Highway Engineering Madness: 10 Waterfront Freeways That Need to Go (North America Edition)
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- čas přidán 29. 11. 2022
- Another one for all you Cities Skylines players! From a highway engineering perspective, siting freeways along waterfronts and riverfronts just makes sense: shorelines are typically flat, requiring no structures or tunnels, and the natural barriers of a river, lake or ocean means fewer intersecting conflicts. It's a highway engineer's dream.
But traffic engineering doesn't always (or usually) take account of competing objectives we might have for waterfronts, like active and recreational uses or dense mixed-use development.
So today we're going to look at the ten most egregious examples of misguided freeway siting and waterfront dereliction in North America, with MANY dishonorable mentions along the way. ANd, if you're like me, you're going to want to rinse your eyes out with bleach after this one. I apologize/you're welcome.
Featured freeways (in no particular order)
Gardiner Expressway (Toronto)
I-278/Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) (Brooklyn Heights)
I-5 (Portland)
Storrow Drive (Boston)
I-5 (Sacramento)
I-787 (Albany)
I-64 (Louisville)
I-76 (Philadelphia)
I-95 (Philly)
I-5 (San Diego)
I-705 (Tacoma)
FDR Drive (New York)
I-190 (Buffalo)
I-580 (Berkeley / East Bay)
I-376 (Pittsburgh)
Lake Shore Drive (Chicago)
I-91 (Hartford)
I-293 (Manchester)
I-25 (Denver)
Hwy 315 (Columbus)
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As a Chicagoan, I've progressively come to identify LSD as a horrendous sore. When I owned a car, I was initially enamored by how beautiful of a drive it was, especially on the north side, but I quickly got annoyed with slow travel times and traffic. There's a bizarre stoplight on the north side almost immediately after a near 90-degree turn (even despite the drive lacking the infamous 's-bend' for decades now), and every single time I've driven that segment I've felt like I've narrowly missed a wreck. It doesn't help that people drive 70 mph even though the posted speed limit is like 45mph.
Outside of a car, all the glorious green space along the lake is marred by noise and air pollution, and frequently you have to walk a half a mile to get to the nearest bridge or tunnel. After rush hour, residents are kept up all night by drag racing cars. I've tried to go on walks with friends on the lovely paths by the lake, and often we have to shout at each other due to the noise. On multiple occasions I've seen cars that have flown off the road over concrete barriers.
If there must be a road, make it a two-lane tunnel underground with a new L line, please. So sick of our cities designed for cars instead of people.
lakefront trail rocks, but LSD takes so much potential away from it. Bothers me so much how people have come to embrace it in Chicago.
IMO the bigger crime in Chicago is how wide Wacker Drive remains in one of the most pedestrian heavy portions of the city. The Riverwalk is nice, but segmented far too much; so when you DO pop back up - Wacker is just... so much wider and less protected than makes sense for a roadway that already has a dedicated below grade service street. Especially East of Michigan Ave. - where the top level could honestly possibly be removed entirely without impacting traffic significantly. Heck, the width of the thing between LaSalle and Michigan is an abomination given how pedestrian dense the area is.
Agreed on LSD though - last time I visited, I walked from my hotel north of the river to the museum campus and was shocked to find that the only connection from the north side riverwalk to the walking/biking path East of LSD was via surface streets all the way up by Navy Pier.
I totally agree! LSD should be entirely closed and made into a park and new L line. Also Wacker in the Loop should be underground only.
@@tedschmiedeler1336 I think the biggest thing taking away potential is the continued stupidity of both bikers and pedestrians on the lakefront trail. Would love to see annoying speed bumps or something similar to keep the bike path and pedestrian paths separate and safe. My wife and I used to walk the path a few times per week but I'm not taking my 2 year old on the path lest a biker going 30mph blast him over
Completely agree. I'd wonder if it would make more sense to convert LSD into a bus-only facility, since I'd imagine making it a train line might be way too pricey for the city. In my mind it's a beautiful Euro-style grassy two-lane affair, but who knows. I live just north of that horrible traffic light you mentioned, and the intersection is obviously appalling at the pedestrian level; having basically an expanded 147/151 bus with increased frequency and capacity running down LSD would be life-changing for anybody close to the shore.
The second worst thing about lake shore drive is talking to people who are convinced that the city will crumble without it.
Chicago needs LSD to function! /s
Lake Shore drive is a place where suburbanites can go into the city and don’t have to interact with the city beyond their cars.
It is necessary for tourists or people from the suburbs to have an easy way in and out of the city.
@@LoneWoIfPack19 Metra can do the same
@@LoneWoIfPack19 That's what the L and O'Hare are for.
You should do "build a city" series whenever you pick a smaller city with the potential to be a great place to live and how you would build it out
Would be built on rock and roll?
I like this idea. Because the current landscape is flawed by design
yeah make him play city skylines
I lived near NYC for 65 years. East River Drive skirts the Upper East Side of Manhattan, so there’s no alternate route for it! In a perfect world there’d be public transportation into cities and and all suburbanites would use mass transit and only commercial vehicles would be on the streets but Big Oil, Big Auto and Big Tire block this. Lake Shore Drive the same deal.
I love this idea. Two or three cities where I grew up are slowly merging, and it's all a car dependant nightmare. They'll be as bad off as DFW in a decade. If they put in some good light rail now, they could avoid an absolute cluster later on. It could be a paradise! But they're not talking about it at all yet.
Chicagoan here: About the only thing I'd keep with Lake Shore Drive is the numerous express buses that use it. I think it would be way better if it was narrowed and turned into an exclusive bus way for express routes that oftentimes (when traffic is low) get you to the loop faster than taking the L.
Although by the time you're shrinking it to two lanes and making it bus only, it might be worth considering a tram with grass between the tracks.
I am also a chicagoen much of the traffic comming from the north has no way of getting down town through the north side of chicago without a lof of noise polution and so on... .
I feel like a ribin of highway in the lake the far north side to replace trafic on Sharidan Road as well as stacking or tunneling much of the north side.
@@traveller23e I wish, but the USA is allergic to such sensible transit solutions...
Agree
I think it should be converted into a light rail line. That would be amazing.
I think one thing you forgot to mention: waterfronts were actually not desirable places to be/live in the past because they were full of existing shipping activity and ports, which weren't pleasant to be around. That's why you also see railroads along them (like the Tacoma one at 1:50) as that was often the cheapest place to build railroads and then highways. Now, they are desirable places to be as cities don't really have individual ports, or if they do they're further up/downstream so they are more pleasant places to be.
Yeah, today’s city planners only hate on thing more than yesterday’s city planners.
Houston. 😂🤣😂
Will also need to consider sea level rising and restoration of wetlands/drainage FIRST before tearing down and putting in housing.
This in particular. Despite all we do to keep waterfront of all types static and where we want them, mother nature will get prissy and rearrange things to suit herself. Best to leave some room for that.
When I was growing up the area down by the water in Santa Barbara was the wrong side of the tracks with low-rent SROs. Now that area is seaside resorts for the rich and famous
They called it the Tacoma aroma for a reason
Here's the lowdown on Toronto's Gardiner Expressway. In the 1950s when it was started, during Toronto's short lived urban highway boom, The urban portion of the Gardiner was 100% industrial due to the Port of Toronto and the neighbouring CN rail corridor and massive yard. The construction of the Gardiner coincided with CN moving it's mainline just north of the city (eventually the old ROW was purchased by GO Transit). Fast forward to recent years and the Gardiner is crumbling and requires massive investment to repair, and the waterfront is now prime real estate. In 2015 city council voted 24-21 against tearing the least used eastern portion. Surprise surprise, 100% of the urban councillors voted to tear it down and 100% of the suburban ones voted to reinvest in it. This political imbalance has been forced and reinforced on urban Toronto for decades by Conservative Premiers of Ontario. Cities don't have any constitutional power in Canada, only what provinces delegate to them, so they are free to mess with city politics. A small eastern portion of the Gardiner was removed this summer because it was the least used and necessary for the reconstruction of a bridge as part of the re-naturalization of the Don River (an amazing project worth checking out).
To add on, Toronto used to be a way smaller city, but was merged with neighbouring cities as a cost saving measure by the provincial government. One consequence of that is that suburbs have way more power and say in the city of Toronto politics then they would have otherwise.
I count at least 3 times the power of Old Toronto was diluted. The most recent was a few years ago when Conservative Premier Doug Ford drastically reduced he number of city councillors, reducing the percentage of Old Toronto councillors. Before that in the 1990's Conversative Premier Mike Harris amalgamated Toronto with its suburbs, flipping the balance of Toronto council to the suburbs. Before that Metro Toronto existed, which had power over metro area issues, but not over all aspects of old Toronto. It was originally tilted towards the more populated, older, more urban townships, but that changed when they were amalgamated into the City of Toronto in 1967 by Conservative Premier John Robarts, reducing the number of urban votes on Metro Council.
