bars and shops are within walking distance -- or maybe a short bus trip or train ride away.

But none of those factors guarantees that scrapping elevated highways will be popular, or smart, in every city. Such a fundamental change in a city’s landscape raises big questions of whom the transportation network should be designed to serve, and at what cost.

Peter Park says: "The reality is all freeways in American cities will come down."

When Job One is fluffing your fellow River Ridge oligarchs, then anyone in Kerry Stemler's position need not be concerned with building communities and cities. By supporting Stemler and these very same oligarchs, entities like One Southern Indiana clearly indicate where their priorities lie -- at the perceived source of operating funds, and not in the notion of building communities and cities. This is the root of the tragedy, with well-meaning indies and small businesses joining One Southern Indiana in the mistaken notion that they're helping to build something, when all they're really achieving is to perpetuate the fluffing.

Meanwhile, those not in Stemler's and his ilk's pockets are trying to determine what to when the freeways come down.

New Urbanism: Overcoming an Overpass, by Ian McNulty (MyNewOrleans.com)

The freeway overpass on North Claiborne Avenue has dominated the downtown landscape for so long it’s hard for some people to imagine the area without it, much less remember how that part of the city functioned before it was built. But as the idea of removing the aging overpass continues to make the rounds among planners and community advocates, an expert with unique experience in urban freeway removal shared his perspective.

“This isn’t about tearing down a freeway, this is really about building communities and cities,” says Peter Park, former planning director for Denver and Milwaukee, where an overpass was removed beginning in 2002. “The reality is all freeways in American cities will come down. They’re not the Roman aqueducts. The question is what to do when they come down.”

"Does Louisville Need More Highways?"

A festival of ideas? Did Kerry Stemler attend?

The problem with encouraging thinking is that thinking produces thoughts and ideas, and the problem with both thought and ideas is that they do NOT lead to the Bridges Authority.

New York Times Calls Downtown Bridge Plan "Out of Step"

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By GABE BULLARD

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Louisville's annual IdeaFestival draws top thinkers to the city. Ideally, it gets people talking about the city as well. This year's festival did just that, but the most recent chatter isn't entirely flattering.

A piece in today's New York Times examines Louisville in the wake of the IdeaFestival. There's a lot of praise in the article, especially for the waterfront and the city's post-war architecture. But the kind words vanish when the writer turns to the downtown portion of the Ohio River Bridges Project, which would add more lanes of highway to the city's urban core. 

"How Tearing Up Highways Could Make Better Cities."

It pretty much cuts through the crap, straight to the heart of the matter. Or, as we say it 'round here: 8664, and the bridges project can eat my shorts.

Observation Deck: How Tearing Up Highways Could Make Better Cities, at Wired Tear it all down! Well, OK, not all of it. Let’s start with the freeways. They look permanent, sure, but most highways, especially the ones cutting through city centers, aren’t that old — only a few decades. And in some towns, they do more harm than good.

Fished from Kerry Stemler's garbage can: "Moving Beyond the Automobile: Highway removal."

I can hear it now, puddling beneath the Kitchen Linoleum:

What the hey ... movin' yonder past that auto-mo-beel ... that's just Commie talk ... if they don't like cars, why don't they move out ...

The article is by Elizabeth Press, from www.planphilly.com

In this week's episode of "Moving Beyond the Automobile," Streetfilms takes you on a guided tour of past, present and future highway removal projects with John Norquist of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).

Some of the most well-known highway removals in America -- like New York City's Miller Highway and San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway -- have actually been unpredictable highway collapses brought on by structural deficiencies or natural disasters. It turns out there are good reasons for not rebuilding these urban highways once they become rubble: They drain the life from the neighborhoods around them, they suck wealth and value out of city, and they don't even move traffic that well during rush hour.

Now several cities are pursuing highway removals more intentionally, as a way to reclaim city space for housing, parks, and economic development. CNU has designated ten "Freeways without Futures" here in North America, and in this video, you'll hear about the benefits of tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx, the Skyway and Route 5 in Buffalo, and the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.