Tearing down/boulevarding "freeways"

I probably favor tearing down the Whitehurst Freeway to connect the city to the Waterfront in the Georgetown area. A few years ago, Joe Passonneau suggested the same course for the SE-SW Freeway, but with no other proponents, that proposal seems to have died.

There are many recent examples of successful freeway elimination:

1. Milwaukee, initiated by then Mayor John Norquist. See "Freeway Foe."

2. The Embarcadero in San Francisco as a result of the 1987 earthquake, see "15 SECONDS THAT CHANGED SAN FRANCISCO - The sweeping makeover that transformed the city began 15 years ago today with the Loma Prieta earthquake" from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Traffic, both mechanized and pedestrian, moves along the Embarcadero. The oppressive freeway which once overshadowed this splendid waterfront boulevard is now only a memory. Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle.

3. DC1974 calls our attention to the new Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco. See "An urban success story - Octavia Boulevard an asset to post-Central Freeway area," also from the SF Chronicle.

Ryan Billy (right), 8, and Eric Billy, 5 1/2, both from Danville, scale the climbing web on Octavia Boulevard at Fell Street while visiting San Francisco. The play structure, picnic tables and lawns make Octavia Boulevard more inviting to visitors. Chronicle photo by Katy Raddatz.

4. Seoul, Korea recently demolished a freeway that had scarred the center city, replacing it with a park and renewed access to the river. See "Soul of the city" from the Society Guardian.

5. Many years ago, Portland did the same thing to Harbor Drive, which ran along the west side of the Willamette River in Portland.

South Waterfront today. Photo by Miles Hochstein, Portland Ground.

Harbor Drive, 1974. City of Portland photo.

6. And an urban planning class at Georgia Tech recommends a similar course for Downtown Atlanta, according to this piece by Maria Saporta in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "A class proposal: Dismantle Downtown Connector."

Rendering by the Georgia Tech students.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization