Quote:
Originally Posted by Uptowngirl
You are right...they/we don't (care that is).
That raised expressway damaged a neighborhood...and if the people that live in the city want the expressway gone, then it should be gone.
Otherwise I'm all for just running a massive raised expressway through residential and commercial areas in Slidell (for example)
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People didn't move because the highway came through (unless they were directly displaced).
People moved because:
1. Suburbs became more desirable (whites fled to Jefferson, blacks to the 7th ward and east.
2. Desegregation took away the importance of all-black business areas and blacks began to frequent Canal St and other predominantly white commercial areas.
3. Multiple areas of this city rapidly deteriorated without the help of an expressway.
As far as "if the people that live in the city want the expressway gone, then it should be gone."
1. Only about 15% of the people in the area that supports this city actually live in the city.
2. New Orleans can't survive without the suburbs and vice versa.
3. The City can't do anything with something that it doesn't own. The city has little, if any, say about federal highways. They don't have any authority over state highways.
4. This decision ultimately rests in the hands of FWHA and NHTSA
Let's just say the highway is torn down and you get your eight lane boulevard.
1. You have a wide suburban style highway with probably at least 10 major traffic lights right through the core of the city.
2. Traffic won't just disappear. Some will go to 610 and some will just take other streets making other neighborhoods less desirable.
3. You've cut off direct access from the new hospital to points east.
4. You've cut off direct access between Uptown and the Westbank to and from the East.
The thing that gets me everytime this proposal comes up is that most of the proponents don't care about or take time to see how the change affects the area as a whole. They just want it now. If there was viable way to do this then I would be all for it, but how many cities remove their MAIN freeway.
San Francisco didn't, I-95 still runs directly across Manhattan, etc.