• Study supports freeway removal as best option

    A tunnel would cost nearly three times as much as converting the aging I-81 in Syracuse to a boulevard—as suggested by CNU's Freeways Without Futures report.
    A new study shows that building a tunnel to carry Interstate 81 traffic through Syracuse, NY, would cost billions more dollars and take a decade to complete. The wisdom of transforming the aging elevated highway to a surface boulevard, as suggested by CNU's Freeways Without Futures 2017 list , is...Read more

  • Great Idea: Freeways Without Futures

    Reducing state and federal infrastructure costs while boosting local economies by strengthening urban places is a win-win from in-city freeway transformation.
    In celebration of the 25th Congress for the New Urbanism , Public Square is running the series 25 Great Ideas of the New Urbanism. These ideas have been shaped by new urbanists and continue to influence cities, towns, and suburbs. The series is meant to inspire and challenge those working toward...Read more
  • Katy Freeway

    Why urban freeway expansion is futile

    Outdated software and modeling overestimates the value of urban freeway expansions—and underestimates the effectiveness of alternatives like boulevards.
    Everyone hates freeway traffic congestion. Highway engineers promise to fix this problem by widening freeways and building new ones. For the past 80 years, engineers have been promising that the next round of freeway expansion will solve the problems. This has never worked. A few of the many...Read more

  • One of the last of the 20th Century ‘freeway battles’ ends

    The 710 Freeway in Pasadena CA has no future, only an ugly past—one of scores of in-city highway struggles that began when many officials thought that traditional cities had no future.
    Common sense has prevailed at last. For more than a half century, California planned a freeway through the heart of Pasadena and South Pasadena, extending the 710 to connect the 110, 134, and 210 freeways. This freeway extension was long opposed by South Pasadena, which fought it in the courts—and...Read more