CityLab Daily: The Urban Highway Hit List

Highways, to hell: Urban highways are the roads that urbanists love to hate. They isolate neighborhoods, increase air and noise pollution, and pummel property values. The 1950s-era planning blunders have plowed through communities of color, Olmsted-designed parks, and more. In recent years, the Congress for New Urbanism has sought to hasten their demise by putting a handful of highways in the crosshairs, ranking the 10 freeways most ripe for removal and outlining the fights to replace them with some other urban amenity.

This year, the highways on the hit list face different stages of fresh energy or exhausting delay. In Oakland, the city’s mayor is supporting a pitch to turn an 18-lane interstate that divides neighborhoods into a walkable surface boulevard that bridges the gap. An expressway through the French Quarter of New Orleans has a coalition of residents and business leaders calling for its redevelopment. Meanwhile, an elevated interstate in Denver is set to widen even further. Beyond the top 10, three other freeways have graduated on—in Seattle, Rochester, and Detroit—with commitments to remove or dismantle already underway. CityLab’s Claire Tran has the rundown: Here Are the Urban Highways That Deserve to Die.