@@Droxal Merged as a way to move power away from urban minded folk and toward car minded folk you mean. You don't save money in your city by attaching yourself to suburban leeches.
@@davieee1168 he's a Liberal which is to say a centrist
Another sad fact is that the construction of the Gardiner also resulted in the disconnect between High Park and Parkdale and the destruction of Sunnyside Park. Parkdale was an affluent neighborhood prior to this and is only recently slowly being revitalized
I lived in France 25 years ago, and visited Paris multiple times back then. When my wife and I went there this past September, I was delighted to see that they had made the streets along the Seine much less accommodating to vehicular traffic, and there was a noticeable increase in bicycle and pedestrian activity. :)
France, however, has some boulevard motorways too, e.g. M6/M7 Lyon, and I guess some of the autoroutes connecting Paris with the rest of France are boulevard ones as well (yup, first kilometres of A4 from Boulevard Peripherique are by a river). Anyway, Europe generally does the job better in this matter.
Also the country where I live (Poland) has a boulevard expressway (kind of) in the capital city (namely Wisłostrada in Warsaw), and it sucks with its amount of traffic and destruction of the view from the western Vistula river shore. However, European commies had different priorities when projecting the roads... :D
@@RooiGevaar19 there are long term projects for downgrading the m6/m7 into a classic at-grade boulevard. As usual, some are predicting chaos etc. but with already 3 by pass on the east, we need not to build a fourth one on the west!
You should look at Glasgow as an example of a European city that adopts American urban planning, it’s been featured in so many films as a stand in for NYC or Philly. We’ve got a waterfront freeway of our own - the Clydeside Expressway - and it’s a complete carbuncle that deserves to go!
yup, the the fact they even listed the kingston bridge, I just....
Washington, Tyne & Wear asks Clydeside Expressway if it wants a date?
Edit* I should also add a whole swathe of Teesside around the A19/Teesside Park whether north facing to Hartlepool or south facing toward Redcar.
I live in Chicago. When I first moved here I lived in Rogers Park (North of the beginning of LSD) right by the lake and it was amazing. I walked the dog right up to the lake every day and spent time enjoying the lakefront nearly every day. After moving further south, it's been a real bummer having a highway between me and the lake and I don't think most people here realize what a barrier it is. Now I nearly never visit the lakefront and nobody else I know goes there outside of trips to the beach in the summer. Most people here have never lived North of LSD and simply don't know what they're missing. After living a couple of years deeper in the city and spending time in different neighborhoods, it's clear that LSD is really a huge barrier to the lakefront, especially on the South side. It's incredible the amount of pavement near the lakefront south of the loop. Even by Jackson Park, the main lakefront rec area on the south side, there are amazingly few places to cross LSD and the one by Promentory Point is a particularly dilapidated tunnel underneath the drive.
A side note: Lots of people will say that the transit is bad towards the lakefront but there are a lot of buses that go that way and many that even use LSD to run an express to the loop. The capacity on all the lakefront transit is always under a lot of stress, but that's because of the population density along the transit lines and is an issue of its own that is arguably being partially addressed by the CTA already.
For sure. I live in Southloop and I only feel safe biking to the LFT by using the Field Museum tunnel that goes under LSD. Trying to cross topside seems chaotic.
I live on the edge of Jackson Park. Currently, to cross the park and get to the beach I have to cross 16 lanes of traffic (three busy roads/hwys). It is a good example of the wall created by LSD that it will cut the new Obama Center off from the lake shore.
The screengrab I got of people carrying their bikes down the stairs to go through the tunnel under LSD was just chefs kiss for me. I mean are you kidding
Agreed Chicago runs an amazingly solid bus service compared to pretty much any other American city.
wow I just wandered the lakeshore near Oakwood Beach on google streetview and was in disbelief at how empty the park is, and on a beautiful sunny day in June! In Montreal a park like that would be full of thousands of people picnicking on the grass and the air would be thick with barbecue smoke! lol (people in Montreal use parks as their backyards so in the afternoons everyone is having hangouts and beers with their buddies in the park)
Technically, Storrow Drive is there for out-of-town parents of college students to embarrass themselves on September 1st by opening the top of a u-haul like a can of catfood on a low overpass. Outside of that, it's just where people park unwillingly, honk, and yell obscenities at each other.
Also supposedly a faster way to get to the airport
The one great thing from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco was the eventual demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway. It was a horrible event and we will always remember those we lost, but losing that great hulking cement monstrosity and allowing sunshine into the lower part of the city was a gift.
NC is fascinating. We originally never built densely close to waterfronts because our coast is constantly changing and hard to tame. It’s also important to note that while we don’t have any big and impressive bodies of water like the Great Lakes or the Mississippi, we have many smaller rivers that flow from the mountains that are of high water quality. We have tons of groundwater here no matter where you are in the state. Well water was commonly used, especially in the piedmont and the mountains because we have high mineral content and fine clay soil that naturally filters water. As cities (Raleigh, Greensboro, etc.) started to grow in population along freight rail lines, reservoirs became more common, but the reason we have so many reservoirs and lakes today actually has to do with when our state started building infrastructure for electricity. None of our lakes are naturally occurring. Most, like Lake James or Lake Norman, were engineered by Duke Power as hydroelectric projects over a century ago. So none of our major cities are built on our prominent bodies of water because the bodies of water were man-made after the cities were established. Now you just have a lot of suburban developments on Lake Norman, Jordan Lake, etc. because people have figured out living by water can be very nice!
You ever read a title and just know you're going to be in it?
#Chicago checking in.
Chicagoan chiming in.
Lake Shore Drive certainly bothers my urbanist sensibilities, but I also feel like it has a weird romantic appeal to a good number of people. If you're forced into a car-centric lifestyle (which many Chicagoans are, sadly), it is a really cool stretch of road to drive down.
But as someone who has been car-free in Chicago for a decent number of years, I lament how much worse the lakefront experience is due to LSD.
In my experience, those who really like LSD are suburbanites. That land would be worth so much more even just economically, if that road were not there.
It's definitely a trade-off. If LSD didn't exist, I'd probably have to move far out to commute to my job, and that would just contribute more to sprawl. LSD is the only way for me to connect to the expressway.
It's legally supposed to be a "pleasure drive" which is sort of commendable (but not really). And it doesn't even abide by that.
Remove LSD and would become property of the economic and social elites by proxy. At least middle and low income ppl can use it as is.
I think converting it into a boulevard with a high frequency transit option is a good solution. It allows some car usage to remain for those who need it, but also provides a transit alternative to get people out of cars & make the parks more pleasant.
Halifax, NS, where I am from, almost put a freeway along the waterfront in the 1960s. It was stopped and now we have an incredibly vibrant waterfront and boardwalk. All that was built of the freeway was a single interchange, which is currently being demolished and redeveloped into mixed-use and green space.
Glad you mentioned this one Luke! I was going to mention exactly the same thing. I am not from Halifax, but knew about the cancelled plans for the freeway. Major bullet dodged! I cannot imagine what Halifax would be like now with a freeway instead of the great, people friendly waterfront. The naval dockyards necessarily block a lot of the waterfront, but there would have been nothing left if they had build the freeway.
Should do a Top 10 of cities that reverted and show what the difference is like.
Halifax has its own issues but a neutered waterfront ain't one
12:50 The location of many of these cities is determined by the "Fall Line". The Fall Line is the border between the costal plain along the East Coast and the "Piedmont" foothills further inland. At these locations, rivers had rapids and they were the harbours for river shipping in the past. These inland harbours grew into a string of cities in the modern US that stretches for thousands of miles.
Many east coast cities started as mill towns before wide spread steam power and needed the rapids for hydro power for mills and factories.
Well, true, but Raleigh and Charlotte, the two largest cities in NC, aren’t on rivers. Raleigh was intentionally selected away from them because a site for the capital was being chosen during the revolutionary war and people feared the British coming up the rivers. Charlotte was established where it is because it’s at the intersection of Native American trading routes. Set up to take advantage of that trade. Assorted smaller cities I have no idea. It’s certainly a geographical oddity to have none of the states largest cities sited on rivers.
@@granthancock3622 even without being directly on rivers, both Raleigh and Charlotte are close enough to rivers that the army corps of engineers was able to create lakes by damming the rivers to create reservoirs so they’d have drinking water.
The fall line is an awesome phenomenon/concept. Basically anywhere where a shift in transportation mode is required, becomes a likely catalyst for a town/city. But since the fall line hinges on rivers, it's totally counter as an explanation for the lack of rivers in North Carolina's major cities.
None of the named cities are on the fall line.
North Carolinas cities are surrounded by reservoirs, meaning that any water which could be making a river is just force into a man made lake. There is one semi major river going through Fayetteville but there is not much development around it. Also there isn't a single major river which gathers most of the water in comparison with other areas. Its actually quite an interesting phenomenon. :)
Although Ashville and Wilmington (albeit neither in the Piedmont) both have pretty significant rivers right near their downtown. The highways and train track around Ashvilles waterfront are kind of a shame. Wilmington though has done an incredible job with waterfront redevelopment!
NC became more populated much more recently than a lot of other regions and at a time that trucking was the dominant mode of transporting goods, so waterways for transport weren't really a factor.
Ohhh is this a TVA thing? I never considered that! TVA has been the answer to so many weird questions.
Idk Wilmington isn’t a major major city but it’s a good sized. The downtown right on the river which often gets flooded when bad hurricanes come through. Wilmington has also done a good job at keeping interstates out of the city also.
There's been some talk of building a River District in Charlotte as some sort of exclave. It'll be on the Catawba between Belmont and the airport. But it's just going to be another suburb with lipstick, probably.
I just visited Duluth MN, and it was disappointing that the whole downtown was separated from the Superior by their freeway. Points to them for capping some of it to make a park, but there's just no great way to get to the lake because of the road.
My grandfather was from Duluth.
There is much talk of dismantling the freeway there. And of course much of the typical pushback from tourists and out-of-towners 🙄.
The Duluth freeway usage is significantly below what planners expected. The state will need to spend close to $500 million to repair it, so there are a lot of folks pushing to remove it instead. I don’t know if they will succeed or not, but I wish them luck! Duluth is a beautiful city & removing that freeway would make it even better!
Yeah I looked at that one for this (and for my earlier video on freeway caps). Not good!
I spent 3 years growing up in West Michigan near Lake Michigan and even I think Lake Superior is too cold to swim in. Tear down the Freeway and use it for ferries and boats.
Chicagoan here! I spent pretty much the whole video wondering if you were going to bring up Lakeshore Drive. 😅
My take: the tunnels under LSD do make it relatively easy to access the lakefront on foot, though using them is decidedly less pleasant than just strolling on foot at grade would be. The real issue with Lakeshore Drive is the noise--it generates constant noise that seriously hampers one's ability to really enjoy the city's otherwise incredible stretch of lakefront parks. There are a few express buses (most notably the 156) that make good use of LSD for fast public transit, though in all honesty the 156 is largely duplicative of red line trains for all but the richest of lakefront property owners, so I'm not sure how many points that should really award it.
If I had to guess, I'd say that demolishing Lakeshore Drive will be a hard sell politically, as many Chicagoans rely on it for daily commuting. We should still totally do it, though, then pump whatever funds that frees up into expanding the L system and running more frequent trains.
Wow! Finally someone mentioning North Carolina’s weirdo absence of city waterfronts!
I live in Charlotte, NC since 2007 and I have always wondered about this. And there’s the pretty sizable Catawba River right next to the city!
Wilmington and Asheville are the only cities I can think of with a waterfront.
Atlanta isn't on a river either. Similar deal. GA and NC share many similarities, except instead of one big city we have five smaller ones.
Most inland North Carolina cities were built along railway lines. This is actually true of much of the southeast, which has only a few major rivers. So they may look random if you are expecting waterfronts, but there were reasons.
What is the source of water for those inland cities? Underground water from wells?
@@mowplsu It comes from reservoirs - there were a bunch created in the early to mid 20th century IIRC. At least for the 3 biggest cities in NC (Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro)
@@mowplsu There is enough water supply via surface, reservoirs, and ground water, just not enough for significant navigable waterways.
As a Chicagoan, the Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive really is every bit the barrier that you describe and it’s past time to depave it! I would love to replace it with a green tramway!
It's actually called "The artist formerly known as Lake Shore Drive" now.
Contract it out to the Swiss
My only concern against an LSD light rail is the Illinois funding problem. I can't support it when there are a number of other projects that would help the city more--namely a circumferential route taking advantage of the right of way at Cicero.
Oh I'd love to hear how Americans pronounce "Jean Baptiste Point DuSable" 😂
@@tomslastname5560 Two fun parts: 1. We don't! We just say Lake Shore Drive
2. Anyone who does says it either "zhawn bap-teeste pwahn Dew-saw-ble" (not good at writing phonetics) or "Jeen bap-teeste poynt dew-saw-ble" If the second one was the joke you were looking for
Having lived in North Carolina for a few years, I know that the news almost never talked about the agricultural runoff from hog, turkey, or whatever other animals or plants that they raised. Remember, it was the coast of North Carolina where we learned of the "Red Tide". I have a theory that for most of its history, North Carolina used its waterways as open sewers, so deciding where to build your home, would you rather live in a lush green area, or alongside the open sewer, and the people living in North Carolina spoke with their pocketbooks.
I think this is just how most cities operated in the up until the environmental movement of the late 1900s. All the old folks have stories of the mutated fish that comes from the rivers of the city and why you should never swim in them.
Almost everywhere used waterways as open sewers for most of history.
Boston mentioned! 🎉🎉🎉
As a BU alum, the part of campus right next to Storrow Drive is called the "BU Beach", not because it's by the water, but because the sound of highway traffic supposedly sounds like ocean waves (if you close your eyes)
As someone who has been going on I-25 in Denver for well over a decade, I can say I had no clue it went by a river.
Exactly. It hides the river.
I guess you don't ever get off I-25. It's obvious if you get off the freeway and travel other roads. But then, I-25 doesn't always follow the Platte through the Denver metro area, which isn't much of a river, anyway.
Glad to see Storrow Drive make the list. It's a DCR (Dept of Cars and Roads erm I mean Dept of Conservation and Recreation) parkway so the State of MA has full control over its use. Even better there are solid alternatives like multi subway and commuter rail lines and EVEN AN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY like i90 right next to it. The Esplanade/Paul Dudley Bike Path runs next to it but it gets extremely narrow (8 ft or less) at times due to all the roadways there. There's also Memorial Drive on the Cambridge side which should really get a dishonorable mention too.
I also like i293 in Manchester, since i93 runs as an alternative right there. You could easily truncate i293 at the 101/Everett Turnpike interchange and free up a shit ton of land for recreation and transit use.
At lest Mem drive is closed on sunday right? 😆
@@seantroy3172 yeah during the warmer months. I'd prefer transit or a mix of transit/pedestrian/cycling infrastructure instead of a 4+ lane roadway blocking easy access to the river front though.
One particularly nasty aspect of Storrow Drive is that it is named after Helen and James Storrow, who helped make possible a green space along the Charles. After James died, Helen fought on against the construction of the highway, which she successfully prevented until her death in the 1940s. Naming the highway after the people whose vision it violated is just offensive.
i live in Allston, and Storrow Drive is how you get around here and into Cambridge or further east. the highway in cambridge is also extremely useful to local people. cities are crowded and actually need roads, even multiple roads going to similar places, so stuff like ambulances can get around and people don't die stuck in traffic.
@@perfectallycromulent I don't think anyone is saying cities don't need roads, but there are ways to build better roads and infrastructure that can make cities healthier and happier for everyone. A good transit network can reduce stress on those roads, and offering people easy and safe access to waterfront can increase the attractiveness and enjoyment of these areas.
As a Chicago resident, Lake Shore Drive (LSD) presents with a love-hate relationship for me. I run in the park every day and avoid the pathways nearest LSD, although there are constricted sections that are right along LSD and you can't avoid running close to LSD and are rather unpleasant. The tunnels under LSD are pretty cool places for me. I've been through all of them and rather like them. They're placed at about 1/2 mile intervals. Some have cool entryway artworks and paintings. Over the many years I've been going through them, I've never known them to be dangerous.
What I do love about LSD, are the all-day express buses that I use to go to the Loop. I rarely use the L because I can get to the Loop in 15 min on the express bus w/o traffic. They run until late at night. So, I love LSD for that convenience but hate it for taking so much park space. The city is thinking of re-designing LSD with dedicated express BRT lanes and perhaps addl infill to add park land. In beautiful Jackson Park, the presence of LSD is especially egregious as it presents as a near continuous wall right up against the water.
I do remember, when I was a kid in CA, and my Dad would use the Embarcadero Frwy to get into Chinatown or North Beach quickly. I remember that is was a bleak freeway to be on. The lower deck was dark and gloomy. I didn't even know what the Ferry Bldg looked like until the 90s when they tore the freeway down. It was only then that I realized just how the city opened up after it came down. My whole life, the city was cut off and shunned the Bay, now The Embarcadero, and especially the Ferry Bldg, is a jewel of the city.
The cities of NC are located along the Fall Line. This is where hard rock gives way to soft soil and, as a consequence, as far as water borne freight can go. Most of NC's large cities are located along this line. Cities were located along the Fall Line for the water mills, transportation facilities, and commerce. There is a line of cities located along the line from DC to Atlanta.
