The decision to build freeways instead of rail in the post-war years, along with the low-rise single-zoned suburbs it promoted, has been an absolute planning disaster.
But the mistake can be fixed, and freeways can be removed.
City Beautiful's Dave Amos @citybeautiful has an interesting look at some of America's endangered freeways, and how communities can get them removed:
5 Essential Strong Towns Articles
Strong Towns
January 31, 2017
...If you're just joining Strong Towns (or even if you've been following us for a while), there are some important articles you may have missed that we really think you should read. They include some of the foundational thinking that led to the Strong Towns movement, and they continue to speak to our goals today.
Take 10 minutes (or 30) to dive into some of these important stories. We guarantee you'll come away with new ideas for how to make your town stronger:
We're looking for a Transportation Researcher with a passion for sustainable and equitable transportation strategies and a background in planning, engineering, or a related field. Applications due May 5. https://ssti.us/join-our-team/
We overlay the highway network with a massive, geolocated online social network (Twitter 2012), and measure how social ties are impacted by highway segments. We find a strong barrier effect in all 50 considered US cities. See below - the red squares show that this effect is stronger for short distances.
@TheWarOnCars Although the disruption from highways is well acknowledged in #urbanPlanning , nobody has ever quantified this interplay between highway and social ties explicitly. We were strongly inspired though by pioneers like Appleyard, see figure.
What Happens After a Highway Dies
Bloomberg - April 13, 2024
"The redevelopment of Rochester’s Inner Loop was widely hailed as a model for repairing cities scarred by freeways. But the project’s next phase stands to take a different turn."
It really is simple: "Too often, policymakers ignore the obvious solution to homelessness — housing — in favor of immediate (and generally ineffective) responses, such as criminalization. Forced displacements and criminalization move people from one place to another, increasing their trauma and exacerbating the barriers they face to housing, while doing nothing to solve the underlying problem. "
@CernBasher did write a thorough analysis that I recommend in your attention. I want to take a critical look at his predictions and discuss the nuanced realities of such a transformative technology.
👇🧵 https://x.com/CernBasher/status/1777709906461675595
1/10
As a transportation and urban planner, I look beyond one company or stock. The rise of robotaxis isn't just a corporate shift—it could be a paradigm shift, reshaping urban planning and our societal fabric.
I’m becoming radicalized about urban planning lately. First it was a book about how stupid parking minimums are, now it’s how the entire planning process is sexist!
I'm somcak, a #librarian currently in #Ohio. I have 2 mini #dachshunds and 2 #cats. I enjoy all sorts of music, yes, even death metal on occasion!
I've been on Mastodon since October 2022, and this is my 5th server.
I use content warnings for all sorts of stuff, just trying to be considerate! I always make sure there's #AltText and #CamelCase for my own posts as well as those I boost. #Accessibility matters.
I enjoy learning about #history and #archeology, particularly the #neolithic. I'm also interested in #UrbanPlanning and how we can make communities greener. I have an #ebike and care about #CompleteStreets.
Why is it that some people get so agitated when you suggest that some other people can happily live without their own car?
I mean, sure, some places are extremely car-centric! But not all places where humans live are extremely car-centric, and some of the places that are extremely car-centric could be changed to offer more options to people who want to live without their own cars!
"The city’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo has pushed through a great many anti-motoring measures during her two administrations—such as reducing the number of parking places, restricting access by SUVs, and closing some major roads to motorists [...]"
"Whittier is notable for its extremely wet climate [...] as well as for the fact that almost all of its residents live in the Begich Towers Condominium, earning it the nickname of a "town under one roof"."
"If you ask people what streets are for, they say cars. That's opposite of what they said one hundred years ago...Streets—venues of myriad public activities as late as 1920—were redefined as exclusive transport ways."
The Designer Who’s Trying to Transform Your City Into a Sponge
"If engineers can slow the flow of that water and allow it to soak into the Earth instead of running away—using rain gardens, spreading grounds, permeable pavers, and urban wetlands—that simultaneously reduces flooding and refills underlying aquifers. That’ll be increasingly critical as the planet warms and droughts intensify: Sponge cities aim to bank water for a rainy day"
The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)
A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.
Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.
While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.
@nictea@philip@fuck_cars Even the 903 SmartBus only runs a 15 minute timetable during the day, which is less than the minimum 10-minute service busses should be running.
And other services in the area, like the 737 (Croydon to Boronia to Knox to Glen Waverley to Monash Uni) is a 40-minute-plus frequency during most of the day.
And people wonder why more residents in the outer suburbs use public transport...