States and cities received over $3 billion in grant funding aimed at redressing the damage caused by freeways.
The Biden administration announced over $3.3 billion in Reconnecting Communities grants in cities including Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Houston, Jacksonville, and other cities.
As Daniel C. Vock explains in Route Fifty, the grants will pay for freeway caps, trails, commuter rail stations, and flood management infrastructure. “All told, the Department of Transportation awarded 132 grants, including 52 for construction. The rest were to help communities with planning.”
According to Vock, “The mix of projects, though, shows the Biden administration is focusing on fine-tuning existing infrastructure, rather than funding more drastic changes that some advocates had hoped for when the programs were created. Community activists in places like New Orleans and Tulsa initially pushed to remove highways that devastated their neighborhoods, but the administration has largely avoided those kinds of proposals,” promoting freeway caps and other less drastic changes. However, some projects are tied to highway expansions, such as an underpass project in St. George, Utah.
Read the full story: Biden-Harris Administration Announces History-Making $3.3 Billion for Locally-Led Projects That Reconnect Communities as Part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda
Will the Reconnecting Communities Program Survive Trump?
A freeway cap in Portland, Oregon is in jeopardy. But the visionary “restorative redevelopment” next door goes on.
Congress Moves to End Reconnecting Communities and Related Grants
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee moved to rescind funding for the Neighborhood Equity and Access program, which funds highway removals, freeway caps, transit projects, pedestrian infrastructure, and more.
Disconnecting Communities: Measuring the Social Impacts of Freeways
Research from 50 major U.S. cities shows social connections are weakest in neighborhoods where highways are present.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
Colorado’s Largest Data Center Could Rise Next to Homes — Without a Public Hearing
The proposed campus would consume 11 times the power of Denver International Airport; as it has across the country, opposition mounts.
Raised interest rates may kill financially vulnerable construction projects
The chief economist at ConstructConnect warns that if construction project owners are negatively impacted by the raised rates, it could result in delayed payments to contractors.
Data centers are consuming nearly 25% of Oregon’s power
The state has 111 data centers, with 32 more either planned or under construction.
A third of Texas cities must update their zoning codes to comply with new housing law
Texas municipalities are now required to allow manufactured housing in at least one residential zoning district.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Greater Baltimore Committee
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association