Uptown thinking, Part 2:
Some counterintuitive thinking comes in this blog item (link) about three cities (Seoul, South Korea; San Francisco; Portland, Ore.) that tore down four mid-century freeways and found congestion didn’t get worse.
I’ve heard one highly placed uptown executive muse privately about the prospect of tearing down the Interstate 277 loop that encircles (and isolates) uptown Charlotte and replacing it with a boulevard. I think it’s a great – albeit very expensive – idea. (And of course you’d recycle the concrete.) Maybe it’s a public-private partnership kind of proposition, as it would create more on-the-tax-rolls land for development. Witness the city/state deal reconfiguring the Brevard Street/I-277 interchange into a smaller ROW footprint and selling the land to private owners. A smaller I-277 footprint puts land back on the tax rolls. Just as important it removes those vastly overbuilt, Robert-Moses-woulda-loved-’em interchanges, designed for the middle of farmland, from the heart of the city’s most pricey real estate.
If you agree, please make sure the idea emerges during the upcoming Center City 2020 Plan process. After all, it was a remark at a Center City 2010 public workshop by the late Dave Ritch – picked up and championed by then-City Council member Lynn Wheeler among others – that led to the uncapping of Little Sugar Creek and the greenway along Kings Drive. Ideas with champions really do make a difference sometimes.
Uptown thinking, Part 1 is yesterday’s item (link) about Rome, the Pantheon, and Charlotte.