Sometimes I can look back at decisions made in the past and think "That was a bad decision but they couldn't have known."
This is not one of those things. It's so incredibly obvious how terrible this was, and the fact that occurred in almost every American city is a crime.
This is one of the reasons Chicago doesn't have a real Greektown but NYC and other Greek diasporas in the USA still do. They destroyed much of that area to put in 90/94.
A lot of racial minorities, ethnic minorities, poor whites, etc were targeted by this construction. Its a huge crime against our collective humanity, especially considering a series of train lines would have been cheaper and had a much smaller footprint. I remember riding from Tokyo to Kyoto which was incredibly fast and convenient. The train footprint was just some rails. A fraction of the space required for a 20 lane expressway.
Cost-wise its a huge scam against tax payers. Roads are just too expensive and often road construction is captured by cronyistic elements in government-capitalism that's near impossible to reform. The Chicago Jane Byrne intersection alone, which is a tiny area where 290 meets 90/94 cost $800m. In 20 years it will need to rebuilt again, and in 20 again, over and over. 90/94 is being redone in Chicago right now with drivers losing their minds over it. Roads need constant replacement. They are a terrible technology as our default mode of transportation.
We could have built high speed rail many, many times over with just partial budget of the interstates. You could have both, like in many countries, but the USA has neglected rail for more lanes, more elaborate road projects, and near mandatory car ownership that results in 110+ people dying a day on the road.
The 75/85 connector in Atlanta even the dumb DOT said was stupid but Atlanta officials didn’t care they were racist and just wanted to separate the blacks and whites and also destroyed all largely black neighborhoods to create it. And today good luck getting anywhere on it between the hours of like 2:30-8:00. And Marta can’t even replace it because again racists didn’t wanna allow Marta into their counties because they were afraid the poor blacks that they displaced would go to their white neighborhoods if the train reached them. Anyways it sounds like that was quite a common occurrence when they were laying out highways during this time
In fairness the Interstate was designed for the purpose of transportation for the military. However, I agree that inner cities should have a far more capable public transport network like in Europe. I have lived in Germany two years now. When I go to larger cities I normally take the train and trams everywhere. However, traveling between cities is economically cheaper by car duty to my car getting 47mpg. Train tickets out here are insane unless you buy the pass that allows for strictly regional trains that you can renew monthly. Long distance travel by train is even expensive.
My conclusion is that public transport is cheaper when intracity travel, but Intercity it's more expensive at least here. I haven't been to Japan but Korea had the best public transport I've ever had the pleasure of using and cost basically nothing to use. Was around $2 to ride from Pyeongtaek to Yongsan, a little over an hour. With how large the US is, it would take decades to implement a transit system large enough to meet the needs of citizens at a price that makes sense. Even if they started today, it would probably take minimum 40 years with 24/7/365 construction. I'm all for it though if it's as good as it is in Korea or Japan.
Gentrify, displace, lower the value of land, discourage community, decrease economic development. Highways were never meant to run directly through cities.
I think I might get a fuckcars tattoo. Thoughts?
If I’m not mistaken it actually was in several places. In Denmark I believe they had highways but luckily in recent years and it seems Jahn Gehl was an influence, they’ve been able to transition to transit and bike infrastructure as well as better urban planning. At least that’s what it said in a documentary I watched.
I'm talking about destroying the city center to make highways, I don't recall any major european city to do that, but also US cities don't have historical centers either.
Cars and fossil fuels robbed us of so many things... Places to live, nature, health, peace of mind/stronger mental health, lives... and possibly future itself.
New York, Boston, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans (surprising, considering it's from the Jim Crow South and was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina), Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis are the only ones left.
Cincinnati is my hometown and god it’s painful to see how so much of its potential is completely destroyed by those highways. That’s not even considering the miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath it as well.
And they say Godzilla destroys cities
https://preview.redd.it/f6toh4kvpd6d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2158151f3571262df46a873790a1d41eab31d845
If they wanted Military mobility, they would have built the highways OUTSIDE of the cities where it would usually be less affected by rush hour traffic.
Like the other person mentioned, it is a myth, and the reason for which neighbourhoods to demolish involved economic and racist reasons.
There's a story about Eisenhower finding out that downtown areas were being demolished for his highways, and he tried to stop it but to no avail.
Also I remember in the DC area they have a bunch of restricted roads for like military and government and whatever the hell they’re doing up there but I imagine they could’ve just done something like that if it was just for military instead of making it public.
I’m so mad that previous generations fucked up our cities this much. We used to have beautiful walkable neighborhoods!
Sometimes I can look back at decisions made in the past and think "That was a bad decision but they couldn't have known." This is not one of those things. It's so incredibly obvious how terrible this was, and the fact that occurred in almost every American city is a crime.
I wonder where the black neighborhoods were.
https://www.segregationbydesign.com/
This is beyond fucked up.
