Highway Removal Slowed by Outdated Policy, Lack of Committed Funding

Highway removal: why isn’t it happening in more places? Joe Harrington poses this question in Next City, noting that “The benefits [of removal] for the communities living along highways are obvious: People have experienced health, environmental, economic and mobility harms for the last 70 years. Communities originally displaced lost billions in generational wealth opportunities in the ensuing displacement and residents today continue to bear harm.”

Harrington lists several reasons that highway removal is not more popular yet. These include “sluggish policy responses” at the federal level that have failed to keep up with the data. Even the Reconnecting Communities program, which is specifically aimed at removing highways, has not resulted in many actual removals. According to Harrington, “There’s an urgent need for federal guidance to leverage successful highway removal initiatives, enabling more cities to pursue this transformative approach.”

Highway removal projects are also stymied by an outdated mindset pervasive in state transportation departments. “Their entrenched traffic engineering mindsets, earmarked funding and institutional resistance to change impede efforts to promote alternatives to highways, from Minnesota to Texas.” 

For Harrington, “Current procedures and technical practices—built by and for highway projects—need to shift as we focus on restoring divided neighborhoods, advancing our climate resilience and creating equitable cities.”