• 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

  • Meet the nominees for CNU's 2023 Freeways Without Futures report

    The ten campaigns selected for the 2023 Freeways Without Futures report offer a roadmap to the future of North American infrastructure
    The 2023 Freeways Without Futures report from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) will feature ten local campaigns representing communities advocating for equity and reconnection during a time of reckoning for North American urban freeway infrastructure. The ten campaigns offer a roadmap to...Read more

  • Atlanta’s Downtown Connector: Bury it or demolish it?

    To mitigate this scar on Atlanta’s urban fabric, two freeway cap proposals are being pushed by local business groups.
    In 1952 the first section of an expressway that would split the heart of Atlanta opened. It was designed in the 1940s to connect the growing suburbs to the north with those in the south, while providing a fast way around congested streets in bustling districts like Five Points. Eventually, it would...Read more