This Freeway Sucks -- Let's Decommission It
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- Опубліковано 24 тра 2024
- The vast majority of urban freeways were built in the mid-20th century. This means that, structurally, many are reaching the end of their useful life, so state DOTs are looking at rebuilding -- or even rethinking altogether. So what should we do with our deteriorating freeways? Well, in the Twin Cities, they have ideas.
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Special thanks to Segregation By Design for use of the I-94 animation. They do fantastic work at educating and raising awareness about the historic and ongoing harms caused by redlining, urban renewal, and freeway construction. Check out the site here and consider supporting their excellent work: www.segregationbydesign.com
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Special thanks to Our Streets for use of assets from the Reimagining I-94 report, and all the groups who helped put on the Slow Roll event. Consider supporting the great work all these organizations do!
- Our Streets does amazing work, and they really depend on contributions (and volunteerism!) from people who care: www.ourstreetsmn.org/get-invo...
- streets.mn: streets.mn/
- Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota: www.bikemn.org/
- And if you're in Minneapolis, check out Venture Bikes: venturebikesmn.com/
Also, read Luke Birtzer's excellent recap of the Slow Roll event here!
streets.mn/2024/04/22/a-city-...
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Patreon - a way to directly support continuing CityNerd output! Thanks to all who have signed up so far.
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- What makes Minneapolis great: • What the Twin Cities D...
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Resources:
- MNDOT's Rethinking I-94 site: talk.dot.state.mn.us/rethinki...
- Read Our Streets' report, "Reimagining I-94": www.ourstreetsmpls.org/conver...
- Star-Tribune's piece on Our Streets' I-94 effort: www.startribune.com/group-pus...
- Congress For the New Urbanism's 2023 Freeways Without Futures list: www.cnu.org/highways-boulevar...
- The Malcolm Willey House: www.thewilleyhouse.com/
- Visit St. Paul's piece on Anthony Taylor and Slow Roll MSP: www.visitsaintpaul.com/blog/m...
- NCHRP report on interchange spacing: www.cmfclearinghouse.org/stud...
- President Biden's Reconnecting Communities grant announcements: www.transportation.gov/briefi...
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Images
- Thanks to Our Streets and Luke Birtzer at streets.mn for use of additional photos from the Slow Roll event at Venture Bikes Midtown
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So I went and made a 20 minute video that explains everything you could POSSIBLY want to know about I-94, and that wasn't enough? You STILL had to go and read the comments?? Well. This right here is the comment you came for. Sign up for Nebula and you'll get my videos early, ad-free, AND with no promotional pitches for, like, VPNs, or backpacks made out of recycled water bottles, or...like Nebula itself. Oh, and better yet, NO COMMENT SECTION! Use my custom link to get 40% off an annual subscription, and help support my channel on a creator-owned streaming platform. go.nebula.tv/citynerd
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14:49 They want input? Allow neighborhoods to add plantings. Beauty slows people down as well...
Just did my senior seminar for geography major about freeway revolts and resistance to I-95 in Philadelphia. Came across MacDonald, BPR, Bacon. Was about Delaware Expressway and I focused it on Elfreth Alleys huge ugly brick wall separating it from I-95. Thanks for the timely resistance!
I'd love to, but it's impossible to sign up to Nebula without a credit card. Like many other people in Europe, I don't have one, and my debit card can't be used to sign up here. I'd love if Nebula finally added some alternative payment options.
@@Hurricane2k8 get yourself a prepaid one. You can buy them in supermarkets, or if you want a rechargeable one, the Post Office in many countries issue them. I live in Italy and have a card issued by the Italian Post, costs a fraction of a bank-issued one and is accepted world-wide.
Makes you wonder though, if the only people commenting were people that paid in, would it still be a cesspool like yt?
the irony of us calling I-75/85 in atlanta ‘the connector’ when it tore apart the fabric of the city
Well, it could be worse. We could have I-75 be one road and I-85 be another through ATL.
Orwellian
Recessed urban freeways seem like the ideal location to build cut and cover style subway lines, since the cut par is already done. Then build needed high density housing above it.
Now THAT is a great idea.
That... makes a lot of sense!
@rpvitiello Yup. Hell you could even do that, and build mandated underground parking / basement structures for high density mixed use structures along the new transit corridor while you're at it. Overall skeptical that you should do this everywhere, but if you were going to replace a recessed freeway that seems like a pretty sensible thing to do with it. Particularly if you have actual transit / commuter studies that show that most of the existing traffic is along / within the corridor.
Connect Oakland is suggesting creating a second BART subway line, and even a Caltrain line, underneath an urban boulevard replacement for the I-980 in Oakland. Given the activism around it and politics of Oakland/the East Bay/Northern California, I have little doubt that the I-980 will eventually be replaced by some sort of urban boulevard/land reclamation project. Although It will likely be a while before it really happens and I fully expect delays/challenges.
I hereby nominate you as MnDOT director
The inner loop project in Rochester, NY is a great example of what can be achieved when filling in freeways. After just doing the eastern section, we've seen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development that includes mixed-use buildings and a much prettier environment to exist in. We're now working on the northern part of the loop that will include beautifying the Amtrak station there and bringing back the street grid from 100 years ago. We're lucky that every single level of government (state, county, and city) is finally onboard for moving away from car dependency.
