What happens to traffic when you tear down a freeway?
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- čas přidán 8. 04. 2019
- The compelling case for removing urban freeways.
Further Reading:
CityLab University: Induced Demand:
www.citylab.com/transportatio...
Norman Garrick in Citylab:
www.citylab.com/transportatio...
Vox: How Highways Wrecked Urban American Cities
• How highways wrecked A...
Congress for New Urbanism - Highways to Boulevards
www.cnu.org/resources/project...[182]=182
Harbor Drive
www.cnu.org/highways-boulevar...
Embarcadero Freeway
www.cnu.org/what-we-do/build-...
Governor Tom McCall - Oregon Historical Society:
www.ohs.org/education/tom-mcc...
Law of Peak Hour Expressway Congestion
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...
“From elevated freeways to surface boulevards: neighborhood and housing price impacts in San Francisco” by Robert Cervero , et al.
rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
Portland State University
www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu...
Impacts of Road Capacity Removal
opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/vie...
FHWA - Interstate History
www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructu...
www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/f...
Case studies in Urban Freeway Removal:
www.cnu.org/sites/default/fil...
Seattle Data
SDOT:
sdotblog.seattle.gov/2019/03/...
King County Metro:
kingcountymetro.blog/2019/03/...
Office of the Mayor:
durkan.seattle.gov/2019/03/wh...
Bike counters:
www.seattle.gov/transportatio... - Krátké a kreslené filmy
If you all want some more transpo content, this is a favorite -- czcams.com/video/ado6uLHvo9U/video.html "How an old traffic rule keeps raising city speed limits"
Thankyou Elijah 🥰
In terms of efficiency and safety: rail>road.
That is one thing I wish we had more of in our city.
@@ScottMStolz My town had gorgeous passenger trains at one time, but that was about 53 years ago.
@@Jemalacane0 because the government decided to fuck over the entire rail system with the highways, and then proceeded to fuck it over for 50 more years with amtrak
@@ianmason4682 you can thank the auto industry for deliberately dismantling public transport in cities across the US, fueling the decline of rail (an industry literally nobody wanted to decline and still don't considering Amtrak is still kicking and moving into the black after receiving a real cluster when founded and being set up to fail). New long range passenger rail could still be founded in the US but there's too much cost involved in laying new rail that should be less than building a new 4 lane freeway but isn't. It's all red tape thanks to lobbying from car manufacturers.
More light rail, less heavy rail for noise reasons
You can feel in this guy's eyes his deep hate for freeways
Lucky Luke can’t blame him, those things are so annoying when I try to move around my city
@@eltiggy7031 Oh I don't doubt that for a second. But still, his expression during his first sentence cracks me up
Good. Freeways are an abomination.
I like freeways lol
@@bassdrumflextime1253 In a way I like them too, but overall they're just a nuisance
If you want to see how a North American city does long-term without a freeway, just look north to Vancouver, BC. Almost no freeways within its city limits, and driving into downtown is seen as a last resort. Walkability is high and bike commutes are through the roof.
Vancouverism is a beaut, aint it?
Yup I live in Vancouver and that was done intentionally. There were attempts to bring freeways to the downtown but it (thankfully) got shut down. It would have ruined much of the area.
@@randallburke3562: I live in Vancouver too. But I would say it wasn't intentional, per se. More like "accidentally on purpose." The lack of freeways was only possible because of the protests after the destruction of Hogan's Alley for the viaducts, and only became intentional after the sale of the Expo lands. If I recall, it was only after Yaletown's development that "Vancouverism" as a city planning concept truly took off.
Bikes look ugly - you should see Dublin (Ireland) now. Street cars (trams) are the way to go in cities and are much nicer to experience - Bordeaux in France looks like the way to go! Freeways are effective in rural areas like where I live - they drastically cut down on road deaths but like everything else, the car has its place - the middle of the main shopping street is not it. Bikes however belong in the folk park - e-scooters along with street pods will eliminate the need for bikes in the near future - clumsy ugly piles of strewn metal which clog up the pavements - something I experience far too much as a pedestrian - just sick and tired of craw thumping arrogant cyclists - cities are for people, not bikes!!! As for MAMILs - if you want to race your bikes, get yourselves a velodrome - the streets are not racetracks!!! Motorists should park their cars on the edge of town and avail of transit - I use rail transit to commute myself (home -> car -> train -> walking -> streetcar -> office). In cities, the pedestrian comes first, not the bike!
I live in Vancouver. It's an F-ing nightmare trying to drive through town. And now they want to ditch the viaduct that's the main entrance into town. That will cause more problems. And as for more public transit? Vancouver has public transit up the ying yang. They've won the best public transit award of the year several times, but it's still not enough. As for Seattle. Most everyone I know here, who travels there, views it as a nightmare to get thru travelling south, and would pretty much avoid it altogether.
This data underlines what the authors of Suburban Nation show, that increasing traffic lanes has zero impact on congestion after 3 months. Every city planning department in North America has access to this data, which is irrefutable. Yet most of them ignore it and sink gazillions of taxpayer dollars into highways. Thankfully, a few cities are starting to wake up. Jane Jacobs would say, It's about damn time.
Not true. There are countless examples of highways increasing lanes and reduceing traffic because of it. Oftentimes new development tends to increase traffic again in a few years but I don’t see that so much as a traffic problem as much as an urban planning and development problem. As we tend to build our roads for today’s population and not expected future population. That being said oftentimes what highways need are alternative routes not additional lanes
@@lightside33333The common point here is that traffic lanes need to be used effectively. If you have 8 lanes of traffic but only one exit lane, that’s a lot of ineffective merging.
If you have a two lane highway and you need two exit lanes, it makes sense to widen the road to facilitate traffic on the approach.
Many cities all over the world function just fine without downtown highways.
Almost every city in Europe doesn't have a motorway running through the middle. They use more efficient transport methods such as Trains, Trams, buses and cycle hire with dedicated cycle paths
@@RandomBusNerd “Efficient” lmao. Less convenient as well
@@urbanistgod Public transport is definitely not less convenient. Going past a traffic jam at over 100 mph while sitting down enjoying some food is a daily routine for many people in europe. Unlike in the USA where you sit in a stressful traffic jam getting bored
@@RandomBusNerd Public transportation takes on average more time and buses are also stuck (even worse) in traffic. You can’t deny this.
@@urbanistgod Let me guess: you live in some crappy american suburb and have never experienced a european city with good public transport.
this video: *gets released
literally every european: pathetic
Why’s that?
David Vanwinkle Cause Highways usually dont run through cities (atleast in Germany)
No American cities are actual cities because of how the automobile affected their growth
@NoActually, if Europe wanted to build highways, it could've done , after WW2, about half of Europe was in rubbles, esspecially Germany, they could've built Highwayomania if they wanted, but they stuck with the old way.
No we had lots of chances to build new motorways (look at Londons original ringway system scheme) but it was deemed to damaging and expensive. Motorways are just not necessary inside of a city
Highways in cities are just a terrible thing. They don’t reduce congestion, they’re bad for the environment and they are a factor they why American cities sprawl out so much
They sprawl out because not everyone can afford an $800,000 700 square-foot condo. Not everyone can take the bus Nora wants to sit next to stinky people. The trains are so expensive and so blown out of budget that we don’t trust building those anymore. Our freeways are tiny compared to other cities. It’s more detrimental for a car to be idling them to be going full speed
Jhawk2tall Them reasons for why people don’t travel by bus are irrelevant, New York has some of the highest ridership numbers for its subway in the world so clearly people do use them and sitting next to people surely isn’t an issue. The main issue is that American cities don’t have the same levels of public transport as New York or even cities in Europe. Highways in cities take up room that could be used for buildings, which in itself promotes urban sprawl and the demand for car park spaces in cities is also another factor.
