• Freeway cap would restore grid

    Since 2012, grassroots coalition Reconnect Austin has advanced an alternative, human-scaled vision for the I-35 corridor for the Texas capital city. The north-south section of I-35 that cuts through downtown Austin carries a high amount of traffic—more than 200,000 vehicles a day—but inhibits...Read more

  • 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