I saw it on a video; I agree .
Yes yes yes! I'm a student in Rochester that unfortunately is moving away this summer but I can't wait to see how this turns out. The downtown area is in desperate need of a green space and I'm really hopeful that this will provide that. Plus there's some new ’affordable’ housing going up on the west side of the river in place of one of the city's numerous empty parking lots. Could be as much as 20 years before we really see the effects of all this investment but I'm optimistic about the future of this town
I toured the area recently. It's nice to see these once-great canal cities try to fix the past. Syracuse and Buffalo also have their own projects in the works.
The inner loop in Rochester is also a great example of something that could only ever have happened as a political patronage boondoggle. It's a mile of freeway to divert one lane of incoming traffic away from half that distance of surface streets... completely stupid.
Totally. There are several good videos out there about the Inner Loop. Hopefully the finish the work (with the rest of the Loop).
Albany’s waterfront freeway, on the New York topic, is also on the CNU FWF list and another egregious example of highway malpractice.
I'm not so sure that some of these state DOTs wouldn't build an "I-94" today. Texas and even California come to mind. Both are either trying to expand highways in city centers or are building new ones through residential neighborhoods. Even in Pennsylvania we still waste our money on crap like this though not through any major city centers in recent years.
Right. There have been several urban freeways built in recent years or about to be built. 164 in Norfolk, 49 in Shreveport, 58 in Bakersfield… Places with the money and will to do it, still do it.
Agreed. There are places where it wouldn't happen, but there are still plenty of places it absolutely would. And does. There is a project to add One More Lane (tm) to I-35 through Austin TX and they are demolishing anything in the way without a second thought.
And ADOT is currently working on a widening project along I-10 that would rival the stretch of that freeway through the western suburbs of Houston (the infamous Katy Freeway). The 26-lane record along the Katy is dubious, as that involves intersections along the frontage roads near a major interchange, while ADOT’s stretch in the Broadway Curve area is supposed to have at least 22 lanes at its widest point without frontage roads (which won’t exist).
@@jonathanstensberg The bakersfield highway really shows the disparity in media talking points over transit. Almost no one is complaining that an 8 lane highway is being built "in the middle of nowhere," but as soon as you talk about building a train bakersfield becomes rural farming country with no population to support such high capacity transit.
@@jamalgibson8139 Sounds typical. Road bonds for hundreds of millions or even over a billion dollars sail through almost every election without a second thought, but $50 mill to build a commuter rail? Holy communism, Batman, we can't afford that!
It might be because I’m a Minneapolitan, but this is my favorite video you’ve ever done. What a beautiful city with so much potential.
First time I've ever seen a Minneapolitan say something nice about Saint Paul in writing
@@paulagraphr 😅 As a current Minneapolitan I do love St. Paul too. Fraternal Twins may argue, but love always wins out.
@@tescherman3048 I'm a fraternal twin and agree with that analogy. 😉
I had lots of fun making it. Well not the part where I spent an entire day walking the length of I-94 breathing in noxious crap. But all the other parts
"Acknowledgement isn't the same as repair" Well said, ODOT made a similar statement as they ready their plans to widen I-75 through Cincinnati to 20 lanes in some places. Thank you Reconnecting Communities...
Oh 20 lanes to Cincinnati and they’re doing that really soon. I don’t live there anymore but I still go back there 20 lanes is way too many
For a moment I was anticipating the only correct and valid ODOT, Oregon lol. Oregon's done the same thing with the acknowledgement, but has then been forcing forward the freeway expansion of I-5 through the Rose Quarter and Lloyd District, which quite literally is that exact set of hoods they demolished to build the freeway through in the first place that they have "acknowledged" (formerly Albina, dominantly, which was as you'd probably expect, black). So they did the same as Ohio. To a T. lol.
@@TheCriminalViolin Very fitting that they are both known by the same acronym 🤣
@@enjoystraveling To be fair it's 20 lanes near the planned bridge and narrows down further out, but still very excessive.
Yeah there was definitely some bad stuff in Reconnecting Communities too. Legislation is a nasty business
If 94 and 35 get covered my life will improved greatly. It totally disconnects south Minneapolis from downtown. The 35/94/55 cross over is hellish
+1 to this
I avoid this part of the highways at all costs! My husband and I literally just choose “avoid highways” on our Maps app and take way more fun and scenic routes through the Cities all the time.
as a twin cities local, THANK YOU for highlighting this issue
Replace the freeway with what was there before. As for the land, subdivide it into the previous lots, or smaller where appropriate, and auction them off, with preference being given to the descedants of the estates to which they belonged. These freeways have no reason, and no right to exist in urban areas.
1:30 In this animation it is entirely appropriate that this dystopian highway compares the years 1984 and 1947. Coincidentally, the numbers correspond to the novel “1984” and the year of the novels first draft.
Deep cut
@@CityNerd Very well played, Nerd.
All these giant, multi-lane roads and highways cutting cities up like a pizza just encourage people to use our most populated areas as a shortcut from and to destinations outside of the city itself. The good news is that we have acres and acres of empty and free land in our urban centers that we can turn into millions of affordable leasehold apartments, row houses, low cost retail and greenspace.
Lol you think they're going to be affordable. That's hilarious. All the new "market rate" apartments jack their rents up way beyond what people can afford, and then there's absolutely no rent control so even if you can afford the rent initially, they'll jack your rent up 15% a year until you get fed up enough and leave.
