Freeway Teardowns

A plan to teardown the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and build a tunnel in its place has new political support and an expensive engineering plan.

February 27, 2020 - The New York Times

The Interstate 84 viaduct in Hartford, Connecticut, is past due for major updates, and a variety of very different possibilities are on the table.

January 15, 2020 - CityLab

More and more, cities are seeing little-used highways as a chance to reverse the planning decisions of the 20th century and provide more housing and economic opportunities.

December 4, 2019 - Realtor

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway needs work, but the various proposals have very different visions about how to tackle the project and what the final outcome will be.

March 29, 2019 - Curbed New York

The New York City roadway is desperately in need of repair, but just tearing it down and replacing it would be a shortsighted fix.

December 14, 2018 - Intelligencer - New York Magazine

A proposal once too controversial to consider is gaining traction at several layers of government.

October 18, 2017 - The Dallas Morning News

After reading this recent opinion piece by Bill Fulton, some pro-transit and anti-highway advocates might be thinking, "Et tu, Bill Fulton?"

April 18, 2017 - Governing

The Congress for New Urbanism has released the latest Freeways Without Futures list, updating a list we last saw in 2014.

February 2, 2017 - Streetsblog USA

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has envisioned a future for Downtown Dallas that includes more downtown and fewer freeways.

June 10, 2016 - The Dallas Morning News

Alana Semuels, staff writer for The Atlantic, examines highway teardowns beginning with the San Francisco Embarcadero in 1989 to see how they have worked in terms of revitalizing poorer areas or restoring the urban fabric that they destroyed.

November 29, 2015 - The Atlantic

Funded by a grant from the California Department of Transportation, Long Beach released an RFP for conceptual and design services for a plan to transform the Terminal Island Freeway into a "regional serving greenbelt and local serving road."

July 30, 2014 - Longbeachize

That's the dilemma with Interstate 81 in Syracuse, NY, an elevated freeway that cuts through the center of the city. At the end of its life expectancy, planners are debating its fate.

June 15, 2011 - NCPR News

A "crazy idea" to remove an inner city freeway in Seoul, South Korea turned to reality. This piece tells the story about how this unlikely event came to be.

April 8, 2011 - Grist

Efforts to tear down the Interstate-10 Claiborne Expressway, a 2.2 mile section of elevated roadway in New Orleans that many locals and activists have blamed for separating neighborhoods. Neal Pierce says teardowns might begin to grow in popularity.

September 10, 2010 - Citiwire

A group of activists and planners has released a report showing how tearing down the Claiborne Ave. Expressway in New Orleans and turning it into a boulevard would benefit the neighborhood and the city.

July 25, 2010 - The Times-Picayune

The Infrastructurist offers four case studies of cities that have removed highways. The result: less congestion.

July 8, 2009 - The Infrastructurist

In the second part of this Streetsblog interview, CNU President John Norquist discusses his tenure as mayor of Milwaukee and the politics behind making cities more transit-oriented and walkable.

April 2, 2009 - Streetsblog

Next American City takes a look at freeways and sees the end coming -- for some, anyway.

November 2, 2008 - Next American City

The Congress for the New Urbanism has released a list of the top ten urban freeways that need to be torn down.

September 23, 2008 - Congress For New Urbanism