@@Jhawk2tall Plus public transportation doesn't have to be bad, there are plenty of good examples all over Europe, Asia & Latin America. Like Curitiba, Medellin, Guayaquil, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, etc. Nor does high density living have to always be expensive, Vienna, Singapore & Japan are perfect examples of this as well (affordable housing at high density).
It is a huge thing in America to want to own land. In fact my parents moved out to the country and decided to commute into the fringe cities they were working in so they could build a new house on land they owned. In 1995 when they made that move, the land was selling in five acre lots just outside the DFW metro area. The town has since promised its residents that they will never accept public transit
Where do you expect people to live?? City cores have a capacity. Once reached, then what??? Also, NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE IN A CONCRETE JUNGLE where all you see is a mess of buildlings, noise traffic, sirens and a bunch of fudge packers and homeless roaming the side walks.
highway in the middle of a city is the dumbest idea, highways should conect cities not go thru them, u want to get cars going, make a bulevard... highways shoud conect to ringroad around the city and continue to next city
Just to add on to that, much of Vancouver's neighbourhoods are much more dense, and a mix of loose zoning policies, smaller streets, separated bike lanes and reliable transit has allowed Vancouver to become one of the most liveable cities in the world. "Vancouverism".
@@CAR105729 check out Dallas highways
@Best reincarnation of Sonic I love this new talking point, everything in history was done to hurt black people.
X3C it’s a fact that most highways built in the 1950s were placed in majority minority neighborhoods. Many were built with the intention of downsizing those neighborhoods.
@@CAR105729: And it keeps growing
I don't understand America's fascination with motorways, I mean lots of cities don't have them running through the city. In London for example it instead wraps around the whole city, if you want to go into it you just travel on normal streets
Look at Glasgow. Previously, there was an American-style plan to completely ruin the city with expressways, but some of that never materialised/ized. Even today, the M8 runs through the urban core. What is even more stupefying is that there was an M74 extension that happened about a decade ago!
Freeways going through cities can cause issues like noise, pollution, less desirably for walking, and disconnection between communities. I think freeways should only serve as long distance connectors, not cutting through communities. Fun fact: the City of Vancouver have only a few km of freeway, and the city is increasing the number of transit and biking options.
ring roads are the much better alternative to urban freeways
Try driving in Houston. We got like 5-7 lanes and we still have to deal with traffic.
More lanes equals more traffic.
We got 8 lanes in seattle...
Waiting in rain & snow and cramming into public transit where disease is free to jump from person to person is worse. At least in a car, you have your own personal space, room for cargo, and freedom to set your own schedule.
Vancovermycity Where?! 😂 I drive through Seattle everyday for work and I’ve been 6 at most.
@@peterbelanger4094 Wear a mask like in Japan...
My home town did a similar thing, they cut the number of lanes on two major thouroughfares down from 2 either way to just 1. In doing so they were able to over size the bicycle lanes and add a dedicated buslane to parts that were known for terrible congestion.
At first people protested it, saying it'd kill traffic into and out of the inner city. But after a few weeks it turned out that a whole lot of lorries and other heavy traffic was now taking a detour, switching from the A325 to the A15 about 10km north of town, and bypassing the city entirely, using the new bridges in the A50 to get to the A73.
What the city did, pissed off the province because they thought they had solved the traffic jams on the A50. Which are now back, as more traffic is directed that way. But it massively cut the traffic that was just cutting through our city from North to South. The air is noticably cleaner, it's become easier, faster and safer to get into the inner city by bike or moped. And for us residents, now that the traffic that didn't need to be here, doesn't come here anymore. It's actually become ever so slightly faster to drive into town.
I’m not going to miss the viaduct at all. WAAAY too many drivers would speed through the area coming off the highway into the city streets regardless of speed limits. Saw my fair share of cars almost taking out pedestrians or accidents from them swerving into parked cars.
Can’t wait to remove the bike lanes out of Seattle, way too many of those bikenatzis speed through and don’t have any consideration for pedestrians or cars
@@Jhawk2tall What is your issue mate? 10kg bike vs multi - tonne car. Don't blame the form of transport that is actually good for the environment. Cars have already ruined many cities.
@@imperialspy3457 hurr durr America free. You know the song lmao
@@imperialspy3457 I see bikers break the laws all time. It does matter even if they are on a bicycle. The guy got wiped out by not yielding to the car.
@@crescentprincekronos2518 I see both, but mostly car drivers.
Atlanta, GA I-85 bridge fire is a counterexample to this. Removing freeways only works if there is alternate infrastructure in place such as citywide mass transit.
Peter Desio exactly, there was a mess down here. I feel like Atlanta is one of those cities that just couldn’t exist without a freeway yet.
Atlanta is unique in that not only it is growing really fast (almost as fast as any city of that size has ever been able to grow without the emergence of widespread shantytowns), but that the bridge fire occurred after all the people had already driven downtown for the day thinking that getting home would be more or less normal. But if that freeway were permanently removed, people would find ways to rearrange their lives so that they could live without it. That is this article's point.
I think if Atlanta kept it's old density with streetcars then it would have been ok
Yes, people like to say “Oh has no freeways and it’s so walkable”, yet ignore the fact that the walkability probably alleviated any need for a freeway in the first place. You can’t just tear down freeways and expect the city to magically become more walkable or bikeable.
Had the Atlanta bridge fire happened now, even more people would have stayed home to work.
I was disappointed there was no mention of the I-40 revolt in Memphis which prevented the city's historic Overton Park from being paved over AND remains, to this day, one of the few remaining "unfinished links" in the Interstate Highway System.
A different zoning would also help. In the US almost no new middle density is being build, because it is not zoned for. Middle density housing would make public transport more viable, and medium density neighborhoods are nice to live in. They are walkable and cycable, you have amenities close by, and you can still have your own garden.
Amnesty from what?
@@JackVermicelli wrong autocomplete suggestion, now corrected.
Stroads need to be removed too, change in building code allowing commercial building rights almost anywhere within residential area, also called development. Allowing people to shop closer, work closer and walk/drive shorter distances to places they want to go.
What the heck is a stroad?
@@samanli-tw3id search up Strong towns, it explains the concept
@@samanli-tw3id Anyone that uses this term "stroads" is usually anti car. Strip malls is what he is talking about. Public transport has its problems with bad designed bus and train stations where people spend time waiting.
@@DrJams There is a difference between being "anti-car" (which I doubt is actually a big thing) and being against the impact that excessive car traffic has on a city. Stroads are a symptom of terrible city planning resulting in cars being the only viable means of transportation, thereby creating more traffic.
Even drivers should be happy to see public transit, bicycle infrastructure, etc. improved and driving made less desirable as that will take more drivers off the road and decrease traffic, making it easier for people who actually need to drive to get around
@@DrJams stroads are literallly bad for cars too, they are dangerous for cars because of all the driveways/intercetions, higher speeds and cant even go fast because of all the red lights its literally the worst combination of a road and street
I remember living in LA during "Carmaggeddon" the 405 for a few days. It was honestly the easiest time I had driving in years.
But as soon as the 405 re-opened: gridlock on the streets. All the cars that wanted to get on the 405 bottlenecked at all the freeway entrances.