I wouldn’t call it free when it’ll cost millions per mile to decommission, deconstruct & construct new buildable lots. Is it worth it compared with the long term costs of new green field development? Absolutely!
They did some of this in Rochester. I want to see it happen in many, many more places
Interstates were made to connect the large cities for their benefit and simply as the most logical thing to do. So yes, driving from New York to California is going through a lot a cities in route. This is a necessary evil. As a driver, I hate going through cities and would love to bypass them. But commerce happens city to city. Unless there is enough money to build extra freeways that totally bypass the city, the freeways will always run through the city. How does New York get all their groceries? They sure don't grow the food themselves. They come via train, plane, ship, or semi-truck. The interstate segment in question in this video already has a good alternative route. This certainly is not the case everywhere.
@@joshc4519 Why would you need to go through a city if you're not stopping there? You could just go by it. The interstate freeways should go run adjacent to city with an exit that takes you into the city.
Thanks for this video. I wrote a paper on this very project when a student at the U of MN years ago. I had a professor argue with me that she saw the interstates as creators of freedom. I tried to use Rondo as my defense of my opposition to her argument, but she wasn't having it.
I would not have gotten on well in your class. Still sorta shocked that a Prof in this century would make a case for freeways being a net economic and social positive.
Rural interstates are not the issue. Most developed nations have great rural highways. Look at the Autobahn as an example.
@@ryanfraley7113As someone who was born and raised in Rural Minnesota, and has lived in the Twin Cities for a dozen years now, I’d say that yes: Rural Interstates are not the problem. The problem comes when you have Interstates slicing through densely populated areas irrespective of the traffic needs and existing neighborhoods in which people use or call Home.
The biggest mistake of the Interstate Highway Act was not modeling our Interstates like highways of European cities, but just defaulting to bulldozing metro areas with our version of the Autobahn, when better examples of how to connect highways exist in Germany and Europe. Now we’re cleaning up the mess that’s been a headache for Americans for the past 30 years because of it…
@@rachel_sj Ring roads would have been a much better setup. If I have to make a road trip I use the ring roads when I can.
@@ryanfraley7113 I-694 and I-494 are technically ring roads/highways as are MN Highways 62 and 36 to an extent. I-394 is more like a spoke in the ring of all the ring highways. I guess those “weren’t enough” by the 80s and the Interstates somehow needed to dissect cities in order to truly “connect” people via vehicle transport… /s
1:34 This really does visually put into perspective how people's homes are bulldozed for road projects. Very depressing.
All credit to Segregation By Design
@@CityNerd Not related to the feeling, but OK.
Not really that depressing, considering how many parks, offices, schools etc. were built along the corridor! Not to mention the amount of commercial and industrial land that had also been wiped out though. Crazy how libs can be both "MUH SINGLE FAMILY HOMES!!!" and against them at the same time!
Twin Cities resident here. I work right off the Olson Memorial Hwy in Golden Valley, MN I travel on that road and 94 into the South St Anthony neighborhood to satellite offices for work. I try my best to avoid any freeways as much as possible when I go from office to office. I really like the ideas that Our Streets is trying to put out. (I even follow them and Laura the board president on X). Even tho I live way out in an outer ring suburb, I really want the metro to become and even more desirable place to live and make it more walkable and transit oriented. Like I said I live in an outer ring suburb, if the transit was more convenient to take to work I definitely would.
Yet another case showing how States were allowed to violate the original purpose of the "interstate" and "defense" highways concept by routing through cities instead of NEAR cities. A tragedy still unfolding. Thanks for highlighting this one dreadful example.
you don't understand Mr. City Nerd, I LOVE pm 2.5 and other carcinogens! they're a symbol of freedom
Let's re-name them to ....
Freedom-Particles!
It's really nice to see that MNdot is actually acknowledging what the highways did and how bad they are. I feel like there is a ton of states that would never happen
Living in downtown Kansas City, the north side of the downtown freeway loop could easily be another candidate for freeway removal like this. Great ideas here!
And the south part of the loop could potentially be capped. The convention center already covers part of it. Although that doesn't fix all of the interchanges on both sides.
@@dj46104 yep, there's actually been a plan in the works for a while to put a park over the 670 south loop, but it's short millions of dollars of funding unfortunately
Agreed. The North Loop (which carries I-70) should be removed since most people use 670 anyway. They could turn it and the adjoining Lewis and Clark Viaduct into a boulevard with at-grade intersections at Walnut, Main, and Broadway. Better yet, why not convert it to a mix elevated /subterranean commuter rail system linking Downtown KCK and Fairfax with Downtown, Strawberry Hill, and eventually the eastern suburbs? Eventually, additional lines could connect Downtown to the Platte/Clay County suburbs, the south suburbs, and dare I say, Johnson County? So many possibilities.
Minneapolis has been undergoing a huge urban transformation since 2005, by 2050 we will look nothing like we used to - a lot better in my opinion. 2000-2050 is largely undoing the woes of what we did 1950-2000
Gray's. Sports. Almanac.
@@doomsdayrabbit4398 Back to the Future, Part II, but no Biffland.
