• Reconnecting Communities with federal financing

    CNU’s biennial Freeways Without Futures report is out now! In a series of articles, Public Square is exploring common threads from the report. Article two focuses on Reconnecting Communities financing.
    This year’s report is the first to coincide with acknowledgment from the federal government of the inequitable and harmful impacts of urban highway construction. Financing for the first round of funding through the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program awarded $185 million in grants to 45 projects...Read more

  • What does government support for highway removal look like?

    CNU’s biennial Freeways Without Futures report is out now! In a series of articles, Public Square is exploring common threads from the report. Article one focuses on how government supports local campaigns.
    Freeways Without Futures 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...Read more

  • US DOT advances highway transformations

    Reconnecting Communities grants represent a step toward a larger effort to undo the considerable damage from 20th Century transportation planning, aligning with CNU's Freeways Without Futures.
    A growing number of cities are looking to transform highways that divide neighborhoods. To address that issue, the US DOT announced this week the first round of Reconnecting Communities grants, including six capital and 39 planning projects. The grants total $185 million, out of $1 billion...Read more

  • Trenton closer to long-sought freeway removal

    Plan would open up the New Jersey capital's riverfront and offer economic, social, and environmental benefits.
    Urbanism is a long-term activity that plays out over generations. That’s especially true of major infrastructure like freeways—and Route 29 in Trenton, New Jersey, is a great example. In 1989, two young architects, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who would go on to help found CNU, drew a...Read more