Urban Freeway Caps/Freeway Removal

[TouchTheSky13]

^Thanks for sharing, Wattleigh, this is really great stuff! It's good to see I-45 getting rerouted around downtown. That will greatly benefit Midtown. The proposed caps, if fully built out, will be some of the most comprehensive in the country and create a new relationship between Houstonians and the city's highways. I love to see this.

[TouchTheSky13]

Feds announce $207M windfall for downtown Stitch, BeltLine link

In an announcement that City of Atlanta leadership is calling “monumental,” legislators from Georgia revealed today that more than $200 million in federal funding has been secured for two of the most ambitious transportation and recreation infrastructure projects in city history: Downtown’s highway-capping Stitch and the Atlanta BeltLine.

According to U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office, the “historic” federal funding will total $208 million, or enough to cover construction of the Stitch’s initial phase, plus pieces of a new multi-use pathway branching off the BeltLine for a project called the Flint River Trail.

Both projects are designed to help unite neighborhoods and boost alternate transportation options.

Ossoff made the announcement alongside two other champions of both projects at the federal level, Sen. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta. The grant funding is part of the fruits of a bipartisan infrastructure bill approved by Congress in 2021.

The lion’s share of funding, $157 million, will go toward funding phase one of the Stitch. That calls for up to 5 acres of new park space over the downtown Connector between Peachtree and Courtland streets, multimodal improvements for the area’s street network, aesthetic upgrades, and easier access to MARTA’s Civic Center bus and rail station.

[Wattleigh]

Originally Posted by TouchTheSky13

^Thanks for sharing, Wattleigh, this is really great stuff! It's good to see I-45 getting rerouted around downtown. That will greatly benefit Midtown. The proposed caps, if fully built out, will be some of the most comprehensive in the country and create a new relationship between Houstonians and the city's highways. I love to see this.

I had forgotten about another one in Houston - the extension of the Hardy Toll Road. The work would bring the road from it's current terminus on the North Loop through the Near Northside neighborhood into Downtown, ending at the roads covered by the NHHIP which was mentioned above. Two of the five segments appear to have caps and park space, while the remainder will have dedicated parks and trails adjacent to the elevated roadway.

County Commissioners approved that version this week.

Summary of feedback on all segments from HCTRA.



Lorraine St. to Quitman St.



Quitman St to Collingsworth St.

[TouchTheSky13]

$2 million grant will fund study on ways to reconnect Indy neighborhood at Virginia and Fletcher Avenues



https://www.wthr.com/article/traffic...c-64890aebb3b3

[TouchTheSky13]

Cap Parks: Parks over freeways in the works for Hawaii

Sen. Rhoads says one of the possible Cap Park locations is above the H-1 Freeway between Queen Emma Street and the Nuuanu Stream.

“You can put other stuff up above it; and in this case, we were looking to put a park. There’s not a lot of park space in the downtown area,” Rhoads said.

Some members of the Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board support the idea of Cap Parks.

“It’s actually something that’s much needed in this urban development. The healthy sustainable green space that would connect the communities that are connected by the construction of H-1 Freeway,” Fitzsimmons.

https://www.khon2.com/local-news/cap...ks-for-hawaii/

[TouchTheSky13]

Feds grant $450 million toward I-5 freeway caps in North Portland’s Albina district




https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting...-district.html

[TouchTheSky13]

No idea how the state, given its current exploding budget crisis, plans to do this responsibly and without harming the communities it says it wants to help, but I suppose if there's one thing that is true about the state of California, it's that things don't always have to be well thought out or fiscally sensible to come to fruition.

California bill would generate funds for freeway lid projects

Attempts to stitch back together communities of color that were torn apart by freeways could get a serious boost if a new bill by San Diego assemblyman David Alvarez becomes law.

Why it matters: Communities have for years pursued freeway lids — decks over the interstate that enable park or commercial development to reverse decades-old damage — only to hit a wall over price.

AB 2945 would fund the projects from property tax revenue in the immediately surrounding area.
How it works: The Reconnecting Communities Redevelopment Act by Alvarez would allow communities to form new agencies, with state approval, that could issue bonds to help build those lids and other projects that rectify damage from freeway construction.

They'd then collect any growth in property taxes above their baseline starting point, within a half mile of the project area, to repay those bonds.
That essentially recreates the state's redevelopment program that former Gov. Jerry Brown killed in 2011 while facing a budget crunch.

https://www.axios.com/local/san-dieg...-david-alvarez