News Roundup

Organization Recommends Removal of Claiborne Overpass

CityBusiness
by Ariella Cohen, Staff Writer
October 31, 2008

CHICAGO - A national organization promoting walkable neighborhoods named the Claiborne overpass of Interstate 10 as one of 10 highways across the country that should be removed in the name of neighborhood rebirth.

The overpass replaced Claiborne Avenue in the 1950s, leaving the Treme neighborhood with an elevated traffic jam where before there had been a tree-lined boulevard of locally owned stores and homes.

Following Hurricane Katrina, the removal of the highway was recognized in the Unified New Orleans Plan as a means of reconnecting Treme to surrounding neighborhoods in the French Quarter, Marigny and Esplanade Ridge. UNOP planners predicted the full removal of the interstate overpass would renew 35 to 40 city blocks and create 20 to 25 blocks of open space along Claiborne Avenue. But since the UNOP declaration no plans have been made to tear down the overpass and local officials have said nothing to imply support for the costly maneuver.

The expressway ranked fifth on the Freeways without Future list released by Chicago-based The Congress for the New Urbanism. The No. 1 highway in need of demolition was the Alaskan Way Viaduct that separates the neighborhoods of Seattle from its Elliot Bay waterfront.

“There’s a whole generation of elevated highways in cities that are at the end of their design life. Instead of rebuilding them at enormous expense, cities have an opportunity to undo what proved to be major urban planning blunders,” said John Norquis, CNU president and a former mayor of Milwaukee who during his term replaced the city’s Park East Freeway with McKinley Boulevard.

Norquist touted San Francisco; Portland, Ore; New York City; and his own Milwaukee as examples of cities where the removal of freeways has allowed the regeneration of inner-city neighborhoods.

“Fifty years ago, when there was flight from cities, industrialized waterfronts seemed like a convenient place to run freeways,” Norquist said. “The result for the neighborhoods has been blight. Cities like San Francisco that have removed freeways and reclaimed waterfronts have turned them into magnets for people and investment.”

The CNU top 10 recommendations for removal:

- No. 1: The Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle

- No. 2: Sheridan Expressway, Bronx, N.Y.

- No. 3: The Skyway and Route 5, Buffalo, N.Y.

- No 4: Route 34, New Haven, Conn.

- No. 5: Claiborne overpass, New Orleans

- No. 6: Interstate 81, Syracuse, N.Y.

- No. 7: Interstate 64, Louisville, Ky.

- No. 8: Route 29, Trenton, N.J.

- No. 9: Gardiner Expressway, Toronto

- No. 10: 11th Street Bridges and the Southeast, Washington, D.C.•