If an urban highway were shut down I think people would choose to avoid the downtown area due to traffic. People that are forced to go to or through downtown, due to work, have no choice but to use public transit or other means. It just forces people to adjust. IMO I'd rather see the transition into building public transportation infrastructure like better additional subway/train systems to the point that people would voluntarily choose these other forms of transit. Instead, I fear opportunists like land developers will take advantage still leaving transit congestion an issue.
Very insightful. All that I would add is that the real issue is WHY do people have to do downtown. Why cant they work or shop within their own neighbourhood. I understand that downtowns will always have the most jobs, and the most culture and the best food or whatever, but there is no reason that we cant redesign neighbourhoods so more people can walk/bike/take transit or even drive a shorter distance to where they need to go. We have built cities where on a good day people must drive for an hour to get to their job. Its ridiculous.
Personally, I have also liked the old European designs, where everything is within a 15 min walk or just over a km. Building any-other way will not actually fix the problem.
@@nate8892 from my observations living and travelling to metropolis areas such as Tokyo and New York I find that as neighbourhoods grow, so do the number of "downtown" areas. The inhabitants of a big city tend to only stay within their area. They can pretty much get whatever they need or want at their "local downtown". I knew people that were born and raised in Brooklyn that have never been to Manhattan.
@@nate8892
Its because of jobs really. People cant usually choose where the work is. You can buy stuff locally do everything else there but you have to go to where the jobs are
If we spread out jobs somehow than why have dense urban areas at all? Ideally most of us should live in centers of about 300,000 people tops and have the jobs etc be spread out through the entire landmass. It would be better for nature and better for people to not be packed in so tightly
Public transit is disgusting, crowded and slow. Not to mention cargo is severely limited.
Or people would take various main streets diffusing traffic and probably helping urban areas that are poor and dont have a lot of businesses open in the area.
In Detroit, if you want to go downtown from the east side, two main streets are water adjacent Jefferson and freeway 94 adjacent Harper. (You also have a giant Chrysler factory blocking off east west streets in between like Kercheval)
Guess which of the 2 is seeing more development and rebirth.
Simply widening highways may not eliminate traffic but eliminating highways doesn't eliminate traffic either. Cities should design their infrastructure to be as efficient and effective as possible
You can’t eliminate traffic but you can shift it to modes that can handle greater volume. A two track subway line can move 3x as many people per hour as an 8 lane highway.
packr72 I agree but unless I'm mistaken he's only talking about removing highways not building subways in lieu of expanding highways
James Buckey Obviously getting rid of highways without replacing them with public transit is a failure of urban planning.
How reducing the world population back down to 1 billion people?
You’re right but having highways through city centers is dumb
Highway 401 in toronto is the epitome of this
that and also the government in toronto still insisting on maintaining that gardiner expressway
@@eddietran5803 haha no kidding. The skyline view is the only thing good about that highway lol
@@eddietran5803 but you do relize there are no other highway to get from the east and west expect the gardnier without having to take the streets. I live downtown to get from the east (DVP) to west (427) on the gardiner is 20 minutes while on the roads it would take apporximentally 1 hour without traffic.
@@arifshash192 If we went with the original plan of keeping the 407 public, that could have served as a relief to the 401. Mind you, most of the time the Gardiner takes longer that 20 mins. Tbh it takes 20 mins just to get off the on-ramps lol.
@@arifshash192 im not necessarily against removing that elevated section of gardiner i prefer putting it underground so it wouldn't be such an eyesore when im walking to the waterfront
traffic in SF didn’t just disappear after the freeway was removed. It now backs up and filters through the city on other streets to get to the bridge.
This is probably because the city didn't invest enough in alternative modes of transport. But even the' this shows the rule of induced demand. Traffic just moved to other places until they were congested, and only then people started looking for alternatives.
See cities are dense places, and streets will always back up and be congested, no matter what. People will choose to drive until congestion becomes a problem again and only then do they look for alternatives. So your point is kind of mute, as it proves the principle. Turn those currently backed up streets into narrower, low capacity streets with great bike infrastructure and public transit, and traffic will move elsewhere and will be congested there. Thing is that, by doing this, more people will choose to use alternatives, and the reduced traffic will increase quality of life dramatically for the people who actually live in the city. Traffic is just a fact of life in a city. It's all about minimising that traffic and nudging people towards alternative modes of transport. Building more roads or highways only attracts more traffic.
I've lived in a traffic resistant city for over 20y now. Every time the city increases its traffic resistance some of the media cries hellfire and damnation, and predicts total doom. Yet every time it's proven a huge succes for and is immensely appreciated by the people who actually live in the city itself. Reducing traffic and creating traffic resistance works. It's been proven many times over. The USA is only now realising what most of the world has known since the 70's-80's.
@@johanwittens7712 Your argument that San Francisco didn't provide alternative modes of transport is a joke. San Francisco has plenty of transportation options in public and active transit, yet congestion still occurs. It's not because alternatives aren't present. It's because some people need them to get around that non-car transportation cannot provide. That's why cars and freeways are still needed. Just because you can get around without a car doesn't mean everyone else can.
Your assessment of what happens to traffic when it is forced to alternative routes is laughable and not set in reality. Once traffic congestion moves to another route, it will keep moving onto other streets that were not able to handle the extra cut through traffic. Residents start complaining that their quiet street becomes a freeway extension and quality of life decreases because what was a quiet street is now filled with cars. Close the street? Residents on the detour will experience increased traffic too and all its negative affects above. And so on, and so on. This has a negative impact on the city, not a positive impact.
Traffic doesn't go down much at all. The freeway removals in San Francisco proved this, but this
Forgot to note that many employers allowed their employees to stay home during this.
massive oversight of how much disruption and discomfort this must have caused. perhaps it was for the best, but that is a real cost, not something to smugly celebrate.
So basically COVID-Training? 🤣
In Portland, all this needs to happen:
(Saying all this as a suburbanite in the outskirts of the Portland metro.)
*Removal of Central City Freeways and (New) Ring-Road Freeway Completion:*
- Both 405 and I-5 should be torn down and replaced with boulevards, and instead build a westside bypass freeway to complete the ring loop around the outskirts of the city with 205. (Like most European cities have with their ring freeways, while having no freeways at all through the heart of the city.)
- Route I-5 through one of the ring halves (probably the westside bypass as it would likely be built further from the current urban area than 205 is. Then continue to use the urban growth boundary to restrict new suburban development and sprawl along the new westside bypass, ensuring that it doesn't accelerate suburban sprawl.
*Massive Expansion of Light Rail and Street Car Networks:*
- Dedicated lanes in major roadways, or mixed lanes in narrower roadways.
- Lightrail lines expanded to every corner of the suburban area, followed by building a web of interconnecting lines to facilitate travel routes that don't need to get to the city center.
- Streetcar lines built outside of city center, expanding radially from major lightrail destinations. Then reduce number of stops along lightrail lines to speed up the main lines, and use streetcar networks to expand the reach of lightrail stops.
- Expansion of system into Vancouver, WA, and merge the two systems under one bi-state organization/branding.
*Expansion/Inclusion of heavier Passenger Rail or Commuter Rail*
- Build lines to connect up to nearby cities: Salem, Kelso-Longview, Newberg, McMinnville, Canby, Scappoose, and St Helens.
- North-South line through the city, starting with nationalizing the railroad networks like basically every other developed nation with a great rail network.
