• New York State DOT picks ‘Community Grid’ in Syracuse

    Since 2008, CNU has highlighted the advantages of transforming the elevated I-81 through the heart of the city.
    New York State DOT has selected the “Community Grid” as the preferred alternative for Interstate 81 in Syracuse, a plan that would allow the elevated viaduct that has severed city neighborhoods since the 1950s to revert to a grid of streets. I-81 leveled African-American and ethnic neighborhoods,...Read more

  • Crash diet for a freeway corridor

    Conversion to a boulevard would reduce the right-of-way of I-980 in Oakland by 75 percent, connecting neighborhoods and allowing mixed-use development where land now generates no tax revenues.
    I-980 remains a testament to the intense disapproval for freeway construction at the end of the highway-building era. Public opposition to its construction was so strong that the project was abandoned in 1971, only to be resurrected and finally completed over a decade later. Now, the excessively...Read more

  • A corridor of opportunities

    Out of all of the CNU Freeways Without Futures picks, I-345 in Dallas probably has the most potential to create new mixed-use development as it reconnects downtown to a historic neighborhood.
    Since 2013, local advocacy group A New Dallas has captured public attention and made a strong case to remove I-345, an imposing concrete barrier that divides the city’s historic Deep Ellum neighborhood from downtown and has spawned vacant lots and disinvestment along its 1.4-mile path. As a result...Read more

  • A chance to repeat history

    Portland, Oregon, could open up the east bank of the Willamette River to adjacent neighborhoods and duplicate the success of the removal of Harbor Drive.
    Portland is a tale of two waterfronts. On the west bank of the Willamette River, Waterfront Park offers Portland’s residents direct access to the river in place of the former route of Harbor Drive, a freeway removed by the city in 1974. On the river’s east bank, I-5 deprives the growing Central...Read more