I love how, with the dishonorable mentions, you've listed basically half of the major cities in the U.S. lol. As a current Chicago resident and a Pittsburgh native, I completely agree. Honestly, I don't know how the city would be able to redirect the traffic cause 90/94 is ALWAYS a nightmare and driving downtown from Rogers Park would take at least twice as long going through neighborhoods. Still, would love to try and figure it out!
See also: Cleveland, Ohio. The Shoreway (an east/west highway) cuts off downtown from the lake. Huge missed opportunity for tourism.
There is currently a proposal to turn the Shoreway into a boulevard and add a land bridge connecting Downtown (which sits atop a 60-foot high bluff) to the beach.
Very good point, I've driven along i90 many times and it really is atrocious how it completely cuts of the city from its lake.
Can't mention this without Burke airport smh.
And of course, the decision to build a football stadium right next to the lake. Cleveland is slowly waking up to the tourism/recreational possibilities of Lake Erie, but it will take decades to undo many of the mistakes of the past.
Best part of Storrow Drive is how low the walkways and overpasses over the road are, it’s not uncommon for trucks and moving vans to tear off their roofs trying to drive underneath them, we literally call it “getting Storrowed”
A nice clean can opener
Yup and so many height warnings and devices
As for I-25 in Denver, it followed the railroad right of way from 38th Avenue to Evans Avenue (the railroad the highway followed was abandoned south of Mississippi Avenue). The South Platte River also flooded often until Chatfield Dam was built in 1975, so development in the flood plain was limited.
intersting... I didn't know any of this. good history lesson
Baltimore actually has a great story of freeway revolt, stopping I-83 and I-70 from being extended to connect to I-95 by cutting through the Canton and Fells Point waterfront neighborhoods. One of the lead activists was Barbara Mikulski, our first female senator.
Another video idea, best urban hospitals? There's a newly built hospital near me and while there are protected bike lanes and bus access, it's otherwise in a suburb far from easy access for many. Good hospitals need to balance the need for road use (ambulances) and open space (helipads), with accessibility for patients by mass transit including disability-compatible transit (elevators in stations, etc) and with being near a large population for patients and employees.
I just moved to Chicago last year, and it seems like Lake Shore Drive is a bit of a sacred cow for Chicagoans. It has some pretty great views along it that people love to talk about it, but it's a terribly engineered death trap that completely cuts the city off from the otherwise amazing lakefront. The lakefront is definitely the best part of the city, but the downtown sections are ruined by the fact that you're sandwiched between the water and an 8 lane highway. Chicagoans will not hear any criticism of their beloved highway because of the "epic city views", but it just underscores how the city is totally engineered to be something you drive through instead of actually wanting to be in. If that was a useful thought process, we should just build an interstate through all our national parks. Lincoln Park is gorgeous and would be one of my favorite urban parks in the country if it actually bordered the beach instead of being drowned in road noise and almost completely cut off from the coast. I think LSD started out as a small two lane parkway, but has somehow turned into a giant monstrosity that wrecks one of Chi's best features.
IDOT is planning to rebuild the northern section of LSD over the next decade. One option would convert an existing car lane to bus only, while another option would remove park space to add two more car lanes… be sure to tell your alderman & state rep/senator that you want transit on LSD instead of cars so they can push IDOT in the right direction!
Scenic drive in Red Rock Canyon and the Blue Ridge Parkway prove that Americans aren't afraid to throw a road into a national park.
I get that they cover a lot of land, but when the point is site seeing, it just seems reckless and idiotic. Maybe I could support something on tracks with a mechanism to yield to wild animals.
if you see someone crying when you mention tearing down LSD its because they're the people who are drag racing up and down it at midnight on a friday
Don't forget about Bueller!
LSD exists because of a poor transportation network for cars. It results from 3 major interstate highways coming through Chicago from the Eastern us. 80, 90 and 94. There is no good way to move through the City. Those interstates have insane traffic. LSD makes moving North South tolerable. Years ago in 60s there was a crosstown expressway proposal that would have fixed it. The amount of freight that goes through Chicago .
I have a layover in Chicago when I take the train to my hometown to visit family. Lake Shore Drive absolutely floored me when I first encountered it in Grant Park. In one of the most well-planned cities on the continent, it is pretty baffling, though I have heard about plans to give it a road diet and return it to its roots as a pleasure drive.
A few years back, the Greensboro NC planning dept. was looking for ways to liven up their downtown, so they sen t a delegation to visit Chattanooga, TN. When I heard about this, I joked that the number one recommendation they would come back with would be to re-route a rive through downtown Greensboro. All joking aside, upland North Carolina (i.e. beyond the navigable fall line) doesn't have many sizable rivers. There are lots of smaller waterways and creeks, but nothing like the large rivers found up north or in the mid-west.
Lived right off Lake Shore Drive for a few years, near the north end by Foster Ave. I used to walk to the shore all the time, no problem. Some factors that mitigate the yuck: Yes, I did have to walk under the tunnel, but once you cross under, you get this glorious wide expanse of beautiful lush green fields and trees. There was a dog beach there, and lots of other beaches all the way to downtown. The pedestrian/bike path gets crowded at times, but it goes nowhere near the road. It would be nice if they widened it or added another one. Also worth noting that freight trucks aren't allowed on LSD, and this probably keeps pollution lower?
Funny thing is that most of those locations, including Chicago, the highways are close to, but not on the river bank, and the actual river banks are filled with good uses, especially in Chicago where there's a great trail, marinas, piers, parkland, and even a golf course.
It almost makes it worse. Riding your bike down the Lake Shore trail in Chicago when it's only a few feet from a giant freeway is so loud and bad for your lungs. It's like the city planners were designing Chicago specifically to maximize particulate matter inhalation.
I don't know about Chicago, but in Toronto nearly all the land lakeward of the expressway is landfill. Many buildings further inland have weird features that make no sense until you realize that's where the waterfront used to be.
@@slavkovalsky1671 Historical context, everything east of Michigan Ave from about Cermak Rd (22nd St) to Oak St was built on landfill as part of the Columbian Exposition. Michigan Ave literally was at the lakefront.
Think that's the biggest point... Much of these sit on landfill, or former warehouses that went into disrepair as river commercial traffic declined.
It was simply the easiest way to add a road without demolishing a swathe of the city.
The reconnecting communities fund removed a freeway in Detroit. I would love to see your analysis on that project- Detroit is sort of a dichotomy. The city is super car centric but also has an award winning River walk and a lot of new walking paths being installed to make the city walkable.
I will be so pumped once it's not possible to take I-375 directly from I-75 to Jefferson Ave! Next step: terminate M-10 (aka "the Lodge" at I-75, and leave Detroit as it always should have been, with no freeways entering the core downtown, and with I-75 at a respectful mile or so inland from the river.
I grew up near Philadelphia, and had figured the combined atrocities of I-76 and I-95 through Philadelphia would have made the main list. It's so dispiriting if you're in the historic area of Center City to have to cross ten lanes of freeway (expressway in Philly jargon) on a concrete deck to get to the waterfront. Philly has a great downtown that is pretty much ruined by the freeways. The only saving grace is that in the 60s PennDOT proposed running expressways along pretty much every waterway in the city www.phillyroads.com/history/expwy-map_1966/
Detroit should have the I 75 numbering follow I 94 and 96 around midtown, so everything between that bypass and water front (the current 75, the route 10 and the 2 little bits that end up in downtown waterfront) could be torn down into multimodal arterial roads, with midtown reconstructed entirely (it's just decaying skngle family homes spaces by empty lots that are sometimes used to grow crops) to higher medium density multi - use, districts (that would be like 6 superblocks) with some having social mixity. Being like sizable villages, with each its own bakery, pharmacy, school and other everyday things. Would see the city suddenly live again.
@@Spido68_the_spectator actually, that’s pretty much the cities master plan right now. IDK if the state and feds will go with tearing out the highways, but the neighborhoods idea is pretty similar to what the city is already encouraging in terms of development.
@@jacobbwalters8133 a giant reconstruction would bring great stimulus, with thousands required to work.
Close suburbs could follow suit to become medium density
I literally worked on the East Hartford side of the very section of river you were talking about *and* I have season tickets to LSU games so I figured I should finally comment. You are right about the stadium, it just happens to make staggering amounts of money; football pedigree plus, "The South". Between seats ranging from $800ish to over $3,000 apiece per season, concessions, paid parking, etcetera, it's absurd. Something like 100+ Baton Rouge police are there every game absolutely ruining traffic to make everyone miserable. Most free and paid parking is a 15-20 minute walk to the stadium, it can take 2+ hours to get to the interstate (I-10 Westbound, the one right next to the stadium) and if you're extra lucky they'll literally trap everyone in a single parking lot for over an hour without letting anyone leave. Love your videos and snark.