I’m from Detroit, and with all the hullabaloo about the decommissioning of I-375, I thought that it was going to be some sort of urbanist dreamland utopia. Instead they are turning it from an 8-lane limited access freeway into a 6-lane massive arterial stroad. So. . .progress?
They will decommission that again in 30 more years.
Yeah. I dont know anything about I375, but some freeway- to- stroad conversions seem to make crossings more dangerous. I guess they are maybe less bad in contributing to car use in the nearby areas and definitely less bad in wasting money on replacing them as freeways. We need to do way better than freeway- to - stroad conversions though.
That's my fear for i787
webapps.dot.ny.gov/reimagining-i-787
It goes to show that planning regulations and highway engineering standards need a much more thorough rework than just freeway removal. 12 feet or 3.65 meter lanes, for example, have become almost a mantra even in urban areas where 9 to 11 feet would be more appropriate; so have turning radii navigable for 53' semi-trailers. So they build for these outcomes regardless. And that needs to change; these are not appropriate for any old arterial, just designated truck routes. And even then, it raises the questions of whether the EU's maximum semi length of typically 16.65 meters for a semi (16.5 if not intermodal capable) and 18.75 for a double-trailer would be more appropriate (in the single market, really only Norway, Sweden and Finland use a more American-scale standard, with Finland allowing 34 meter triple trailers). Yes, it effectively limits the box length on a semi to 45 feet as opposed to our 53 feet, and yes, it also means you have to go with a cab-over tractor rather than engine-in-front, which poses a difficulty due to the shortness of the tractor wheelbase (though not an insurmountable one) for making it ride comfortably for the driver. But that's how they get around this issue of engineering roads for trucks in Europe. Maybe we can at least look at what the Nordic countries with their more American-type truck lengths do because it's still less stroad-y than what we have.
barely
1:30: Basically looks like an EF5 tornado grinding its way right through Minneapolis. Which, in a way, it was.
As someone who lives in St. Paul, lived in Minneapolis for many years and a public transit worker, I knew what this title was all about. I was able to give my feedback on this project just by chance at a local library and took a survey online too and it's refreshing to hear something like this happening.
Atlanta is going full steam ahead in capping the 75/85 connector. Calling it The Stitch. When they first starting talking about it I was like, yeah, sure, but they actually got a sizable chunk of money from the Feds to start work on the planning and environmental work. If they do it as planned, it could really be something good for Midtown and Downtown.
Hope they follow through with the plan!
But build actual city above it, with actual apartments and actual eyes and ears, not highway memorial lawns like Boston’s Big Dig.
@@DRL1320 Originally it was supposed to be covered with buildings filled with offices, shops and apartments but activists decided they wanted a parkway instead.
As someone who grew up in the Seattle commercial fishing community, I appreciate your use of the term "Cork"
Thank you so much for this! I live in South Minneapolis and am really interested in these sorts of livability projects. I spent several months in Europe, and seeing their train infrastructure from city to city and then their public transportation systems within cities, was absolutely eye-opening. There is so much we could be doing differently. I really loved your comment about cars being, " the most inefficient transportation system." It's so true.
I don't think a lot of people know about the canceled Mt Hood Freeway project in Portland. I find it to be a good example of freeway opponents winning and hope for the future. The money that was going to be used for the Mt. Hood Freeway instead went towards building the Max Light Rail system. Helping to shape Portland into what it is today.
The city of Milwaukee is struggling to lose 794. Where 25-years ago a highway spur was removed and incredibly valuable real estate replaced it.
I cant believe that the i-94 widening project was awarded nearly $2B funds by the govt. Maybe we shouldnt have been focused on just 794, tear down 94 too.
@@capnmorgan1979 - Yeah. Holy sh!t. That’s a lot of cheese and quite a gift for the suburbanites. Continuously standing on the shoulders of their host cities.
@@banana_junior_9000why is the answer always, force people into cramped tiny apartments in dense city neighborhoods and force people to use trains. That’s why this will never work. No one wants that. Cities are gross and filled with crime
@@banana_junior_9000 why is the answer always, force people into cramped tiny apartments in dense city neighborhoods and force people to use trains. That’s why this will never work. No one wants that. Cities are gross and filled with crime
@@banana_junior_9000 why is the answer always, force people into cramped tiny apartments in dense city neighborhoods and force people to use trains. That’s why this will never work. No one wants that.
In Toronto we have one of the biggest mulitple lane highways in the world. The government is hell bent adding more lanes claimng it will ease congestion and increase communte times, all the while not buildng out any public transit. On the other hand our current leader of the province has a lot of buddies who are developers that are trying everything they can to buy up and develope farm land and green belt natural areas for more urban sprawl and need the highway to make it justifyable so we all know how this is going to play out
What else do you expect from a Ford? Funny that I see those dreaded proposals as ads on UA-cam while watching one of these urban planning videos.
@@nikhilsrlyeah,the Ford boys are bad news.
I live in VA but from what little I know about the GreenBelt they will not take shit from Ford.
Yeah the highway expansions in southern Ontario are an absolutely ridiculous endeavour to be undertaking in the 2020s... However it's disingenuous to claim that they are not building out any public transit when the GTA arguably has the largest public transit expansion in North America
@@Vajamjam "Arguably has the largest public transit expansion in NA". Not sure what you base that comment on, but in any case largest in NA is not much of an achievement
This should happen to more freeways in North America. One great example is the Gardiner expressway in Toronto. It should be torn down and replaced with new parks, housing and office space. It would better connect downtown to the waterfront which is growing very fast
It may connect downtown better to the waterfront, maybe. But it also may disconnect the suburbs from downtown.