*Improvement and Expansion of Bike Network*
- Implement a standard of building fully separated, and when not, paint-differentiated bike-lanes across the metro region. More people will bike if it feels safer, and for just one car lane, you can fit a ton of bicycle commuters; far more than one lane for cars. Not everyone needs to drive far for work either. Bike routes along roads should feel safe enough for your kids to bike on, like in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
-Portland already has a decent system of bike paths/"bike highways" too. The missing link is making bike routes along roadways feel safe enough that the general population feels comfortable enough to make the switch.
-With more people taking the more space efficient modes (biking and public transport), traffic will not be worse for drivers who actually still need (or want) to continue driving to work.
*Implement More Traffic Calming*
- In particular, sidewalks should not dip down to the street surface when crossing a minor street or road. Instead, cars should drive up over the sidewalk via a ramp, then down again to continue along the street. Make cars feel like they are invading the pedestrian space, basically. Raised surface prevents drivers from speeding across crosswalks, and psychologically makes drivers pay more attention when crossing a pedestrian crossing. Just like the Dutch do. We Americans should be learning from Europeans in all this.
A republican governor advocating for green open space? Wow!
Take notes, PragerU.
Strong Towns was started by the nicest republican you'll ever find.
That surprised me too!
People like Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Trump still side with good conservationism.
The problem is choosing how to balance green ideas with the need to develop. We are all watching this video because of progress and technology.
@@Kenny_CopeBut they're sponsored by fracking billionaires
America is too dependent on cars and the infrastructure is planned badly because people need a car to go shopping etc.
Here in the Netherlands we can do almost everything on bicycles or on foot. City centers are becoming car free or low on cars.
Their perception of freedom is to be forced to sit in a two ton cage to literally go anywhere. It's just crazy when you think about it. Luckily the Netherlands realized that this is a mistake probably before any other country.
The Embarcadero viaduct is a bad example. Because it was never completed it only ran for 1.3 miles before it dumped it's traffic on surface streets. All its removal did was dump the traffic at the foot of the Bay Bridge a mile earlier. The traffic did not return to the new Embarcadero because it is very difficult to get to to it from the Bay Bridge and the surface street traffic in the Rincon Hill and South of Market neighborhoods is horrible. The Embarcadero viaduct was an eyesore, no doubt about that. It was also structurally unsound so it had to go. It also served little purpose as the intended connection to the Golden Gate Bridge was never built. The Cypress Viaduct was removed for the same reasons the Embarcadero viaduct was removed. However, it was replaced with I880 because the lose of that connector would have had a hugely negative impact on traffic.
"the traffic impacts were pretty minimal" that's why the entire embaracadero is at a dead stop all day every day
look at the netherlands tip
I live in Seattle and respect this guys opinion and knowledge on the topic, but the tunnel has many flaws. It is more prone to traffic jams, is 2 lanes as opposed to 4, and has no exit DOWNTOWN. Also, the whole process is corrupt with HEAVY influence from waterfront properties. and don't forget, biking in Seattle is only viable during the summer as it rains the rest of the year, and those hills are no joke!
RIP the viaduct, she was a tourist attraction and I will always remember late night drives with the city on my right and the sound on my left.
Riley Oneil I feel you, I miss driving late nights at the viaduct
The whole point was to bypass downtown, because private cars shouldn't be in city centers. They're just too space inefficient.
Just found stumbled across your channel, after a bit of a binge you have your self a new sub excellent content really enjoying it
Hint: there aren't any downtown freeways in European cities and we haven't died yet.
Economies are also a fraction of ours
@@Jhawk2tall That's usually what happens when you take 50 different ultra-capitalistic countries into one.
Yes there is! There's a highway 5 mins from my house in Amsterdam
@@Jhawk2tall Actually, the entire European Union GDP is around the same size than the USA one
Jhawk2tall EU’s economy is literally larger than US’s
Harbor drive in Portland is a bad example because as it was torn down it was replaced with two freeways (405 and I-5) that both run through the heart of the city (one inner east of the river and one inner west). If anything he just said tearing down a freeway works great if you build two more to replace it
yup
where I live we had a major highway into the city close off one direction for construction, and this direction would change twice in a day, except weekends. it threw a lot of traffic onto side roads and caused some issues, especially in heavier traffic
Removing a freeway in Southern California wouldn't work. We don't have the mass transit infrastructure and people aren't riding their bikes 30 miles to work.
Thinning I-710 north of I-10 to allow CSULA to expand its campus wouldn't be a bad idea
Replacing the freeway with Commuter Rail or Subway would be a better idea
This thinking reminds me of the time when railway removal was so cool - as we know, much of it was idiotic and shortsighted (while some lines were uneconomical, it went way too far in countries like the UK and Ireland). Now, getting rid of roads and freeways seems to be the trendy thing now, most likely to give way to the future realization of our foolishness amid costly reinstatement projects to reverse the mistakes of excess ideology in the same fashion as what's happening with the railways. Today, railways are being rebuilt - tomorrow, it will be freeways amid the scorn: What were they thinking??? In short, we need both roads and railways! Yes, some freeways have come at too great a social cost, but not all freeways and cars are bad - it's all about getting the right balance.
@@RedKnight-fn6jr The solution is to limit urban sprawl and increase density. Americans and their suburbs.
Good thing then that so much of America still has old freight railroad tracks let. Just brush me up a little and voila, you have an efficient urban/suburban commuter corridor. I mean just look at the O train trillium line in Ottawa or the TexRAIL in Forth worth for example.
really looking forward to this channel growing
My city which is less than 500,000 people is expanding an interstate downtown. A small section of park which is popularly used for sledding when it snows was turned into a road. To my knowledge the city voted no on the bill allowing an increase in sales tax to fund the construction that could damage downtown like many interstates have in the city.
Umm, Portland was only able to remove Harbor Drive because they built I-5 directly across the river. And saying you can just make traffic disappear by tearing down freeways is like throwing the dog crap in your yard over the neighbor’s fence.
yup
How are you going to make this video without addressing Boston and the nightmare that was The Big Dig?
There was also a freeway removal near Downtown Boston which is I-93. It was destructed in the '90s and when the 2000s came, they started the most expensive tunnel project of the nation which is the Big Dig.
As a civil engineer i endorse the message in this video. Think hard before building roads, citizens.
Hope you don't work for my town! Cars are awesome. Public transport even at its best will always be limited to time tables and fixed routes.
@@DrJams not an issue in a properly designed city. cars are terrible, they are dangerous, loud, bad for the enviroment, take of crazy amounts of space etc
A good way to complement this would be to add big subsidized parking lots at the end of metro lines so that people can ditch their cars and take the transit into town... I was recently in Luxembourg where they did this as well. Evidently, that's a different country with much deeper pockets, but nonetheless interesting. It was especially useful for people who lived in rural regions where there was no bus service.
Virtually every transit system in the US is already heavily subsidized. I think pricing for parking needs to be set carefully to not discourage people from coming but if you undercut downtown parking too much, people will drive to the transit lot JUST to have a place to park cheaper while not really reducing vehicle miles traveled.
@@chrisransdell8110 I mean parking lots at the end of the metro lines. I'm assuming that those lines are in the suburbs or the city's outer neighborhoods, although I don't know the city in question. As well, if you think of it, the freeway is public money. Therefore it's not really a question of 'eating' the cost of the parking lot, but rather one cost versus the other. I'd imagine that a big parking complex in the outer regions of the city wouldn't be too bad compared to an inner city freeway.
