‘Freeways Without Futures’ Spotlights Freeway Removal Efforts

Writing in the Congress for New Urbanism’s (CNU) Public Square, Lauren Mayer reports on some of the freeways most nominated for CNU’s next biannual Freeways Without Futures report, which “highlights the efforts of local campaign organizers and activists seeking to revitalize their communities by dismantling the city highways that burden them with the significant health hazards of vehicle exhaust, a loss of local businesses and services, and streets that are hostile to pedestrians.”

So far, nominees include several major freeways in New York State, including I-81 in Syracuse, Buffalo’s Route 5 and Skyway, and the Inner Loop in Rochester. In New Orleans, a decade-long fight to remove the Claiborne Expressway is inching forward as the city’s mayor and local U.S. representative became part of a “growing consensus” that restoring Claiborne Avenue is “the right course of action for the Tremé neighborhood.”

Across the northern border, efforts to tear down Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway are bearing fruit. After one portion was removed in 1999, the city removed more ramps in 2021 as part of the  Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan, which “will realign the expressway and help transform the area to improve transportation corridors and provide more efficient public transit and new public facilities.”