Re-thinking NY's highways

[millerm277]

Originally Posted by 987ABC

No it doesn't. I have a State Highway that runs very very close to my house. When it was built, it "split" the neighborhood. It has no effect on me. When I make decisions like - do I commit crime or not; do I use drugs or not; do I father children at a young age and abandon them, or not; do I show up for work every day, or not; do I go to school everyday, or not - the fact that a State Highway is very close to me, and that it at one point "split" the neighborhood, had no affect on the decision I make.

Please tell me where I am wrong?

It affects:

- Your health, from the drastically increased levels of pollution in proximity to a highway, particularly any that have heavy truck utilization. And a developing brain is particularly susceptible, so it's quite plausible that living in that area is going to make a young person more likely to commit crime and make other poor decisions.

- Your property values, as a contiguous neighborhood without a highway splitting it is generally going to be more valuable and a more pleasant place to live.

- Your local mobility, as rarely is the neighborhood as interconnected as it was before the highway.

Etc.

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Anyway, while the article is all over the place with reasons that I don't always agree with, I'll argue most highway removal projects are really about removing things that simply aren't the best thing for today's needs in that city.

The various platitudes about environmentalism, justice, and whatever else aren't really the point, which is why very few highways actually serving a necessary purpose are being removed anywhere.

They're generally a combination of:

- A highway aborted partway through construction, so the part that does exist is ridiculously overbuilt for what little it does.

- A highway superseded by something else and no longer worthwhile.

- A highway that was never designed well to begin with and is being rethought.

Especially when they come due for needing to be reconstructed anyway due to age.

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Consider the 3 Northeastern roadways in their "Committed to removing highway" section:

- Oak Street Connector in New Haven - Was supposed to be a 10mi major highway going west to Route 8. None of that was built, so instead you've had a massively overbuilt interchange and 0.5mi of highway that's nothing more than an offramp to downtown for 60 years.

- Somerville MA - McGrath - Was superceded by I-93 and the roads it connects to can't actually move enough volume to justify it's existence anyway.

- Syracuse I-81 - The closest thing to a "real" removal, and it's only being "removed" between 481 and 690 coming in from the South. Most vehicles on the stretch are going to/coming from downtown Syracuse and a boulevard makes a better traffic distributor/collector than tight on/off ramps on a viaduct do.

- The viaduct is end of life and would have to be reconstructed in full, the replacement plan makes more sense for the city as it is today.

- 481 and 690 are getting substantial improvements to compensate, as well.

[987ABC]

[quote=millerm277;61323818]It affects:

- Your health, from the drastically increased levels of pollution in proximity to a highway, particularly any that have heavy truck utilization. And a developing brain is particularly susceptible, so it's quite plausible that living in that area is going to make a young person more likely to commit crime and make other poor decisions.

- Your property values, as a contiguous neighborhood without a highway splitting it is generally going to be more valuable and a more pleasant place to live.

- Your local mobility, as rarely is the neighborhood as interconnected as it was before the highway.



Your first point is a huge, huge, huge, huge, and I mean huge, stretch.

As for property values, whatever diminishment that occurred, occurred many, many years ago. Once it occurs, it is stable, with the buy in and selling price being commiserate and adjusted.

Local mobility is a huge, huge, huge stretch also. Again, we are taking about highways built many decades ago. The time it takes to get from point A to point B has been a constant ever since, and does not affect any person's present day quality of life. When it first happened, decades ago, it was at best an annoyance. Not anymore.

The bottom line is this - Highways built many decades ago do not have a negative effect on anybody's life at present. They do not stop people from making smart, but simple and obvious, choices - don't have kids until you are married and financially stable enough to support them; stay married (two incomes are better than one; supervision from two parents is better than from one); don't abuse drugs or alcohol; don't commit acts of violence; don't commit crime; prioritize school and work. Studies have shown that people who do these things will live at worst a middle class life, no matter their color or race. Do these things, and in one generation, you can move far, far away from these so-called racist highways.

[JiminCT]

I don't think diverting traffic away from Syracuse is going to help the city...except that it will help connect SU to downtown. There may be some more apartments and eateries downtown from the students, but I think this will further "donut" the city....suburbia grew while Syracuse shrinks....and that includes the business community migration as well. I think this boulevard idea isn't going to encourage people to get off 81-481 if they are traveling (its a bypass...). Just mho....I really think they should have created a tunnel for I-81 downtown ala the Big Dig...

Hartford CT is facing a similar issue w I-84 and their viaduct...they need to keep it in place somehow since there is no beltway or bypass....but what is plan B: another viaduct or a tunnel...

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by JiminCT

I don't think diverting traffic away from Syracuse is going to help the city...except that it will help connect SU to downtown. There may be some more apartments and eateries downtown from the students, but I think this will further "donut" the city....suburbia grew while Syracuse shrinks....and that includes the business community migration as well. I think this boulevard idea isn't going to encourage people to get off 81-481 if they are traveling (its a bypass...). Just mho....I really think they should have created a tunnel for I-81 downtown ala the Big Dig...

Hartford CT is facing a similar issue w I-84 and their viaduct...they need to keep it in place somehow since there is no beltway or bypass....but what is plan B: another viaduct or a tunnel...

People that are just going through the city can bypass it altogether via I-481 and a big dig type of setup would cost too much. There has been quite a bit development in Downtown Syracuse and even on University Hill. So, I-81 pretty much intervenes in between the two. People are curious as to what happens to the people that live nearby in all of this. Meaning, will it do the same thing that Urban Renewal did.

Something to keep in mind is that NY and Northeastern cities in general have very small city land area/limits. So, it doesn’t take much to move out and they don’t have the luxury of annexation like cities in other regions to gobble up unincorporated land. That’s why you’ll notice that cities in some metro areas similar in population to those in the Northeast sprawl out more due having a bigger land area.