@@samueldion-dundas5219 The issue with that is the last mile problem. For most North American cities, they lack strong bus connections or light rail, or have poor transfers, its not really feasible for people to ditch their cars and take the main metro line into the city. But some cities do this well. I think Toronto is a good example of fixing the last mile problem, with their extensive streetcar network, PATH system and closer subway stops in the downtown. Seattle and Vancouver also have some idea of what they are doing. But for a city like Houstan or Dallas or even LA, people just cant do that.
They have to be properly secure too. People in North America wouldnt really do this unless there was a bunch of police stationed there to guard everyones cars as the risk of break ins is too great
Those already exist in the Seattle area and I’m pretty sure in many other cities too, they are called “park and ride” , depending on their location they can fill up pretty quickly.
3:20 Fun fact if you pause here. SF actually had originally planned to cover the city with freeways. That dead end you can see here was supposed to be where the Golden Gate freeway would be. It would have connected to the GG bridge and would have cut off the waterfront from the Marina district. I guess back in the 50s they were super hopeful that they could still build the connection so they made that little nub just in case. Wishful thinking lol
The only reason the old port in Montreal didn't get bulldozed in the '60s for a freeway was because an official lied that building one would make it impossible to transport goods to the island.
Highways are a good investment when it wraps around a city, however not when it plows right through.
Earthquakes I would say that gets rid of freeways rather quickly the mess you got to clean up that takes years
I live in shoreline and I don’t go downtown unless it’s 100% necessary.
That's like the same principle where like if Disney saw their parks were overcrowding, they open another park/gate, to help absorb some of the load, but really it would just bring MORE people to the parks.
Margaret T Hance park built over a portion of I10 in downtown Phoenix has led to significant development and an increase in property values surrounding it. I hope the city considers covering more of the freeway to improve the quality of life for surrounding residents.
Demolish the freeway. Travel by train! its much more exciting and relaxing
And much more inconvenient.
@@jackgunn1480 it wouldn't be if we built more of them
@@doubleutubefan5 Public transit is always going to be more inconvenient than driving your own car. When you have your own car you can go exactly where you want, and when you want. You can also enjoy the privacy of your own space, listen to your own music, etc. With public transit you can only go where and when the city has decided you can go. I used to take public transit and I hated it. It would take me over an hour to get home each night and I'd have to wait for a transfer in the cold and dark. No thanks. With my car I can be home in 20 minutes. The only thing better about public transit is that you don't have to worry about parking, but everything else far outweighs that.
We have the LinkRail system in Seattle, but good luck finding a seat or even space to get on M-F between 4am to 10am. It’s my preferred method of going into the city on the weekends though, don’t have to worry about crazy parking fees.
@@jackgunn1480 Public Transit only works if your working 9to5, and not getting off at 3am, I love my car, if a place is not car friendly I wont spend my money there.
One can also make open tunnels for the highway, that will remove it from the view and help the city to move across the highway without restrictions.
You'd THIMK that the obvious example right in Seattle face would be Vancouver, BC, another tech hub. The city shares the extra barriers that most US cities don't have: rivers with bridges that needed upgrading, a funnel of land out into the valley, and hemmed in by the ocean on one side, the International border on the south, and mountains to the north. EVEN WITH all those extra issues, Vancouver moved forward. Seattle slept. Now with it's .com money it's trying to play catch up. Canadian architect Arthur Erickson made a speech in the early sixties that Canada DIDN'T WANT to follow the US "model" of freeway madness. And the need for four cars in a three person household.
That’s the problem with Vancouver. They did a good job. Their city is such a nice city that nobody can afford it anymore. It’s my favourite city to visit but I couldn’t afford to live there.
Tearing down a highway can solve, in some cases, a lot of traffic problems in a city.
They should do this in my city, too. I really don't like our urban freeway.
Might want to include the city you live in to provide people with context. Just an opinion.
How will you get anywhere?
All the freeways in every city should be torn down and destroyed, rerouted outside the city, or placed underground. Light rail, limited car traffic, bikes, and just plain walking are the better choice.
If your in a big city that's the biggest bitch in the world. La and Houston is so big it's impossible to get around without a car. You would need create some sort of massive public transit carry the several millions of people to all parts of the city. That doesn't save that much space compared to all the freeways.
What do people coming in and out of the city do? Youre forgetting lots of people drive into a city from outside to do business and bring in goods and people also need to be able to leave the city too which would be needlessly expensive and complicated if you couldnt drive out of the city. People coming in from outside too are not going to leave their car in some parking garage outside the city or something the risk of break ins are too high
Biking and walking assumes people being able bodied. Elderly people disabled people people who are recovering from injuries etc cant just walk or hop on a bike and have a good time (especially if theyre also going to be carrying a bunch of stuff)
Also seems good in good weather but people dont want to walk or bike if its raining or snowing
John Le / P777777, these are valid arguments and Roshan KC has given a good response to how we could change things by copying the British model with 3 sets of road ways. Places like LA will take decades to fix and we can start now. America is losing billions of dollars a year because of poorly designed cities while Asia is booming with infrastructure projects and is poised for the future.
@@user-xg8yy7yl1d You can have large roads, it just does not need to be a freeway
Just some notes on what folks are saying here.
-"Big city" is not a valid reason for being car-dependent. The largest cities in the world are in Asia and Europe, and they dont need multiple 12 lane super-highways. There are many large cities that dont have american-styled land and road use. Hell, even look at Vancouver, the inner city never built ANY freeways. None. even compared its most cities its size, the suburbs dont have that many freeways. The only way to get into Vancouver's downtown is by "normal streets" or "transit". Scary, eh? "Vancouverism" is a good idea to look up. Kinda shocked this vid didnt include it.
-No one is saying we must BAN CARS, or that no one can drive. Sure, trucks will always need to enter cities, some people wont be able to or even want to bike everyday. But you have neighbourhoods that 85-90% of the population drive to work. You have companies were nearly everyone arrived there by car. Its crazy. The majority of people should not have the car as their first option in the summer. Mind you, Vancouver and Stockholm are great examples of how cities with horrible weather can deal with biking and walking. Vancouver gets some of the highest rainfalls in north American, and Stockholm... is in Sweden...and made up of islands... Its certainly POSSIBLE for cities to get people to bike/walk in the winter.
-Road Hierarchies are a very interesting thing to study. In North America, our cities generally have 5 types: Freeways, major Arterial roads, minor Arterial roads, collector roads and local roads. Like much of NA's zoning system, it makes it pretty confusing to have so many different road uses, mainly when these roads are so different. City Planners will tell you the worst road to design for is your classic minor arterial...its not large enough to increase speed limits but its too large to put up more crosswalks on...so freaking annoying lol. The UK generally has motorways and A, B and C roads, and most of Europe follows this similar Highway, major road, secondary road and local road system. America just loves the car so we have to have 5 very different types of roads.
-A major issue with America is its suburban designs in its "instant cities". T-Intersections, cul-de-sacs, few or no traffic lights, "superblock" land use designs, "boomburb" and "edge city" designs, and many more I'm sure im forgetting at the minute contribute to America's car culture, that has more less created the traffic issues we see. If it takes more than 10 mins to walk to the nearest plaza from your house, its an issue. But thats how many of NA's cities are designed. Also its not just America, Toronto's suburbs are poorly designed also. Sorry Canada.
I would love to see how the closure of the interstate temporarily in Atlanta increased ridership to the point that the trains were full the whole time.
