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why is The case for tearing down urban freeways sensationalist when the content of the article is exactly that?
Because, it implies that there would be no provision made for rerouting the traffic elsewhere. "Tearing down" means "the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists" which, on this board, serves the purpose of enraging those that are "auto dependent".
Because, it implies that there would be no provision made for rerouting the traffic elsewhere. "Tearing down" means "the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists" which, on this board, serves the purpose of enraging those that are "auto dependent".
But how is that sensationalist? The title perhaps means the author isn't thinking about traffic much, but I don't think that goes under sensationalist.
The article seems to think rerouting the traffic wouldn't cause a big problem, or at least worth to make the neighborhood it runs throughout more attractive. One paragraph argues it's not as big of a deal as some might think. It serves the purpose of removing a local eyesore and noise maker.
But how is that sensationalist? The title perhaps means the author isn't thinking about traffic much, but I don't think that goes under sensationalist.
The article seems to think rerouting the traffic wouldn't cause a big problem, or at least worth to make the neighborhood it runs throughout more attractive. One paragraph argues it's not as big of a deal as some might think. It serves the purpose of removing a local eyesore and noise maker.
It certainly seems to generate a knee-jerk reaction from the auto-dependent suburbanites. Many of the replies to this post indicate that people aren't even considering the possibilities, but just seeing it as an attack on their way of life. Classic city-data dialogue. Us vs. them.
Yes, but the people don't need to drive to get to their offices.
Realistically, yes, they do.
Bay Bridge carries roughly the same number of cars as the Transbay tunnel does passengers. Even ignoring the fact that many car pool, it's not even remotely possible to double the number of people going through the Transbay tunnel.
San Francisco is actually unique in that Interstate 280 (formerly a federal highway, now a state highway) and Interstate 80 both terminate in San Francisco. While still part of the NHS system, there's not a connectivity issue as there is with most any other city. Tearing down the Bay Bridge, 80, 280 would be comparatively easy and 101 is not on the NHS system. Expanding the San Mateo Bridge would probably suffice. San Francisco had a great opportunity to do that recently since the spend $6.5 billion on the urban freeway and are looking at perhaps another $4 billion investment in the near future.
That idea never was even remotely considered because in reality people do need to drive to get to their offices. That's, of course, San Francisco's choice. Nobody made San Francisco pursue the series of policies it did. But when you preclude residential development that could add density in 90% of the city while simultaneously offering tax subsidies and spending redevelopment dollars on offices... well, yeah. The $6.5 billion investment in the urban freeway is a indication of how essential freeways to the urban core are San Francisco. Adaptive reuse of about half of the downtown office buildings could perhaps get around it. But office space is more valuable than residential space. The real estate couldn't absorb about 40,000 units of housing priced at $1,000 square foot in downtown San Francisco. Plus there's all those payroll tax dollars that would be lost by converting office space to condos.
^ At least DC has an adequate rapid transit system. In the next 15 years, Seattle will have underground/elevated light rail lines that will connect Seattle's main urban nodes together. While this will be a huge step forward for mass transit, this light rail line will still only benefit a small portion of our metro area since the majority of our population lives outside of these urban nodes in neighborhoods of detached single family homes. Unfortunately, poor urban planning has resulted in a sprawling metro region that makes it impossible to design a mass transit system that will effectively solve our traffic problem.
Ultimately, the majority of the Seattle region is auto-dependent given the suburban structure of our region. Therefore, tearing down our freeways is simply not feasible. The only places where people can live off of mass transit alone are the urban nodes that will surround the future light rail stations, and those nodes make up a small portion of the Seattle region.
Sorry to be the cynic.
For Seattle, I could imagine that most downtown access could be by transit (bus use is already high) but there wouldn't be a very good north-south route with an expressway through the city. I remember thinking I-5 was annoyingly placed and created a dead zone, but there are enough overpasses over it that I could get used to it. The waterfront freeway is already tunneled, it would be waste to remove the tunnel. And if no tunnel is built continuing where would it connect to?
That idea never was even remotely considered because in reality people do need to drive to get to their offices. That's, of course, San Francisco's choice. Nobody made San Francisco pursue the series of policies it did. But when you preclude residential development that could add density in 90% of the city while simultaneously offering tax subsidies and spending redevelopment dollars on offices... well, yeah. The $6.5 billion investment in the urban freeway is a indication of how important urban freeways to San Francisco are. And that's San Francisco.
Maybe some people do, but it sounds like the idea is inadequate transit capacity. Of course it'd be dumb not to have a road bridge connecting San Francisco with East Bay. What is the $6.5 billion San Francisco is spending?
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