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The Freeway Revolts
(sometimes expressway revolts)
refer to a phenomenon encountered
in the
United States in the 1960s and
1970s, where planned freeway
construction in many U.S. cities
was halted due to widespread
public opposition; especially of
those whose neighborhoods would be
disrupted or displaced by the
proposed freeways. Such "revolts"
occurred in many U.S. cities, such
as
San Francisco,
Portland, Oregon, and
Baltimore. In many cities, one
can find
ghost ramps,
abruptly-terminating freeway
alignments, and short stretches of
freeway in the middle of nowhere,
all of which are evidence of
larger projects which were
mothballed.
After
World War II, there was a
major drive to build a freeway
network in the United States;
including (but not limited to) the
Interstate Highway System.
Design and construction began in
earnest in the 1950s, and many
cities (as well as rural areas)
were subjected to the bulldozer.
However, many of the proposed
freeway routes were drawn up
without considering local
interest; in many cases the
construction of the freeway system
was considered a regional (or
national) issue which trumped
local concerns.
Starting in the 1960s, when
many neighborhood activists became
aware of the effect that freeway
construction was having on local
neighborhoods, effective city
opposition to many freeway routes
in many cities was raised; this
led to the modification or
cancellation of many proposed
routes. The freeway revolts
continued into the 1970s, further
enhanced by concern over the
energy crisis and rising fuel
costs, as well as a growing
environmentalist movement.
However, some proposals for
controlled-access freeways
have debated and finalized as a
compromise to build them as
at-grade expressways.
San Francisco
Late 1940s San Francisco
Planning Department Freeway
Plan
In
San Francisco, California,
public opposition to
freeways dates to 1956, when
the
San Francisco Chronicle
published a map (see image) of
proposed routes; construction of
the elevated
Embarcadero Freeway along the
downtown waterfront also helped to
organize the opposition. In 1959,
the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
voted to cancel seven of ten
planned freeways, including an
extension of the
Central Freeway. In 1964,
protests against a freeway through
the
Panhandle and
Golden Gate Park led to its
cancellation, and in 1966 the
Board of Supervisors rejected an
extension of the Embarcadero
Freeway to the
Golden Gate Bridge.
Opposition to the Embarcadero
Freeway continued, and in 1985,
the Board of Supervisors voted to
demolish it. It was closed after
1989's
Loma Prieta earthquake and
torn down shortly thereafter.
Parts of the
Central Freeway were
demolished over the next decade.
Portland, Oregon
Shortly after WWII, the city
leaders of
Portland, Oregon commissioned
famed transportation planner
Robert Moses to design a
freeway network for the city.
Moses produced a proposal which
called for numerous freeways to
criscross the city; of this
proposal six freeway routes made
it to the planning stage. Four of
the six were eventually
constructed (in some cases in the
face of intense opposition); these
are:
However, two other planned
freeways—the
Interstate 505 freeway, and
the
Mt. Hood Freeway, were far
more controversial. Each proposed
route cut through established city
neighborhoods. An intense battle
arose over the Mt. Hood Freeway, a
proposed routing of
U.S. Highway 26 and Interstate
84 (then 80N) that stretched from
the
Marquam Bridge out to the city
Sandy at the base of
Mount Hood. One section of the
freeway—an
expressway stretch between
Sandy and
Gresham with an uncompleted
interchange—was built; but the
remainder was controversial.
The 1976 mayoral race, with
Neil Goldschmidt representing
the anti-freeway side and
Frank Ivancie representing the
supporters of the freeway, became
a de-facto referendum on the
proposed route. The election was
won by Goldschmidt and the freeway
was cancelled. The proposed
federal funds for the project were
instead made available for a
planned
light rail line, built in the
1980's to connect Portland with
Gresham and now part of the
MAX Blue Line. This light-rail
network is steadily expanding,
including sections along
Interstate 205 in room that
resulted from the controversy.
Soon after, the Interstate 505
proposal was also cancelled; a
shorter freeway "stub" was built
instead, and
U.S. Highway 30 was routed on
a new alignment through an
industrial area (and away from the
residential neighborhood that its
prior alignment—and the I-505
proposal—ran through).
In addition to the cancellation
of three proposed freeway routes,
Portland saw another milestone in
the freeway revolts: the
destruction of an already-existing
freeway. The first freeway to be
built through the city—Harbor
Drive (along the western shore
of the
Willamette River), which was,
at the time, the route of
Oregon Highway 99W—was
demolished and replaced with
Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
99W was moved onto nearby Front
Avenue (the stretch of 99W through
Portland would be later
decomissioned), and little
evidence remains that there was
once a freeway along the
waterfront. (It should be noted
that the removal of Harbor Drive
wasn't all that controversial; the
recent construction of I-5 on the
river's East Bank, and I-405
through the downtown core, had
made Harbor Drive no longer
necessary.)
Elsewhere in Oregon
Other Oregon freeway revolts
occurred in
Salem and
Eugene. In Salem, the
Interstate 305 project was
shelved and replaced with the
Salem Parkway, a highway along the
same alignment but with at-grade
intersections. In Eugene, the
Roosevelt Freeway project was
cancelled, and the
Belt Line Road was severly
curtailed; only the northwestern
segment of the proposed
beltway was ever built.
However, Eugene is now facing an
active controversy over the
proposed
West Eugene Parkway project,
which some critics have claimed is
little more than a scaled-back
version of the original Roosevelt
Freeway proposal.
See also
Sources
General
San Francisco
Portland