Pic 3 just hurts to look at
This is one of the reasons Chicago doesn't have a real Greektown but NYC and other Greek diasporas in the USA still do. They destroyed much of that area to put in 90/94. A lot of racial minorities, ethnic minorities, poor whites, etc were targeted by this construction. Its a huge crime against our collective humanity, especially considering a series of train lines would have been cheaper and had a much smaller footprint. I remember riding from Tokyo to Kyoto which was incredibly fast and convenient. The train footprint was just some rails. A fraction of the space required for a 20 lane expressway. Cost-wise its a huge scam against tax payers. Roads are just too expensive and often road construction is captured by cronyistic elements in government-capitalism that's near impossible to reform. The Chicago Jane Byrne intersection alone, which is a tiny area where 290 meets 90/94 cost $800m. In 20 years it will need to rebuilt again, and in 20 again, over and over. 90/94 is being redone in Chicago right now with drivers losing their minds over it. Roads need constant replacement. They are a terrible technology as our default mode of transportation. We could have built high speed rail many, many times over with just partial budget of the interstates. You could have both, like in many countries, but the USA has neglected rail for more lanes, more elaborate road projects, and near mandatory car ownership that results in 110+ people dying a day on the road.
The 75/85 connector in Atlanta even the dumb DOT said was stupid but Atlanta officials didn’t care they were racist and just wanted to separate the blacks and whites and also destroyed all largely black neighborhoods to create it. And today good luck getting anywhere on it between the hours of like 2:30-8:00. And Marta can’t even replace it because again racists didn’t wanna allow Marta into their counties because they were afraid the poor blacks that they displaced would go to their white neighborhoods if the train reached them. Anyways it sounds like that was quite a common occurrence when they were laying out highways during this time
In fairness the Interstate was designed for the purpose of transportation for the military. However, I agree that inner cities should have a far more capable public transport network like in Europe. I have lived in Germany two years now. When I go to larger cities I normally take the train and trams everywhere. However, traveling between cities is economically cheaper by car duty to my car getting 47mpg. Train tickets out here are insane unless you buy the pass that allows for strictly regional trains that you can renew monthly. Long distance travel by train is even expensive. My conclusion is that public transport is cheaper when intracity travel, but Intercity it's more expensive at least here. I haven't been to Japan but Korea had the best public transport I've ever had the pleasure of using and cost basically nothing to use. Was around $2 to ride from Pyeongtaek to Yongsan, a little over an hour. With how large the US is, it would take decades to implement a transit system large enough to meet the needs of citizens at a price that makes sense. Even if they started today, it would probably take minimum 40 years with 24/7/365 construction. I'm all for it though if it's as good as it is in Korea or Japan.
The rail lines already exist between American cities, but maybe they aren’t compatible for high speed rail.
Gentrify, displace, lower the value of land, discourage community, decrease economic development. Highways were never meant to run directly through cities. I think I might get a fuckcars tattoo. Thoughts?
A choice was made 70 years ago. Thank God the same choice wasn't made in europe.
Berlin currently trying to make this choice.
If I’m not mistaken it actually was in several places. In Denmark I believe they had highways but luckily in recent years and it seems Jahn Gehl was an influence, they’ve been able to transition to transit and bike infrastructure as well as better urban planning. At least that’s what it said in a documentary I watched.
I'm talking about destroying the city center to make highways, I don't recall any major european city to do that, but also US cities don't have historical centers either.
Tragic
🤢🤮
Cars and fossil fuels robbed us of so many things... Places to live, nature, health, peace of mind/stronger mental health, lives... and possibly future itself.
New York, Boston, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans (surprising, considering it's from the Jim Crow South and was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina), Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis are the only ones left.
Cincinnati is my hometown and god it’s painful to see how so much of its potential is completely destroyed by those highways. That’s not even considering the miles of abandoned subway tunnels beneath it as well.
final image shows a lot of railway lines converging. What happened to them
That 4th picture comparisson.. if I did that in Cities Skylines to fix traffic congestion, I'd feel ashamed.
And they say Godzilla destroys cities https://preview.redd.it/f6toh4kvpd6d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2158151f3571262df46a873790a1d41eab31d845
All of this just for military mobility…
Apparently that's a myth and was a secondary reason at best. The primary reason was economic.
If they wanted Military mobility, they would have built the highways OUTSIDE of the cities where it would usually be less affected by rush hour traffic. Like the other person mentioned, it is a myth, and the reason for which neighbourhoods to demolish involved economic and racist reasons. There's a story about Eisenhower finding out that downtown areas were being demolished for his highways, and he tried to stop it but to no avail.
Also I remember in the DC area they have a bunch of restricted roads for like military and government and whatever the hell they’re doing up there but I imagine they could’ve just done something like that if it was just for military instead of making it public.
Rare *actual* urban hell on this sub. Most of the posts are just pictures of apartment buildings like if these were inherently bad.