Maybe Atlanta should get rid of the I75/I85 connector and I20. They bisect the city in half.
At the end it is suggested that overall trips went down in Seattle. I would not say that this is a positive outcome actually.
Also, the rise in house prices in San Francisco is not necessarily caused by the removal of the freeway. There might be other factors as well.
That is a positive - more people figured out more efficient ways like carpooling or taking transit
@@AmbientMorality No, overall trips went down. So that means that people are travelling less. Not that they figured out how to use transit or carpooling. What you have is that some people simply cannot afford it to travel anymore. That is an economic loss, and quite often it is the poor who fall in the 'not travelling anymore category'. And, quite often the poor are black, so you could say that actually it is a racist policy.
@@91Durktheturk Yes! Finally someone pointing this out that is not mentioned (or should I say, glanced over) in this video. The Embarcadero Freeway was a perfect example as you noted. Waterfront properties saw their values rise, but Chinatown was hurt big time by the loss of the freeway. People didn't come back, so they had to gentrify to tourism to survive. (It's only getting worse after COVID) Even after mitigation measures were installed, these disgusting anti-freeway advocates started bashing the mitigation measures - the biggest of which was a new subway line. They said we didn't need it and started gaslighting us by spreading lies that removing the freeway did not hurt Chinatown. Living, seeing and experiencing through this first has made me NOT trust these racist people. They will only support people of color when it matches their ideology.
Come to Johannesburg South Africa, the M2 Highway connecting the city with the eastern suburbs has been closed since November last year for repairs and upgrading... Traffic has to go through the city and it's a mess.
This is what happens when you let lefties plan shit. They use their ideology and "theoretical" world and expecting it to work in the real world. Those highways remove traffic off the roads and allow cars to GET THE FUCK OUT quicker. Are they ugly, Of course, but they do serve a valid purpose. Transit doesn't fit everyone all the time.
@@bmw803 I think this issue is more why are freeways needed and why doesn't transit fit everyone all the time. If we plan cities for cars, as most American cities do, you just cant remove a freeway and assume everything will be ok. We have to change how we plan our cities. Wider sidewalks, smaller lanes, more bike lanes, green space, better connective-ness, etc. Transportation, zoning and urban design have to work together to achieve our goals: less traffic, lower carbon emissions, and an active lifestyle for our city's residents.
Everything you said at the start tho is just ill-informed and misleading.
@@nate8892 You're spot on, but the problem today is that leftist politicians and interest groups make decisions for ideological reasons. Some cities are in the North and they get huge snow storms, so bike lanes and all this religious component of planning makes no sense for some people. Especially in Decemeber thru April. The idea is to accommodate shit to fit all modes of transportation. Certain areas of downtown obviously need to favor subways/LRT, but the problem is that the topic is always approached politically rather than logically.
Well South Africa has a unique problem. In most cities where a freeway is removed, the citizens opt to take transit, ride their bikes or walk. There is a small increase in traffic, but overall most commuters simply take another transit option. The level of crime in ZA is just too much for most, so continuing to use private transport is seen as the only safe option. As a result, Johannesburg’s case is more the result of a broader social issue, as opposed to an urban planning issue.
@@zachm8235 Thanks for that.
this video proved that if anything re-locating highways is more benificial.
I wish SF would have built a tunnel. They got rid of the freeway and that’s it. I always wondered why there was no 101 freeway from south SF to the golden gate and was so surprised to see there used to be one in the making. Yeah it’s an eye sore but I’d rather have a freeway than none. I wish they made a tunnel to replace it.
It’s done and everything is ok here Seattle, I don’t see an issue.
His whole point is that maybe the city would be better off without any freeways going through downtown.
So what you're saying is that the widening of the 405 along the Sepulveda Pass in LA only made traffic worse?
it doesnt make traffic worse, it actually improves traffic in the short term, however once people realise the road isnt congested anymore they go back to using their cars and passing through that road again and the congestion just comes back before you know it
yes
This is really true I drive in Westchester NY and I see it with the taconic vs the sawmill all the time you would think since the taconic and 684 have 4 lanes and the sawmill has two only you think there would be more traffic on the sawmill and would be slower but it's not the case at all i drive from Yonkers to mahopac all the time and it's always faster of I take the sawmill till it ends that. A back road than if I take 684 or the taconic
Morgan Balogh at 4:40 lives next door to my oldest sister... small world here in the PNW and an even smaller world at WSDOT where I'm employed and will hopefully retire in less than a year :)
A freeway should never go into downtown, what should be encouraged more is public transport
In order to have public transit your city needs to be dense enough, which the vast majority of American cities aren’t. They are most made up of low density single family use car dependent suburbs.
@@blackhole9961 That can be fixed. Just remove the parking lots and put buildings in their place.
@@alexismiller288 that doesn’t fix the problem of American cities are still too far spread out.
@@blackhole9961 That's not true. If you've ever been to the Netherlands you'd know that even in rural and "suburban" areas there are relatively few cars and plenty of cyclists. The thought of plowing a highway through any of these towns, cities, or rural neighborhoods makes my blood boil, and I will tell you NO ONE here would endorse such a stupid idea!
@@notthatguy4703 I don't think you get Americas urban planning if you are seriously comparing American suburbs to suburbs in the Netherlands, which is fine because europeans always fail to understand what American cities are actually like and how they are NOTHING like European cities.
Imagine if 98% of your city looked like this www.shutterstock.com/search/suburban+sprawl
and distances are so far that simply walking 10 minutes wouldn't even get you out of your neighborhood or the road you lived on
Highways weren't plowed through towns. Highways are in fact the very reason why American cities grew in the way they did.
Highways were constructed in the 1950s to accommodate the rise of suburban America which public transport couldn't serve because they were too far spread out and didn't have enough density. The highways allowed for everyone in the suburbs to go to the downtown area of the city.
America urban DOESN'T equal European urban
American suburban DOES'T equal European suburban
American rural DOESN'T equal European rural.
Take away the 101fwy, 170fwy, 110fwy, 405fwy, or the 10 in LA, and it’ll be absolutely chaos
Maybe the 2 fwy near Hollywood could be removed. It doesn't really go anywhere. But otherwise I agree.
@@jamesparson not a freeway
Obviously, it's possible that removal of a freeway can be done in some American cities, but it definitely matters what infrastructure is already present to handle the loss of that freeway. Cities with insufficient infrastructure (as in insufficient busing, lack of light rail, lack of bike lanes, or lack of other well-placed available freeways) cannot exploit this type of change.
And to answer that question, NO. American cities don’t have that type of infrastructure to do so. They may have some form of public transit but it definitely won’t replace something as vital as a highway. American cities are mostly car dependent low density single family suburbs which public transport could never serve.
Remove one highway in the DFW area and you would watch a complete collapse of the metroplex.
Nothing will ever get done if you don't make changes. Besides, highway removal comes down to something much bigger than fucking congestion 😂. They separate the urban landscape, are loud, ugly, emit pollution, give access for swarms of cars to flood into the city from suburbs, and are completely hostile to people outside of cars.
@@notthatguy4703 Again i dont think you understand the American city and how its designed. it would be completely impossible to move around without highways.
I seriously meant what i said about taking out 1 highway in DFW would lead to the complete collapse of the metro area.
American cities aren't urban by your standards and are completely different.
DFW alone sprawls out over 9,200 square miles (23,827.9 square kilometers) which i'm sure takes up over half the land area of the Netherlands alone if it were to be placed there.