Glad to see albany get a mention here, massive interchange in downtown for a bridge to nowhere. The state has at least started looking at alternatives for the highway so maybe it'll be gone before I am.
I appreciate the "shout-out" to Hamilton. Ever since I moved here in 2015 the lack of water access because of the Q has always been a headscratcher for me
My metro area is along the Mississippi river and our turn of the century downtown was completely destroyed to make a 4 lane, 40 mph stroad right along the river. Chicago at least put a contiguous park next to the lake, I wish my area would have done the same.
I grew up near Hartford and used that interchange constantly. The entire 91/84 viaduct laid such compounding hurt onto the city, and splits the region east/west in a way that I don’t think gets discussed much. A lot of big money projects in the city are lined up along either freeway, making it even easier to go to the Science Center/Convention Center/Baseball Stadium and want to leave as soon as possible
I also grew up around Hartford. Three generations of my family lived in the city, my grandma’s childhood home was actually demolished to build 91. It makes me so sad to see the ever declining state of the city. Especially having lived in Worcester the last few years, I’ve seen just how much better a small post-industrial New England city can be. And even woo still is far from perfect! So many wonderful little cities in our region that have been ruined by terrible anti-urbanism, but at the end of the day all of these places have such great bones to be urbanist wonderlands. Hopefully some day, Hartford will be a lovely place to live again
Another great video but one item you could have added ( and I hope you read this): beyond taking out lovely green space connecting Back Bay and BU to the river, when they built Storrow Drive they installed an at-and-above-grade interchange smack in the middle of Charlesgate Park, a flood control park and part of the Emerald Necklace designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Yes, THAT Olmstead. They destroyed an Olmstead Park for a highway interchange into the Fenway. Hardly punishments enough for such an intergenerational crime.
I would love an entire video about the Alaskan Viaduct in Seattle! the entire removal and remodeling project was a headache for us in Seattle. Stacked freeways have always interested me the same way that true crime interests many.
And then the city decided that it needed the stroadiest of stroads to replace the missing viaduct, which means the area will never reach the true potential. so sad.
I think CityBeautiful did a vid on the Alaskan Viaduct. It might not cover everything you're looking for though.
@@hancin993 Not really. There are way worse stroads than that one.
I'll be back in Seattle one or two times next year, maybe it's a good time to do that video!
@@CityNerd and maybe coincided with a mention of why Pike Place road at Pike Place Market isn't pedestrian only or perhaps delivery vehicles only.
Lake Shore Drive bums me out, especially with there being such a nice bike trail running right alongside it. And the one "non-freeway" stretch you mentioned near Millennium Park is super dangerous as there's lots of people trying to cross and drivers frequently run red lights. Right now the only future plan for it is to MAYBE convert one lane to a bus lane, if advocates fight hard enough, which is a step in the right direction but would still leave a lot to be desired. Oh and they're building a lot more pedestrian bridges over it on the South Side, at what I imagine is an enormous cost versus just removing the highway. The South Side stretch especially is way overbuilt for the amount of traffic it gets. But lots of people here seem to love the highway, as it is a really pretty drive. It'd still be just as pretty of a drive as a 4 lane BLVD though, just saying.
if you tried to reduce lanes on the south side I can guarantee there would be an outcry over equity. Also, removing the highway would be an enormous cost vs just bridges.
@@jaredking31 If you’re really suggesting pedestrian bridges on this channel, you’re not gonna have a good response. Bridges would just be a bandaid to an arm long scratch
Having lived in Rio de Janeiro for most of my life, I can point out the Aterro do Flamengo freeway, which is 4-lanes either way and cuts right through one of the city's most beautiful parks. It reminds me a lot of the Chicago situation, in fact.
Similarly, in São Paulo, the city's two main expressways are along the margins of the city's main rivers, and are even called "The Marginals".
Both are worth having a look at!
Wow, very interesting! Rio is definitely on my to-do list for world travel. Any background on why they built the road where they did?
O “avançamento urbano” feito durante a época da ditadura foi realmente uma loucura…eu queria muito poder ver como parecia o Rio nos anos ‘40!
Thank you for putting Sac on here, we have a quiet but slowly growing freeway lid movement for I-5! Fun fact: Its built below the rivers water table so it has water sumps on 24/7
Didn't expect a QEW callout but damn that hit home. Thanks for your hard work, Ray
The QEW in Stoney Creek (Hamilton) is nasty, but it isn't serving as an urban freeway here: it's the main road connection to Niagara Falls and Buffalo from the rest of Ontario. There's always going to be some use for it, no matter how much modal shift to RAIL freight EVER (typo corrected) occurrs because the road it bypasses (the former King's Highway 8) is completely unsuitable to heavy through traffic.
TYPOs CORRECTED
I lived in Chicago for 5 years, and I can count the number of times I went to Lincoln Park on one hand. Also, the amount of people who claimed to love LSD was depressing as hell
I was born in Chicago and as an adult moved back there and lived there for something like nine years and I don’t remember ever seeing LSD as a barrier. I went to the park all the time; rode my bike there took walks there and Lakeshore Drive was just a road. A Larger road that you had a cross at specific points but nonetheless it never stopped me from using the park.
People just can’t imagine a lakeshore without lsd. It’s such a shame, we would be the undisputed #1 waterfront in the us if we could rightsize it.
Yeah LSD is a disgrace but that is a super unpopular opinion here likely due to inertia and not being able to imagine where all the traffic goes. I saw a horrible r/Chicago post saying they can’t get rid of LSD because then everyone will take the red line and the red line is at capacity.
@@jamesedghill3726 Yeah, there are a lot of terrible takes on LSD. They also looked at burying a large section of it but they determined it was too expensive.
@@JineousJ
I'm from an incredibly flat area (low countries levels of flat). Until travelling I only saw mountains in pictures. While I've never been exposed to Lakeshore Drive one could say I'd have a hard time imagining mountains without LSD, the other kind. After reading your comment I imagine someone who has never seen a large, still body of water in person. Someone who "couldn't imagine a lakeshore without LSD".
I grew up walking distance from Lake Shore drive, and I never thought about it back then. It was only once I moved to a different part of Chicago that I realized how bad it was. I remember always having to go through the pedestrian tunnels to access the lake front, but not I just find it insane that it's there. Yes, the downtown section is less unreasonable, but it's still completely stupid and just results in a lot of congestion and pollution in a line up and down the city that doesn't need more of it.
I know it's not in the US but a city you might want to take a look at for a good example of what to do with the Waterfront is Odesa in Ukraine. It looks like they have a pretty sizable Green Belt between the Urban Development and the beach. It is entirely possible that it needs to be cleaned up a little bit but it shows a lot of promise and it seems like a good example of what all cities should be doing with their waterfronts. I'm also not totally sure what kind of shape it's in as a result of the war.
There is a nostalgic joy I get when I am on Lake Shore Drive heading downtown, but it's usually ruined anytime I try to get to the Lakefront Trail when the pedestrian tunnels are flooded during a heavy rain, or any time a car has decided to utilize the cycling/pedestrian paths as their personal detour because the traffic has backed up on LSD, and for some reason there is pavement connecting the two. A number of recent cycling deaths related to negligent/aggressive drivers on LSD near Grant/Millennium also makes it clear that this roadway needs to be deprecated or redesigned for pedestrian and cycling safety. Bury it, cap it, slow it down, whatever... Make it safer for people not in cars.
The bare minimum separation between car space and pedestrian space to me is a wall of boulders. (NY uses them to defend hiking trails from motor vehicles). Cities may choose decorative concrete bollards but personally they are uglier than rocks.
Although i think some provision should exist for emergency vehicles to access these spaces, but a simple security gate would suffice IF you wanted to ensure you could drive an ambulance down the ped path. (I assume this is why its connected by pavement, that or ease of construction but I'm not familiar with the area so I don't know for sure)
Caltrans figured they didn't need to build a freeway in Venice because between the two close airports (local Santa Monica and LAX), I-10 a mile or so north, large Marina del Rey marina, and leaky crude washing up on shore due to natural currents everyone there would have sufficient petroleum exposure regardless.
Surprised you didnt talk about I95 in philly more. They're actively looking to expand it to 10 lanes and it's going to require a complete rework of the 676/95 interchange
I-95 is already just a brutal gash/wall between Center City and the Deleware River. It's really the worst. On the other hand, I-76 is pretty inoffensive as it usually runs about 15-20 feet below grade between the river and Fairmont Park, for the most part.
The Clara Barton parkway in Washington DC should get a mention. A major commuter traffic artery placed alongside a stunningly beautiful part of the Potomac River with rocky promontories, waterfalls and natural attractions that are pretty much inaccessible to residents on the hills above in some of the most attractive parts of the DC area. The defunct C&O canal goes along the river from Georgetown and all the way to Cumberland, MD and back in the 1960s car brained traffic planners wanted to pave it over and turn it into a highway, making the whole river like the Clara Barton section. Thankfully that didn't happen.