*One great example is the Gardiner expressway in Toronto. It should be torn down and replaced with new parks, housing and office space. It would better connect downtown to the waterfront which is growing very fast*
Very bad idea. Its an important expressway that many people use everyday to get into and out of downtown and also to go PAST downtown. Remove the Gardiner and the traffic gets so much worse. Even if you tear it down you need to get rid of Lakeshore Blvd too and in return what do you get? A narrow strip of land for some narrow parks or some narrow condo buildings while traffic is redirected onto downtown city streets and makes the gridlock there even worse than it is now. Yeah no thanks.
"Could you even imagine trying to build something like this today if it wasn't built already?"
I think this is the best quote against highways. The fact that these were built due to massive power differences is a shame to the histories of our cities. As someone who grew up in the Twin Cities, I remember growing up thinking we were a place that didn't see these problems. But that's because my city tried to bury its history as a Sundown town. I've since learned about many racial and economic issues that plague the metro area, but now since I've moved away it feels like it's too late.
I'll definitely talk to my family still in the area about this project, and refer them to this video hoping that I can do a small part in making a change for the better.
*I've since learned about many racial and economic issues that plague the metro area, but now since I've moved away it feels like it's too late.*
If we're being honest many racial and economic issues come from the fact that some demographics of people are far more peaceful and hard working than other demographics of people and those life choices lead to better life outcomes.
On the topic of pollution, it’s interesting to think about the impact of toxins becoming more or less invisible has had on the environmental movement. It was easy to point at smoke stacks and get people to ask for changes. I bet people would feel differently about highways if they could visualize the air pollution.
Wanna learn about how communities are damaged by freeways? go watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". If you replace the cartoons with minorities, the only part of fiction about that movie is that the cartoons won. LA's Red Trolley was perfect, the communities were vibrant, then came the freeways and destroyed it all. It's an excellent movie on a very real issue. That movie will never be toped, when will you have Warner and Disney together bashing on the government again? When will you see Bugs Bunny alongside Mickey Mouse again? It's a masterpiece, 10/10
Are you hallucinating or what?
Ignore Justin ur right in like every way
One of the most surreal experiences I have had in Minneapolis was visiting the historical, and densely populated, neighborhood of Stevens Square when the adjacent section of I-94 was closed for repair. Instead of the freeway hum which is always present in the neighborhood, I heard birdsong, casual conversation, and children playing on the playground. It felt like I had time traveled to 1910.
I love the renders that show what the space could look like. I really hope it gets rebuilt like that! Also that memorial park set up to show you what was lost and who was displaced is really touching. I'm super glad something like that exists.
I truly appreciate the self created material in contrast to a lot of stock footage that would have been there on other channels
I think the map animations came from the local group, but his videos are very well done and based on not only expertise but local research in person.
I hope I-94 turns into an LRT (or BRT) corridor with modern, well-designed streets feeding into mixed use neighborhoods.
The realization that so much of the traffic on that road is local is also really similar to my commute when I visit Los Angeles. My commute when using car includes a segment on I-10 in Santa Monica that lasts...less than 1 mile.
Boy, that last 5 minutes was an eye opener. Compelling proof of what I call "urban removal".
Thanks for another great walk through [gawd!] of best practice proposals for better urban planning.
Keep up the good work!
...and the sarcasm. I come for the content, stay for the delivery!
I was heartened to see I-787 in Albany so high on this list! It needs to go. All that concrete and asphalt all along the riverfront...
Yep. The CNU list has had a few projects they have identified succeed. Perhaps these ones will. The Albany one is pretty horrible.
There was a public input section last week. Lots of support from the people who showed up
@@rebeccawinter472 Put CNU in the Government.
I think they should build an automated, express metro line in place. Currently the green line runs as a street level tram in the median of a 4 lane road--and takes twice the time as driving to travel between the twin cities.
You would have the right of way and grade separations already complete--and you could still build a lot of parks and housing on the land because two tracks of rail take a lot less space then 8 twelve foot highway lanes + shoulders and ramps
Exactly no more slow trams
@@qjtvaddict What's you beef with trams?
The line about 94 being used "because it exists, not because it's necessary" is very true. When I first moved here, I never thought to take 94 for trips within the city, but everyone who's been here longer uses it to go kinda anywhere
You knocked the coverage of I-94 out of the park. Thanks for visiting our city!!! ❤
Okay I'll be fair; what sorts of qualifications would you say a highway needs to meet before it has no future? Less than 100k daily travelers? less than 20% design capacity utilization? What sorts of ballparks are we talking about here because highways do more than handle cars, they also handle huge volumes of freight as well as bus utilization.
Based on 375 in Detroit and Rochester's inner loop, a freeway without future would be a short spur or segment that really doesn't go anywhere or connect existing freeways, without an obvious alternative.
It's horrible what happened but I can understand the sense of wanting a freeway between Minneapolis and St Paul, especially a 2 numbered one that goes very far in both directions outside of that area. It would probably be easier to campaign for 94 removal in Minneapolis if it was some curvy bypass route or you had a logical freeway to reroute thru 94 traffic to.