Nobody actually lives in the "city" "downtown" "urban area" what makes up most of Dallas is suburbs downtown literally represents less than 1% of the rest of greater Dallas even in city limits which is suburbs, surrounded by the other suburbs of Dallas that aren't in city limits.
@@blackhole9961 There's like 25 freeways in DFW, not all are needed
@@AVeryRandomPerson i don’t think you know what sunbelt cities are like
Haven't been back across to that side of the mountains since I moved back..... I'm sure a whole lot (besides the Viaduct) will look a lot different to me! 15 years since I crossed the Cascades, 25 years since I lived in Seattle itself......
Imagine if Portland had another white, male, conservative Republican governor.
I see alot of places in the bay area i played as CJ.
GTA SA!
Excellent video!!
Interstate act was a very good piece of legislation for the US as a whole, but the engineers and legislators got way too lost in the sauce. Not every traffic solution has to be a new highway. It's ridiculous, at some point you have to take a step back and see where it all went wrong.
It depends also the only one that was a true removal was San Francisco:
Portland still has I5 on the other side of the removed freeway so that's why north south traffic wasn't impacted much
Seattle as you said replaced the viaduct with a tunnel.
San Franciscos freeway was useless, it didn't really go anywhere besides down town and it didn't nicely connect with the interstate system thus removing it wasn't a big deal. However some highways greenies want to remove like I5 in Portland and I70 in Denver will cause MASSIVE disruption if they are removed since they are major arteries not only for the city but for the entire nation.
I5 in Portland should get torn down. Turn it into a surface boulevard. Rename I-405 to I-5. If people are going INTO portland they will be on a surface street. If they are going through/around portland they can take the 405 or 205
@@adamt195 Both 405 and I-5 should really be torn down and replaced with boulevards, and instead build a westside bypass freeway to complete the ring loop around the outskirts of the city with 205. Like most European cities have with their ring freeways, while having no freeways at all through the heart of the city. Then route I-5 through one of the ring halves (probably the westside bypass as it would likely be built further from the current urban area than 205 is. Then continue to use the urban growth boundary to restrict new suburban development and sprawl along the new westside bypass, ensuring that it doesn't accelerate suburban sprawl.
@@NatureShy I'm not from Portland, so I cant say for certain, but I do agree it would be great to do both. The interesting dynamic of the 405 is that its sunken for the most part, and doesn't interrupt the city grid. A surface boulevard would some major restructuring of the one way directions downtown, b/c 13th and 14th go the opposite directions of the highway. The whole area is a mess. The best thing to do now is just start removing the on/off ramps. And then maybe cap it with buildings through downtown. Route 26 can flow into Clay and Market Streets. And where 26 and 405 intersection could just be an intersection or maybe a roundabout.
As for rerouting it on the west. Thats even more tricky. The most realistic routes that avoid the UGB could mean cutting through lots of farms. I initally thought something like splitting the gap between Cornelius and Hillsboro, but maybe at Metzger, I-5 could turn left on 217, go through Beaverton to Route 26, go northwest to Cornelius Pass Rd and then tunnel through the mountains near Folkenberg, go over Sauvie Island and rejoin I-5 near Ridgefield or Woodland. That would exacerbate all the sprawl around Ridgefield though.
I was in Seattle during the 3-week closure, and it was the worst traffic I've ever experienced in any major city in my life (including LA, NY, SF, Miami, and more). It was absolutely impossible to drive anywhere. I'm not saying that removing freeways is a bad idea - I generally support it - but if there are no alternative options then it doesn't work. Seattle has terrible public transit, so until they expand it, they can't afford to close any more highways.
Absolutely. The City must have at least two, super reliable public transport systems with a very regular timetable. First and foremost. Build it then they will come. Then reduce the roads for cars. London UK did this with their already in place Tube,train and Bus system, then and only then they applied a congestion charge (fee) on all cars entering the London CBD during peak times. This cured Londons traffic congestion overnight. I totally agree with you darkwood there must be an alternative transport option.
I live here and you are grossly exaggerating. It was fine. But....whiners gonna whine. 🙄
In each example he failed to mention that the section of highway removed is accompanied by the construction of an equivalent new route.
I was in Seattle when the freeway was coming down and we could walk home faster than driving home. We walked from Pike place all the way to the 5 and got an Uber there lol. Worth it
Mentioned that their where less trips and more people used bikes. How did this effect the local economy? Did more merchants see less costumers? did those costumers buy less because they had to bike it home?
In general, local economy tend to benefit from an increase of bicyclists. That being said, I don't know if this was the case for this specific example.
well as a bycyclist.. i just buy more food on sideway because it easy to stop and buy... weird... so economy got better
@@ramiqcom I find that it's much easier to make impulse purchases when I'm cycling for this reason. It's much easier to stop at a shop somewhere than if you're driving.
Walk-in traffic is a good thing for downtowns. This should not really be an issue. People will always need to buy things, it may just change from the big department store along the 8 lane highway. The small mom and pop will do well. Small businesses in general.
Well depends on the city’ location. Cities in the gulf coast like Houston that are prone to get hit by hurricanes need freeways for evacuation
Ya but look wut happened when Rita was going to hit.
How can freeways be useful when they get congested so easily? America should get some inspiration from Naples, Italy for that matter. Naples is built on an active volcano called Mount Vesuvius. At the same time it's a typical southern Italian city with extremely narrow streets. How the hell do you evacuate such a city without getting Pompeii II.nullus? Buses and trains. I know America hates passenger trains, but buses can do the job as well.
a train can move waay more people fast tho
I was in San Fran in 91 it was crazy my aunt almost drove off one of the on ramps to no where
Great Vid, Awesome Channel. Liked and Subbed!
Would love to see the Cross Bronx Expressway removed. Too bad you can't bring back the neighborhoods that were destroyed in its construction.
You can't remove it, I95 is the busiest interstate in the nation and removing the Cross Bronx will only add more traffic onto NYCs other congested highways.
You can't remove the Cross Bronx Expressway ANYWAY because most of it sits in an open-cut most of the way AND part of I-95 [despite rebuilt neighborhoods] as mentioned, except at parts where it's elevated for a little more than a mile (from Webster Avenue to 3 Avenue [the old 3 Avenue elevated train got a glimpse before its removal], then from Sheridan Expressway/895 [now Boulevard as this was recently transformed into a wide-opened major street so the surrounding neighborhood can access Bronx River and Starlight Parks] to Bronx River Parkway, and finally the access ramps with Bruckner Expressway/278 to the local streets below near the Whitestone Bridge and Hutchinson River Parkway/partial 678 known as Bruckner Interchange); believe me I know the highways here in NYC very well: most of them were built by "urban racist" Robert Moses (d 1981) who probably finally got beat up by Jackie Robinson (d.1972) because the still dangerously surfaced and curvetured Interborough Parkway, which goes through The Cemetery of The Evergreens in Brooklyn and Queens was named after him as a way to make up for all the racism dealt with in spite of making history in baseball; The Parkways heading towards Jones Beach were made with low overpasses to keep black people [and rented charter buses] from enjoying a day at the beach-true fact; meanwhile Cross Bronx/95, Bruckner/278 and 95, and Long Island/495 'Expressways' got their start as major surface roadways/thoroughfares like The Grand Concourse (formally called Mott Avenue, later on known as 'the road to nowhere' before finally connecting with Mosholu Parkway on its northern axis with Major Deegan/87 on its southern axis which forms part of NY State Throughway) and Queens Boulevard; Brooklyn still has its major surface roadways/thoroughfares (Eastern Parkway, Ocean Parkway, Kings Highway, Belt Parkway-when first created, the original name would have been called Circumferential Parkway: say this 5-10X-ha,ha) in spite of Brooklyn-Queens and Gowanus/all 278 Expressways, and even Staten Island banned highways for nature's sake: The Greenbelt, but West Shore Expressway/440 was built mostly serving the growing Industrial area by the same name, while the Staten Island Expressway/278 links Goethals and Verrazzano Narrows Bridges with the Willowbrook-now Martin Luther King Jr- Expressway/upper 440 linking Bayonne NJ; Parkways aren't bad because [despite moments where some commercial vehicles try to sneak their way in] they are scenic, it's the Expressways that are bad because of all the commercial and sadfully urban disintegration traffic to/from the city-n-suburbs while public transportation got a bad reputation during the postwar to present years, even after rebuilts; there ARE train lines that run in the middle of these expressways and freeways to 'remind' cardrivers a subtle hint, especially also in foreign country cities; Interstate Highways were created to alleviate traffic from US and State Highways going through towns and villages, but in recent times the reverse reigns because everybody nowadays is in a hurry: patience is expensive but waiting is costly; poor planning is the cause of last minute concrete matters.