I ride my bike through that zoomed in section of river trail in Denver every day. The city and private developers occasionally publish plans to redevelop the riverfront, but we’ll see.
@austindavis5016 Hey fellow rider! I commute the Bear Creek trail and the S Platte as well. Ride safe and I hope to see you out there 👋
Have you seen the river mile project where Eliches currently sits?
A couple of years ago I read that city-dwellers seeing their rivers as something that's supposed to be scenic, is actually fairly new. The example was Kalamazoo, Michigan, whose river in the mid-20th century would run white because of the runoff from paper mills. And so, older buildings in their downtown, face -away- from the river. It's only more recently that office buildings and restaurants have been designed to incorporate the river into their scenery/design.
Like the river that actually burned, near Cleveland Ohio.
It's interesting, and probably related to the National Environmental Policy Act. A lot of the rivers and waterfronts used to be quite a bit more polluted.
@@CityNerd I lived in Cleveland when the river caught fire in 1968 and burned out of control for three days. It was the event that led to the establishment of the EPA during the Nixon administration. (Back when conservatives would, you know, conserve something).
@@bearcubdaycare Yeah. Although that sort of this isn't as rare as one might think. Isn't there a mine in Pennsylvania that's been on fire for decades?
@@andrewdiamond2697 Everything we conserve, Progressives try to ruin! So, if we dont conserve it, you cant ruin it! LOL
I live in Uptown, a neighborhood in the northern part of Chicago. Every once in a while I need to drive south to get to Rt 55 and it amazes me how absurd Lake Shore Drive is. Such beautiful views and the parks along the lake are so attractive yet I'm zipping by at 60 mph in my closed metal box. I envy all those people on bicycles and who walk or jog along the lake shore. LSD seems to have been dropped in, carelessly, from the sky. It would be amazing to transform it into streets and parkways. Maybe one day?
As a non-car owning Chicagoan who lived a block away from the lake for 15 years I never really minded lake shore drive that much until the pandemic. They closed off the entire lakefront east of Lakeshore drive and even if you were on the west side of Lakeshore drive to walk your dog or on your own "short jog" as allowed by the mayor, you could not even see the lake! For several months in 2020 the only way you could see the lake from my lakefront neighborhood was from a highrise building or from a car driving on Lakeshore drive. Obviously not the worst thing about the pandemic but it just felt so counterproductive and unnecessary. Now I enjoy the lakefront farther north where Lakeshore drive doesn't exist - unfortunately neither does the bike path, but at least there's not a highway cutting me off from the best source of natural beauty in the city.
I don't know if I can call myself a Chicagoan exactly, but I do live up on the north side here and absolutely love it (also acknowledging the huge disparities between north and south side, especially in terms of street pleasantness re: car presence). Some of the best transit and walkability out of anywhere I've been in the US (then again, I moved here from Phoenix, so not huge competition).
I live just north of LSD, and those tunnels aren't the *worst* thing ever, IF they were more frequent. I know people who commute by bike specifically from Lakeview to Edgewater, and based on my own experience and what I've heard from others, people kind of treat the pedestrian facilities like an extension of the red line; the tunnels roughly correspond with the train stops, and because of the infrequent permeability of LSD, you're biking from the Lawrence "stop" to the Bryn Mawr "stop."
If LSD could be converted into some kind of integrated transit facility within an expanded lake shore trail (like a tram or bus line) it would do so much for connectivity and accessibility of an asset that's already such a good park. Plus they could get rid of that stupid golf course while they're at it.
The other day I was walking around east midtown and wanted to go look out at the East river from the Manhattan side (I live in Queens and always look at it from the opposite end), as I got to the end of 42nd street, past, ironically, Robert Moses Playground, I was sad that there was no over/under pass to the East river, despite there being an actual pedestrian zone for it across the FDR, I would have had to go down quite a few blocks and didn't feel like it. So I did the only other reasonable thing, and walked up to 59th street to walk across the Queensboro bridge. But at the same time, the nightmarish reality of the FDR not existing would make it really difficult to get out of Queens easily and see my family in New Jersey, I wonder what would be a better solution (other than good transit to the suburbs obviously).
not my favorite solution, but making the FDR go the way of the west side highway could be a compromise and you'll still be able to drive relatively easily to your family in jersey.
The FDR is a necessity, it should be upgraded to a proper freeway to modern safety standards, not torn down. Where would all that traffic go? Maybe bury the FDR, but it needs to be there in some form. (And they should have built the Westway in the 1980s to replace the West Side Highway.)
@@johnathin0061892 God a completely underground highway system in NYC would be such a vibe, it's time to revisit that dream.
I also live in Queens, and unless I'm going to the places in Brooklyn that happen to be along my few subway routes into Manhattan, any trip to Brooklyn or elsewhere in Queens is usually twice as long by transit, or more, and I know better than to rely on the regularity of buses at this point.
I wish my car collected more dust -- I'd happily trade driving for easy transit to Brooklyn and the rest of Queens.
I'd say that's a prerequisite for getting ride of the BQE or FDR.
@@nycurbanist3616 Up in Albany there is a huge push to get rid of 787, a 6 lane highway that cuts off the city from the Hudson. Not sure if they could ever get rid of the FDR though.
Man tacoma is just AWFUL for any thing traffic related. There's non stop highways in every direction, confusing off ramps in every direction, random bottlenecks for no reason, and just SO MUCH TRAFFIC. You haven't even got to Seattle proper yet and you're getting the experience.
I also hate I-5 being where it is in Portland, thankfully it's not on the side of the river people really use for walking. It makes downtown a lot nicer not having that highway. Problem is I don't know where you would put I-5. It does need to exist, it's THE interstate that connects the west coast and redirecting all of that traffic to I-205 alone would be an awful solution. I-205 already has too much traffic. You can't really loop I-5 to the west of the city because then it'd be on the other side of the Tualatin mountains. The sunset tunnel is already hell going through.
Really the only solution is a MASSIVE tunnel project that I don't see happening ever.
On a much smaller scale, Waukegan, IL built a multilane freeway along their Lake Michigan waterfront in a futile effort to lure heavy industry back. The Amstutz Expressway ended up being so little-used that it became a favorite among movie directors for filming highway scenes.
I live about 2 blocks from Lake Shore Drive. It doesn't stop anyone from reaching the waterway via tunnels and overpasses, but it's definitely overbuilt. It should go down to 4 lanes (from the 8 currently) and add more green space. Or better yet, widen the Lake Shore Trail!
I wholeheartedly agree with this! The trail should definitely reclaim more space down near the Loop. There are never enough cars there to justify the sheer amount of lanes.
I'm surprised FDR is not #1 though. It is an extreme eyesore that destroyed any chance of Manhattan having any accessible waterfront.
I'm curious if you think there's any appetite among policy/urban planning people for removal? I5 through Portland seems like such an obvious one to get rid of, but ODOT is currently pretty set on expanding it.
Depends on the people! I think there was a study (very conceptual) of burying I-5 at one point, which tells you that people recognize the existing condition is a problem.
problem is the sheer amount of traffic that passes through portland every day on it.
Interesting tidbit about I-376 in Pittsburgh: I-376 eastbound running adjacent to downtown is an elevated interstate, with a Mon Wharf riverside parking setup (that regularly floods with sediment), and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail also running below deck. On the trail itself, you can get a nice view of Station Square on the south shore, but the ambience is occluded by semi-truck engine brakes and crotch rockets blasting by the overpass on a regular basis. The trail shadows I-376E all the way to Schenley Park in Oakland, a whole 3.5 miles. It then splits off to become the Great Allegheny Passage, while I-376E continues East to Monroeville.
I’m from North Carolina. It was always super weird to me how NC’s 4-5 biggest cities did not have much topography or bodies of water near their downtowns. Cities like Charlotte look well planned around downtown and Raleigh is up and coming but the lack of water, promenades/boardwalks, river front parks, skyline views over a river/lake always left me dissatisfied. It limits the options for exercise and tourist attractions, and we have no excuse since we have an ocean, mountains, lakes, and rivers. Go to Asheville with the river arts district and new breweries/ restaurants along the water or Wilmington with its beautiful boardwalk and see the difference water features can have on the vibe of a place
I would love to hear you talk about the river adjacent freeways of Seoul. Nearly half of Korea's population lives in Seoul's metro area, and the city is split by the Han River with notable neighborhoods like Itaewon on the north side and Gangnam on the south side, but both sides of the river are flanked by massive highways. This is despite the incredible subway and bus system granting access to all these areas. There are a few park spaces abutting the river, but they're spoiled by the view and noise of the freeways next to the river. Thank you for calling out Chicago!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I moved to Boston, I was just floored by how nearly every waterfront had a nasty road beside it. From Morrissey to Storrow to Revere Beach to Quincy Shore, the DCR sure knows how to make an inhospitable environment. I enjoyed the dishonorable mention of I-293 in Manchester, NH. I'm not aware of any talk of improving the situation, but it would be so great if the west side could get some good amenities. Just to the north in Concord, NHDOT is widening I-93 from 4 to 6-8 lanes. Concord has been trying to build a riverfront greenway, but now it'll have to be entirely on the far side of the river from downtown. I wish they would build the bypass that people have been talking about for decades and just remove I-93 from downtown.
