Transportation

Freeway Removal Hits a Roadblock in the Bronx

Reports of the death of the Sheridan Expressway have been greatly exaggerated.
NYC Dept. of Transportation

Reports of the death of the Sheridan Expressway have been greatly exaggerated.

For years, neighborhood advocates have been pushing for the removal of this elevated freeway in New York City’s South Bronx, and it looked like they had a decent chance of winning their fight to replace the aging structure with parks, housing, shopping, and reconnected streets. The Sheridan has been something of a poster child for the increasingly popular concept of urban freeway demolition. It was number two on the Congress for the New Urbanism’s list of “Freeways Without Futures,” and it made the Urban Land Institute’s short list of potential teardown projects as well, in part because of a federal TIGER grant that was awarded to New York to study options for the future of the 1.2-mile strip of asphalt, options that explicitly included removal.