If you mean the map of all the ballparks that could fit into the existing freeway space - that was just to illustrate how much space it takes up.
@@Knightmessenger> "It would probably be easier to campaign for 94 removal in Minneapolis if it was some curvy bypass route or you had a logical freeway to reroute thru 94 traffic to."
If this actually _does_ go through -- and kinda hope it does! -- then I imagine MnDOT will reroute 94 along 694. Most of the intercity through traffic _already_ goes that way, and I could easily see the eastern 94/494/694 interchange getting rebuilt to emphasize that route -- maybe with the through-city route becoming MN-294 or an extension of MN-252 where it doesn't become a county road or a city street.
God the segregation by designs before and after videos are so addicting and horrifying to watch at the same time.
Why not mention that high rates of crime and violence also segregates people? Namely would YOU want to live in a dangerous high crime neighborhood? Probably not. Would you move if you had the means? Probably would.
That's segregating people as well when certain demographics of people commit so much crime and violence that other people move away because they fear for their lives and their property. If crime and violence were low people would stay and there would be less segregation.
I live about a mile south of this corridor and it is messing with my brain to see so many places I pass on at least a weekly basis being featured in a CityNerd video. TPT (Twin Cities Public Television) has put together some excellent programs on the history of the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood to produce the monstrosity that is the I-94 corridor. I'm glad you showed some of the reuse and transformation that is already happening, and I'm really hopeful the rethinking MNDOT is undertaking leads to the freeway's removal. It really is not at all necessary for local traffic in the space between the downtowns, and if people are coming from outside of the area, there are better alternatives for them anyway. If the worst outcome is that people who live in Woodbury can no longer feasibly commute to downtown Minneapolis, that's really just another bonus.
Great video! I am a Minneapolis resident and was lucky enough to be at the slow roll Venture Bikes Open Streets event. That was a fun event and great to hear you speak in person. This was the video I was going to suggest you do if I had the chance to talk to you. I didn’t get the chance but so glad you made the video.
I feel like you could apply this same video style to other cities as well. What specific transit or other recommendations would you give to another city?
Detroit is getting rid of I 375 in the downtown. Great news.
But what are they replacing it with?
@@stevengordon3271
They have no clue.
I'm sure they're going to tear up that area for a long time.
Either way, it will be something that costs way less to maintain.
"The fact that people use it doesn't make it a good idea" a quote that should be hung on the wall of every designer
Thank you for coming to our city and shining light on this issue!!! We need all the help we can get.
This but for all the highways that tore up urban Dallas
There was no such thing as urban Dallas before the highways were built. Dallas was a town masquerading as a city thanks to name slapping, but if you look back at the old maps from the 1950s and 60s you can tell they were playing games. Even today, you can walk around the "city" of Dallas and have to ask where the city is.
@@starventure That criticism of Dallas is nonsense, just google "historic dallas 1940s" with the streetcar lines dating back to 1872 in some of the photos. The ignorance of youtube commentors is astounding.
@@pavelow235 car-centrism has killed Dallas. That’s what matters
@@pavelow235 I did that already. Look at the map. Streets are not the defining feature of a city. Structure and density matter, and Dallas did not have it at that time.
@@DefenestrateYourself But yet they went and built a light rail system to try to shut up the complainers, and now it is a homeless shelter/mental hospital on steel wheels.
The question of whether we’d build what we have today in the same place & way is a question we should require every personal private vehicle-oriented project to answer at every stage, including the EIS. Most expansions of highways happen because they already destroyed huge areas, not because we’d do it there now!
Here in Atlanta, it seems like people really haven't caught on to the damage car pollution is doing to our health (20k deaths/year in the US caused by road air pollution, more than all homicides, more than skin cancer, more than obesity). Just 5 years ago my local school district built a brand new outdoor sports facility literally at the junction of two major freeways, with the zero yard-line of the new practice field just 200 feet from the middle of a 14-lane downtown freeway. Even when it comes to the safety of their own children, they're just blind to it.
I experienced a horrible event in Atlanta that opened my eyes to what these highways have done to our cities, at the cost of an unfortunate woman's life. About 7 or 8 years ago, driving from Roswell to Marietta to go to work, very near to where the new Braves stadium was being built, I would normally have taken surface streets. But I was running late and decided to do the dogleg highway run . . . down 400 and around the 285 perimeter highway over to Route 75, then up one exit on 75. But this morning, I was the last person who got onto 285 going west for most of the rest of the day. Merging, the road was empty . . .eerily quiet. Up ahead . . . dozens of police cars were shoving all cars way over to the left. On the road was what I took to be evidence of a deer or something that got hit on the highway.
It wasn't. It was the evidence of a woman who had tried to cross the road in the early morning hours. She had been hit first at around 4am by a truck that didn't know what it had hit. Then she was evidently struck by many more cars. They shut the entire highway down for the rest of the day right after I drove through the area.
I've had nightmares about that scene for years. Highways through cities are killing machines. So yes, they're unhealthy and promote unhealthy lifestyles, but even more, they are literally killing people.
Yeah, this video is a really good 1-2 punch with the “Car Harm” video @citynerd did a few weeks back.