At this point we should just put DCR in charge of every highway in Massachusetts since it's basically a part of their job description at this point
In New Orleans, we came very very close to a river front freeway. It would have come be off I-10 just down river from the French Quarter, turned and run parallel to the river for about two miles, then tied in to the then-new Mississippi River bridge.
Imagine every view you’ve seen of the cathedral in New Orleans with a double stacked freeway in front. Beignets at Cafe du Monde in the shadow of that freeway (if CDM survived).
Check out Binhai Boulevard built in Shenzhen, China. Two decades ago, the waterfront area was reclaimed to build the expressway. Thanks to a former major at that time, some of the reclaimed land was allocated to a waterfront park (the Shenzhen Bay Park). Still, the noise, air pollution, and land segmentation brought by the expressway are still annoying when walking in the park. Nowadays, a segment of the Boulevard is getting tunnelized. After the project completes, that area will become a complex of surface parks, artery road tunnels, underground bus terminals, and a transit hub of subways and intercity railways. I look forward to its completion.
Wonderful topic! It's one of my pet peeves. So glad you got Buffalo and Albany NY on here. Also, I very much agree with FDR, used to live a block away from East River and it was such an onerous trek to get through to the park. Though permeable, the most shocking to me has been the Nihonbashi area in Tokyo, especially considering the historic value of the bridge.
FDR may be annoying for manhattanites who wanna walk to the river front, but it’s a godsend when you gotta trek uptown or downtown in the off hours for work. Hard for some people to understand that despite NY’s expansive commuter rail, mass transit is sorely lacking through the outer boroughs.
@@MelGibsonFan I don't think that it's hard for people to understand. But if you're going uptown or downtown in manhattan, you don't need a car. Rail infrastructure is sorely lacking in the 'outer boroughs' but why subject every community to the failures of the whole city?
@@NathanaelTak Because the city doesn’t just revolve around wealthy yuppies in Manhattan. The entirety of the MTA is already structured around Manhattan. Case and point. I lived in Middle Village but worked in Washington heights for a short time. Because I worked in the off hours using mass transit would’ve taken me up to 1 hour 30 minutes (plug it in to maps to confirm) to get to work. By car, utilizing the FDR, it was roughly 30 minutes or so. That’s a difference of two hours everyday, which means more time to spend with my child, less to spend on babysitting, or maybe more overtime available etc.
What’s an “eye sore” to the upwardly mobile yuppies who can afford live close to opportunities and work from home is a necessity for working class people who effectively keep the city running.
@@MelGibsonFan Not everyone living in Manhattan is wealthy. Even if they were, they still deserve to have a safe and healthy community. Putting large automobile infrastructure through isn't just an "eye sore" it's a safety hazard, impediment to local travel, and a theft of space. It is a sacrifice made by the locals to benefit people that don't have to live with the cost. In a very dense community, more people are affected and such the cost is higher. Conversely, the convenience of not needing to travel far is a value that should be weighed when choosing where to live.
In theory, the higher cost of rent in one area should offset the cost of commute and car ownership in another, but we know that's not the case. Real estate is heavily influenced by the market and there are externalities suffered by communities that happen to be 'in the way'.
@@NathanaelTak
This puts the cart before the horse (in my opinion). These people who mostly inhabit neighborhoods along the FDR (outside of LES/WH etc.) aren’t inter generational families with deep ties to the community. They’re people who have opted to move into these exclusive/costly neighborhoods in pursuit of lucrative job opportunities and high culture. I don’t see this as some Robert Moses style slum clearance where the denizens of east Manhattan are being forced to step aside for highways.
The removal of the FDR without considering the effect it’ll have on the many working families who rely on it for transportation is just exclusionary transportation policy. It’s essentially pushing for a gated community, so you can beautify wealthy/gentrified neighborhoods on the east side.
As far as sacrifices and health concerns, I would prefer less car dependency, and the MTA expanded but tmk the FDR is not more or as dangerous as the myriad of avenues and cross streets throughout Manhattan and there is no sacrifice that has been made by people who are opting to move there. The FDR has been there for 67 years, few people can even remember what the area was like before it.
You recently included Louisville in a surprisingly walkable neighborhoods video as well. I moved to Louisville 4 years ago after city hopping for a while. A lot to love here compared to other cities that often goes under the radar. Happy to see it get some attention in these videos. The only problem I see is that the waterfront often suffers from severe flooding every few years so I’m not sure if eliminating the highway would have the desired outcome turning it into a great promenade with that being an issue though.
While this is a noble sentiment, there are a number of these where the freeway is essential to traffic movement and there is no viable alternative (as you mentioned with Hartford), so the only real alternative is replacing the road with one underground. While this was done in Boston and Seattle, it is horribly expensive. Only in locations were there are alternative routes available would this really work.
Thanks for the video Mr. CityNerd!
Surprised you included Louisville on the list. I figured you probably wouldn’t of found the city “worthy” enough to include it. Since I never heard you talk about it before.. glad to hear you’re quite fond of L’ville and think it’s a great city!! 🥰
Re: Cities in North Carolina. Most of the cities in the Southeast are in three bands, which were built at different times and for different reasons:
(1) Coastal cities: Mobile, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington. These are the oldest cities in the region. They still have good ports, but are now small cities.
(2) Fall Line cities: Montgomery, Columbus, Macon, Augusta, Columbia, Fayetteville, Raleigh (sort of), Richmond. The Fall Line marks the transition between the Piedmont (hilly) and the coastal plain (flat). Most of the rivers in the South are navigable south of the Fall Line and have their first rapids or waterfalls on the Fall Line. They were important transportation hubs as the interior South developed, and were centers of early water-powered manufacturing. They are mostly medium sized cities now. Raleigh only gets sort of included because the mouth of its river is behind the Outer Banks, which is a stormy area bad for shipping.
(3) Piedmont cities: Birmingham, Atlanta, Greenville/Spartanburg, Charlotte, Winston-Salem/Greensboro, Raleigh/Durham (sort of). These cities are younger and larger than the other cities in the South. They grew around railroad and later road transport. The rivers in this region are too shallow to use for good transportation, so there weren't cities here until overland transport became competitive with shipping.
Most of the cities in North Carolina are Piedmont cities. Rail and road transportation has always been more important for these cities than shipping. At least North Carolina avoiding locating any of its major cities on the Eastern Continental Divide, like Atlanta.
This is what I came to the comments for. Curious, what is the disadvantage of locating on a continental divide, "like Atlanta"? Is it the demands placed on road geometry or a water system issue?
There's not a big disadvantage now that most transportation is by land. It does feel like the worst possible place to put a city if river transportation is relevant.
Thanks for pointing out some really awesome drives I’d love to take someday! Love the content and all the Google earth flyovers! I may not agree with you on a lot of your views, but the content is very well put together and involves urban areas and infrastructure, of which I’m very fond of.
Like your chill approach!
I live in a high-rise Loop apartment overlooking the lake, which of course means that I also overlook Lakeshore Drive (I'm looking at it and hearing it as I write this message). City officials deserve some credit for re-orienting Lake Shore Drive a few years ago to move it inland and create more lakefront property that includes the museum campus. Having said that, however, I would love to see it completely re-engineered to eliminate car traffic. If the roads cannot be removed entirely, I would like to see them modified to incorporate public transportation, such as a tramline running the length of the city. As it stands now, none of Chicago's many lakeshore amenities are accessible via public transportation (in fact, I could guarantee you that Chicago leads all major cities worldwide in the fewest tourist amenities available via public transportation, a function of our commute-focused approach to public transportation). In any event, perhaps Lake Shore Drive could become some combination of tramline, bus lanes, and bike lanes. The nearby Lake Shore Trail, running for 18 miles along the lake, currently has excellent running, walking, and bike lanes, so maybe the bike lanes aren't necessary. But get rid of those damn car lanes!
I assume you listened to the noise when you took your ultra expensive apartment.
Nearby Hartford, the riverfront of Springfield MA has shameful highways on each riverbank
Burlington Skyway (QEW) is a death trap at best. From the collisions, winds tipping over large trucks, people speeding, etc.
I took driving lessons in Hamilton when I was in college and I had to drive near there. Long story short, I’ve chosen to live car free.
Too bad that dump truck didn't take out the Skyway completely in 2014... would have done us all a favour.