They widened 45 south of Houston. At first it was a dream. But soon became just as congested as before. My wish is sky high fuel prices. Force people to stay home. With amazon and streaming services there is no need for all these people to be out driving around all the time. Where are they even going? Dropping their opioid script off to their local dealer for rent money is my best guess.
The 405 project north of Santa Monica is no better
Galveston
Harbour Drive was literally replaced by I-5, which was a brand new and more efficient highway through the city. They didn't actually remove any net freeway lanes.
Funny enough, there was also a major freeway closure in Portland three years ago. It was similar to the example you used for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Two weeks where everyone expected the worst congestion ever...
Spoiler: it wasn't that bad. That is because a lot of people just took vacation time during then or companies let people work from home (including mine). That seems like a much better, more topical solution than tearing down freeways.
Yeah the Harbor drive example hurt his argument. It was replaced by I-5 and 405. Traffic isn’t great here but I’m pretty good avoiding certain routes at certain times and fortunate to usually be able to move my clients appointment times throughout the day accordingly. I feel bad for the 9-5 crowd I see stopped on sunset/5/Banfield five days a week
San Francisco's former freeway the Embarcadero Freeway was former I-480 CA. In the past, they shouldn't have built that. Some people don't want to lose their homes nor jobs.
Y'all hate highways but y'all use them everyday -___-
It’s like the rest of the country doesn’t exist? Milwaukee did the same thing. But they left the self-righteous attitude for the West Coast.
More than likely an economical reason, more expensive to fly to your shit hole city from wherever grist is located
San Francisco also tore down the feeder ramps to the Central Freeway in the Mission district. The resulting parkway probably tripled the property values which had been severely held back by the double decker concrete monstrosity. I predicted carmageddon and it never really happened. The level of traffic suck is still up around a 9.
Yes. Great video. More topics like this. Glad I subscribed.
North America could really learn a thing on two from cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Focus on better bicycle infrastructure rather than more freeways and car lanes. /European city planner
I want expanded bicycle infrastructure in Chicago, but I'm not going to use it in February.
@@cataginandtonic people do it in finland all the time. the cold is not the issue propper snow removal is
what happens when there's no freeway? well housing is gonna be more expensive (think SF or NYC), higher cost of deliver -> higher groceries, food, necessities cost, loss of middle class due to loss of jobs that require more than a 100sf office (anything else but desk work), unreliable utilities (imagine how long it takes to fix power line if it is underground and has to be dug up to get to it), longer recovery time when disaster strikes.. etc.
yall live in a realist world with no expectation of realities or other people lives.
exept thoose are not issues in europe nor were they issues before the suburban experiment
"If left to their own devices traffic engineers will always build new jersey"
Some guy, who gets quoted alot.
This guy is a straight buddy
So easy for someone with no Civil engineer degree or experience to talk about urban design who only looks at pros not consider any cons.
i know right.. im a civil engineer and the video plus the comments here got me so cringy.. these folks live in a bubble.. they have no consideration for housing cost.. they have no concept about easement for utilities, drainage.. etc (for those that dont know, road is also "house" for utilities like your highspeed fiber optics, power line, sewage and water pipes..etc)
@@KG-du5rr Engineers. Heh.
Closing freeways in downtowns MIGHT work if the city has excellent public transportation like Seattle or San Fran. Try that in a place like Atlanta or Nashville(which has virtually NO public transit) and it simply WILL NOT WORK.
Yep you are right
i been to seattle for the first time in sep 2019 from melbourne and never saw this ugly double decker freeway! Looks a lot nicer without the ugly thing
I remember hearing that Detroit was thinking about taking out a freeway.
This video is very interesting, however I thought it was also interesting that it had no mention as to the added value of more people making trips. The video seemed to represent reduced number of trips in a positive light, as if it was good that more people stayed at home. Personally this seems like a major loss to me as the more people that stay at home the less they support their local economy. Sure, less traffic. But if no one goes anywhere than no one spends money at restaurants and stores and stuff.
Adding another lane may add more traffic to balance it out, but overall more people will be commuting and therefore contributing to the local economy at all times.
In other words, having traffic problems decrease is not the only thing a city needs. It also needs a population willing to be mobile in order to have a robust economy. Also, having the option to travel on a high-traffic road is sometimes better than having no viable option to arrive somewhere at all.
There was no decline in CBD retail revenues. It seems to only deter non-essential 'frivolous' trips that could either be avoided or made using public transport, bikes or walking.
@@Bertie_Ahern Actually, there was. It only affected a community of color, so it always gets glossed over by racists who can spread these lies because it doesn't fit their ideology.
People didnt have other ways to get around in Seattle during those 3 weeks of hell. There was constant traffic in all surface streets spread out thru every hour of the day. This kid is an academic theoretician who has no practical experience in the world he is talking about. I dare this kid ask this question to a homeless person living under one.
The example he gave with enlarging a road, having more cars and the same amount of trafic is a perfect example of theory vs practice. In thery, it is ture, but in practice, people need to get places. One more lane means more cars get through per unit of time, which means more poeple reach their destination. We aren't saving the world by preventing people from travelling. This actually has a negative impact on the economics of the city too... If people are not willing to travel to their destination because "tRaFiC iS ThE sAmE eVeN iF yOu AdD LaNeS", well that hurts businesses.
@@ts9749 i doubt that, here in Germany we rarely have anything like a freeway and people still get around perfectly fine.
I live near (30km) and work in a 200k inhabitants city and personaly rather travel by rail because i can actually use my time (reading/sleeping/working) instead having to pay attention to the road.
@@martinum4 The thing is you live in Germany, where distances are still relatively close. In North America, it is practically impossible to not drive.
@@ts9749 how long (as distance, not time) is your daily commute? My boss travels around 70km oneway per train daily, thats about 44 miles.
Compared to king county (after all this is what the Video is about Seattle) our region even has less inhabitants per surface unit (405 per km² vs. 300 per km²), europe is not more dense everywhere...
@@martinum4 You make a fair point about population density, but that is mostly the case in smaller towns. I live in the greater Montreal area and my daily commute is about 30 km. Sadly, where I live, there are no trains easily accessible, though I would prefer that option.
fantastic video!!