My old stomping grounds, Cedar Riverside. I used to work and live on the campus right by I-94 and although I was able to tune out the freeway noise, I often wondered what would it look and sound like if they go rid of it. Also living so close would explain why some of my plants did not make it through the whole summer season. I know the city is also trying to fix its roads and also extend the light rail system, I am rooting for it to do better. On another note, there needs to be a much larger campaign/awareness to the harm of black folks when the interstate system was created, so many black folks were displaced and still dealing with the ramifications of this.
Where did you move to?
@@pavelow235 from there, Boston, then NYC
What an excellent episode. I love the intentional and purposeful transition you have made toward committed advocacy of logical causes and their solutions.
Ray, what a fantastic video! Thank you for coming to our cities and highlighting this important work. We were at the Q&A and got so inspired by all the great people there and loved seeing you in person.
I walked around Minneapolis for the first time last year and man the contrast between the new European style bike and pedestrian infrastructure and the great gouging wounds inflicted by freeways was striking.
Those freeways knocked out a lot of housing. Pretty sure they increased noise levels by a lot as well.
Why build freeways within cities? We always drive thru these instead of stopping. It's the ones without freeways that we stop in when traveling. Streets are less of a nightmare when freeways are absent.
Yuck on freeways.
Because cities are full of jobs that people need to commute to. Why don't those people live in the city, you ask? Well a lot of them have families and need more room than to be cramped into a 2 bedroom apartment - if you're /really/ lucky you might find a three bedroom apartment but the rent will be absolutely unaffordable.
@@mikeydude750
People need a lace to live, too. If you watched the video street after street of single family homes often are removed. That added to the commutes of many people.
There are other ways to address the problem. I have family members that have had 2 hour commutes that would be a lot shorter if these freeways went around instead of thru...
If there were more trains and related support services there would be fewer traffic conflicts for those traveling for medical, conventions, etc. Btw I think most trains could bypass cities as well...
This might be my favourite video on your channel (so far). Very well put together :)
Dude I hope you get to see this but I'm so blown away by your detail orientation and passion for these amazing history and statistics and city planning lessons. You're amazing. Please keep it up as long as you can. I love these videos and thank you very much for sharing!
If the freeway gets filled in (it won't), that would be a great opportunity to add transit. You basically get an underground heavy rail line straight between the two cities for the cost of surface running.
You've got to do it the other way around. Add transit first, then maybe talk about removing freeways. Removing a freeway without providing a great (not just good, but top of the line) transit alternative is not helpful nor will it be popular.
The removal of 1000s of houses and business along the I94 corridor would have resulted in a huge decrease in assessment that the planned uplift from building this highway could never in a million years recover. Not to mention the cost of building the highway. The twin cities would be far wealthier if they didn’t build the highway.
The visualizations at 15:00 are like a punch to the gut. Really drives home (ha) how much better it could be.
What an excellent episode. I have done some of the "critical mass" slow roll bike rides in south Florida, and didn't know that we had any locally here in the Twin Cities.
I don’t know if this idea would make for that good of a video, but you mentioned that there should be more than 10 freeways on the “Freeways without futures” list, you could do a list on more freeways that should be on that list if it got more spots on it
i lived in an apartment complex that was blocked from everything by a bend in 94. needed a car or to walk over railroad tracks to get anywhere.
Thanks for coming to visit! It's exciting to hear an outside perspective on all of the work happening here in the cities
I live in the Seward neighborhood of Mpls, and this was an amazing spotlight. I wasn't aware of the Rethinking I-94 project. Time to see what I can get involved in! Thanks for making this video.
another banger mr. nerd. the tale of rondo is as heart breaking as every other tale i've learned about where whole communities were wiped out by freeways that just didn't need to be there in the first place. community over commute.
As someone who has driven through Minneapolis/St Paul roughly twice a year for the past 20 years or so, I am of the opinion that I94 is horrific for *driving*, too.
Thanks CN, you're doing great and important work here.
As someone who has done some work in the environmental review world, I appreciate the reference you made to the process, but would also highlight two points: 1. Though agencies (MNDOT and likely FHWA in this example) are required to conduct an environmental review, the level of harm mitigation that they do is often at their own discretion unless they get pressure from community groups and/or state/local government entities; and 2. Once the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) gets involved, it’s often too late to consider transit options as alternatives to highway projects since transit falls under the Federal Transit Administration. Not saying it makes sense, that’s just what I’ve observed.
The construction of I-94 was a horrible thing done to our city. Rondo residents lost generational wealth and community when it was built. Rondo Avenue was the main street of the neighborhood and countless balck-owned businesses were lost. Rondo is still experiencing the impacts today. I really hope I-94 is removed, but I’m not too sure it will happen. I’d also like to mention that Rondo is the only part of the cooridor where houses facing the freeway don’t have sound barriers.
Great video as always.
Thanks for the video Ray, this may be your best episode yet!
These decisions can work now because the point of reference has changed so much. When these things were on the drawing board in the 1960s, the overriding goal was to enable the continuation of circa-1960s traffic patterns... when suburban expansion had begun, but when the employment hub was still a central business district. Those freeways were built for growth of that traffic stream, but it was always more likely to dwindle as employment drifted out to the suburbs. Planners are too often chasing things after they've already tipped.
If you ask me, the suburbs should have always been required to be where people who lived there worked, or annexed into the greater city if they couldn't prove capable of retaining that independence. It would have prevented the leeching off of the resources of the city that's all too common across America.