The moment I saw the title of this video, I knew my birth-city of Hartford would appear. In a sadly declining city like Hartford, a riverfront district on both sides of the Connecticut could make such a massive difference. I actually have some very personal beef with 91’s domination of the riverfront, since my grandmother’s childhood home (and the whole Sicilian-American neighborhood it was part of) was demolished in order to build the highway. Hartford is such a wonderful, historic, beautiful city that has sadly been on an awful decline for much longer than I’ve been alive. I hope someday we can see a thriving, vibrant Hartford again. Lack of riverfront access may not be THE MAIN problem Hartford faces, but it’s hard to imagine a thriving Hartford that doesn’t include a lovely riverfront district.
The thing about the Platte river in Denver is... it's not scenic, and it frequently smells (algal blooms mainly) which aren't something Denver itself can fix, so it's a lot less desirable to hang out near the Platte than it might look like from a satellite view. I'd be all for moving I-25 out of Denver and around the city (the only beltway the city has is partially toll roads) so I don't have to drive through when I'm trying to get south of Denver, just as I'd be all for hopping on a train when I do want to go into the city, but neither of those are actually doable currently, so priorities...
Similar deal with the Connecticut River in Hartford, the city of Middletown just downstream actually has a waterfront park but its gross because the river is gross due all the upstream development (and waste water treatment) that runs off into it without significant natural water purification in the river.
In contrast the St. Lawrence River which i grew up near is way cleaner and nicer despite having way more upstream development. (This is partially due to the settling in each of the lakes, the invasive filter feeders, and the abundant wetlands along the shores of the watershed purifying it). I'm not sure if its chemically less polluted in the thousand islands region but its certainly much more aesthetically pleasing and pure enough to not need filtering before drinking. (But i would recommend sterilization)
I recently went to the nyc panorama at the queens museum, and while it hasnt been updated since 2009 (and that was only parts of it), so some of it may be out of date, looking at some of the highways surrounding nyc was pretty eye-opening. Nyc usually does pretty well on walkability and transit options, but we have room for so much more improvement. That’s why I definitely wasn’t surprised to see it twice on this list. Actually, I was kinda surprised not to see it three times, since the west side highway/henry hudson parkway is not great imo, possibly even worse than fdr drive (tho maybe that’s because im on the west side more than the east side). I guess it’s not as bad as some of the other spaghetti intersections and behemoth highways you brought up in this list. However, Manhattan being essentially sandwiched between two highways is not a good look for such a major city in 2022
Great video. One of your best yet. For a future waterfront video, I’ve always been amazed by the colossal waste of prime real estate of Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland. I live at the other end of the state, but love visiting Lake Erie…and consider the Great Lakes one of the world’s best natural wonders. It’s such a waste that a downtown-adjacent natural wonder is devoted to a second-rate regional airport.
East Hartford always baffles me how it is more highway interchange than anything else. Just an ginormous knot!
Oh boy, you should check out Perth, Western Australia. We have this lovely split Y shape river... and guess what!? We put a freeway all the way up the North/South strip (along with a golf course to ensure minimal land use), and then turned most of the East West strip near the city into another big road! At best, there's a few dozen meters between road and water to form a walking/cycling path.
Better a few dozen meters instead of just a guardrail like with the Paul Dudley White bike path next to Soldiers Field Road in Boston (Allston/Brighton), Mass.
I've recently mused about something related to this - effectively, you either end your "grid" with buildings, or with a street. And in the historic areas around here, if it ended on a street, which probably was nice some time in 19th century since it meant you could meander along the river or lake on said street, well, then those bits tended to be flat-ish and straight-ish and so were prime candidates for larger roads later during the 20th century, so it's ugly and full of traffic now. While when your grid ended on a building, that usually meant building right next to the river or lake, which means that even nowadays the public might not actually have any access to the waterfront at all, simply because it's build over with private land-use.
It's a sorta lose-lose situation, I found. The main exceptions are parks.
Chicagoan here; LSD is an absolutely gorgeous roadway that blends in nicely with the parks and the lake. It releases pressure off our interstates, and diverting that traffic to the interstates would bring them to a 24-hour traffic jam, a la Los Angeles. You're going to take local streets from the Loop to the North or South Sides? Fifteen minutes just became an hour. If LSD were such a barrier to the lakefront, there would be no one on the lake; guess what, it's not a problem we have.
Since you asked: Raleigh was established by act of the NC legislature, to provide for a more central capital city (compared to New Bern, the original one) at a time when western NC was threatening secession. Then, when a wood-burning railroad was established from Raleigh to Hillsborough (a colonial-era city, at a ford of the Haw River long used by native people as part of their Trading Path), they needed a fuel stop between the two. While others offered to sell land for a train station, a young doctor named Bartlett Durham gave his away, knowing that the land he owned around it would thus appreciate in value. Durham's Station evolved into the City of Durham. As for the other towns, from Charlotte to Greensboro, I'm not sure, but they do all lie upon the old Native American Trading Path.
Correction: Eno River, not Haw
This is one I actually have mixed feelings on. Waterfronts have historically been used as primary transportation corridors for moving people and especially cargo, and in many cities developed into heavy industrial areas as a result even before cars. Rivers already represent a significant barrier to foot traffic, and lakes or coastlines are obviously a dead-end on foot. So if you must have a busy highway, putting it alongside polluting heavy industry, at a location which is already a natural barrier to foot traffic, makes a certain amount of sense. The flip side is, of course, that waterfronts can be some of the most enjoyable, people-oriented destinations in their own right; and of course, we should be trying to reduce pollution in our waterways anyway. So yeah, blocking them off kind of sucks too. I guess once again we arrive at the "just get rid of the freeway entirely" conclusion.
Oslo, the Norwegian capital city, did awesome on that topic! There used to be a 13 lane wide combination or highway and other parallel roads at the waterfront in the downtown area. It cut the famous opera house from the rest of the downtown area and it was literally right next to the Central Station.
The city rebuilt the entire area: the highway was moved underground and underneath the port area, and the former 13 lane wide arterial road is still a kind of main road, but entirely different: tram tracks in the green median, and then in each direction 1 lane for normal traffic, 1 lane for buses, 1 bike lane and 1 sidewalk. That's all which splits the so-called barcode row , a series of medium rise mixed apartment and office buildings from those on the other side of the road; It became a walkable and atractive area for both locals and tourists.
Damn. I want this, give please
@@adamknott7830 they literally reduced the amount of daily traffic from 140,000 vehicles to 40,000 vehicles.
Take a look at google pictures, searching for "Bispelokket", the former road layout and interchange in the downtown area. And then search for "Dronning Eufemias gate" which is the new road they built instead; You can also see the surrounding area there
@@EnjoyFirefighting stop stop you are making me sad to live in Indiana
@@adamknott7830 ... difficult to stop here ... Oslo has plans to turn the downtown area car-free;
And most newly registered cars in Norway are all electric already
Oslo was nice. I lived there a couple of months.
Every video at least a 5 minute intro then "lets get straight into it" haha. Seriously though ... love your content .. always a thumbs up.
Richmond, VA was slated to build one of these things, but the news of it united every potential group of river lovers into a singular block that not only stopped the freeway, but also began the process of making what is now the beautiful and recreationally bounteous James River Park System instead!
Definitely need to add I-91 in Springfield, MA to the list. It has been the topic of heated debates for years because it, along with the parallel railroad, leave a lot of the land along the Connecticut River unusable. The same situation goes with Riverdale St (US-5) on the opposite side of the river, in West Springfield.
Seeing as you mentioned Hartford not having a beltway to bypass I-91, I figured I'd mention construction started on one, I-291, in the 50s. The project was cancelled part way through construction, and the section going through the rich towns northwest of Hartford was never built (suspicious). There's a 4-way stack interchange in Farmington with abandoned ramps because they never built the rest of the highway
I’m originally from the Hartford area and never knew this! I know they knocked down my grandma’s childhood neighborhood on the north side to build 91, but never knew about the bypass plan thru wealthier suburbs. I guess a working class Sicilian neighborhood in the 50s was much too “undesirable” and “blighted” to be saved haha. Definitely worth it to build that big ugly highway. Thanks for the extra info!
I'm from East Hartford and always wondering about that! Wow that makes a lot of sense
The reason I-291 was canceled was that it was planned to go through the water supply reservoirs. I don't know about you, but with the amount of road salt CTDOT puts on the roads, I don't want a highway on top of the drinking water supply...
Great video as always
My city of Edmonton thankfully avoided building a major freeway network in its river valley. Edmonton’s river valley is pretty unique, as it is very steep and almost entirely undeveloped. In the 70s, the city put out the idea of putting a freeway network in it to connect downtown with the suburbs. The residents of Edmonton opposed this, and aside from a single atrocious interchange at Scona Road and 98th Avenue, it was never built.