• 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    Outdated software and modeling overestimates the value of urban freeway expansions—and underestimates the effectiveness of alternatives like boulevards.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

  • Ten freeways in need of transformation

    From Pasadena, California, to Buffalo, New York, cities in this report have the chance to remove a blight and improve prosperity, health, and sustainability.
    CNU's fifth biennial report, Freeways Without Futures 2017 , identifies the ten worst urban highways in America, each of which could be removed to fight pollution, ease traffic, and improve walkability and health. Today, much of this burdensome infrastructure is reaching the end of its initial...Read more

  • Spokane can avoid a big mistake

    There is no compelling reason to build a five-mile freeway through the east side of the city, according to engineer Ian Lockwood. A boulevard would do the job better.
    DOT released its Every Place Counts Design Challenge report yesterday, based on workshops in Spokane, Nashville, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis-St. Paul last summer. CNU helped organize those workshops, set up to explore mitigation of Interstate highways that have historically damaged minority and...Read more