@@doomsdayrabbit4398 Annexation is the, er, legal way of doing that. But annexation stopped being an option in 1910 or 1920 for most large cities; it simply wasn't something that could be revisited in 1960. Even now for annexations, the hook is water and sewer service. The other urban amenities that a city could offer today are accessible whether or not you live there... maybe not as conveniently if you don't live there, but it's also hard to keep movement within a city convenient. There's a reason why I go to the dairy and combine with some other trip rather than going to their retail outlet in the city a third the distance away, and it's that it takes the same amount of time either way...
What planners need to envision cities as is not one giant whole, but a collection of medium-sized pockets of density, and that will take a lot of undoing within the cities themselves because of the past attempts to preserve CBDs.
@@josephfisher426> "Annexation is the, er, legal way of doing that. But annexation stopped being an option in 1910 or 1920 for most large cities; it simply wasn't something that could be revisited in 1960."
Indeed, here in the Twin Cities, our inner suburbs had already incorporated as cities or villages between the 1880s and 1950s, largely to _avoid_ such annexation. As such, they became legally _much_ harder to annex,* and were even _less_ likely to agree to it during the urban decay of the 1950s-80s. And so the Metropolitan Council was created in the 1960s as a regional coordinating authority for things like mass transit, sewer service, and large-scale planning, across the multiple cities and counties of the Twin Cities area.
* Parts of rural townships / unincorporated areas can be annexed by a nearby city purely by a vote of all residents in the area proposed to be annexed -- or of all property owners if it doesn't have any residents. And it can happen piecemeal, one individual property or subdivision at a time, as a city grows. Annexing part of an already-incorporated city has a higher bar; the city being annexed _also_ has to vote in favor of it.
You're a great resource on this topic man. Keep up the fine work!
Thanks for all the links. I was (alas!) too sick that Friday to join you on the slow roll ride. But this video gives me plenty of local links for me to get involved in my own community!
I really appreciate your work, City Nerd.
Thank you so much for making this video!!
1:34 and people in Texas say high speed rail would be destructive…
One of your best videos yet!
Hey, CN - Minneapolitan transplant and manager for Metro Transit on the Green Line EXT. Awesome video! Thanks for spreading awareness and highlighting the good things about the Cities and also the numerous things we can work on! Excited for more and hope to catch you in person in the Cities at some point!
I think the Virginia DOT would absolutely install that highway if they could. Pretty sure all the destruction and displacement is a feature for them, not a bug.
Virginia is a lost cause. Our forefathers would be embarrassed.
this was a great video, i really enjoyed seeing on the ground effects of how this urban freeway has disconnected and damaged the city.
Fire video! I need to look into the freeway capping projects in Atlanta
you should do more videos where you show off what bad place could look like. I loved this one.
That re-imaging of the Cedar-Riverside/Seward area looks amazing! I hope we can actually get that or something similar; maybe with less car travel
This is a great video and hard to argue against in a way that isn't either in bad faith or just selfish for the convenience of people who don't want to live in cities but take advantage of the benefits of them. I hope in my lifetime this happens all over the US, especially here in LA. Even before knowing what Urbanism was I wondered about what it'd be like to get rid of freeways as a kid, it must be a lot more complicated for LA's freeways that are up in the air and have giant sweeping overpasses for connecting to other freeways, but I'd love to see it happen.
There are ways to design a place in between a car dependent suburb and downtown. Some videos point this out better than I can explain, using examples of Sarasota, FL and Seattle, WA.
Or just watch studio ghibli's Whisper of the Heart. It's set in a very real suburban Tokyo area, that was built in the 1950s but as the main character proves, you can go all kinds of places without a car.
Great video. Have you considered visiting Cambridge Mass and Somerville? You mentioned Cambridge as the lowest ranked place in the last video about waking hours devoted to paying for and driving a car. Cambridges history in preventing the inner belt highway construction in the 70s is very interesting and now we’ve also got a bike infrastructure being built- and a bike bus at our kids school too!
This was such a great video !!
This is incredibly motivating!
That air pollution is my daily work experience, I work at an Ag stop on I-8. Thanks for all your great work.
please do 794 in milwaukee next!
I lived in St Paul for a while and helped with a history project about Rondo, so this video is awesome. Thank you so much! Also, I now live in Portland, and watching that proposed Mt Hood Freeway line go right along Division Street, which is a model of everything imagined to replace I-94 in the Twin Cities, made my stomach clench. Sigh. Thanks for all your incredible videos!
Your piece on Rondo was quite emotional. This isn’t just a video on the aestheticism of urban density, you shined a light on the very real impact communities have faced and continue to face today with destructive land uses.
Minneapolis here. Thanks for this video!😊
Love to hear my beautiful city praised
Great vid. My bro lives just south of 94 in St Paul. We rode the midtown some years back. Great stuff.
Very well done! As an MN native who now lives in Salt Lake City, I can't get enough of this! That being said, I would love to see an SLC visit or analysis of some sort. This area is growing a lot, and while investments within SLC seem to be happening in the right places, we have a lot more work to do. Curious what you think!
Having grown up next door to the I-5/I-605 interchange in Los Angeles & a block from I-494 in Minneapolis, I can attest to the health impact I’m still dealing with several decades later. & both suburban houses were built pre-interstate.