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Damage caused by freeways


Khorasaurus

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Thanks for the detailed history. It's hard for us young guys to imagine that Roger's Plaza was a revolutionary concept and had that much effect on the city.

It's also hard to imagine traveling from city to city using all surface streets like you describe.

Thanks for the perspective.

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Taking the back roads back to GR from Jackson was fun and allot less stressful than the freeways. I would not have seen some great scenery really cool small towns and purchases some great Amish bread if I was zooming down I-96.

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Damage Caused TO Freeways:

I agree, freeways have caused massive damage to our cities and our way of life. They create "fences" that split neighborhoods forever. They are also responsible for killing off most of the great American Passenger Train network of the late 1950's. A glance at any US highway map and a look at our railroad map demonstrates the highway lobby and Big Oil, conspired to build these things right alongside our mainline railroads. The highways, waterways and airways all get dedicated funding from the government...sometimes with tax money paid by private railroad companys. Sad state of affairs.

But even if our freeways are vitial to our daily lifes, they operate under the old "peter principle".The

demand for more traffic lanes will always expand to exceed the supply. It is an endless game of catch-up. Worse, if one takes the total area paved in the USA, and calculates the size of various states, we could completely cover 8 Northeastern States with pavement. Where does it end?

As a City Councilman in Oklahoma, I learned these arterys are on constant "life-support" as well. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation, told me that one single semi truck passing over a bridge, will do as much damage as 80,000 automobiles! So next time some politician trys to sell you on a cheap roadway or the new Bus Rapid Transit systems, find out if the constant resurfacing and rebuilding has been worked into the numbers. I doubt it.

traintrain

Jacksonville FL Forum:shades:

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It would be a lot more stressful with all the traffic from I-96 on that same road. I can guarantee you wouldn't have enjoyed it one bit.

In all aspects, that would be true. Congestion would have been a nightmare But, first, blame the allure of driving any where at any time. That kind of autonomy appeals to the very core of what it is to be an American, freedom and choice. Secondly, today we don't have much choice other than to drive a car thanks to municipalities, states, and feds all but abandoning mass transit options and smart city planning in favor of automotive centric infrastructure because they too, like the average Joe, were spellbound by the allure of driving. I'm not saying remove all freeways. However, if folks back in the 50's and 60's kept cool heads and took a more balanced approach to automotive and mass transit needs coupled smart city planning, I bet a dollar and a dozen donuts that US cities would still have gotten most of the economic benefits of freeways but with allot less sprawl, leaving vibrant DT's intact, and way less social and environmental damage.

I'm sorry, I'll take the environmental and social impact (the good with the bad) of the freeway system over going back to the old highways. Let's not get too nostolgic about the good old days . The good old days weren't all that that good.

Its not just about nostalgia. To me, it's about asking ourselves this. As urban sprawl continues causing more and more social, economic, and environmental damage, not to mention the fast growing number of cars on the road and increasing congestion and fuel prices, will the virtues of freeways and the automobile centric society they have spawned continue to outweigh their negative impacts?

It would be a lot more stressful with all the traffic from I-96 on that same road. I can guarantee you wouldn't have enjoyed it one bit.

More memories :whistling: I remember going north on 131 before the freeway mid 60's. On the weekend, traffic would back up 3,4, 5 miles out of Cedar Springs both dirctions. Bumper to bumper stop & go traffic. Cars trying to parallel park so they could go to a restuarant. The only "fast food" joint was the A&W on the north end of town. Cops directing traffic so the residents could cross 131. And you think today's construction backups are bad. This happened every summer weekend every year :( . Imagine driving this two lane road with cars hauling boats and trailers, mile long backups and impatient drivers passing on double yellows, blind hills and the resulting near misses and too frequently the head on crashes. The old road is still there almost all intact to Cadillac. Check out the hills south of Cadillac and between Big Rapids & Reed City.

I'm sorry, I'll take the environmental and social impact (the good with the bad) of the freeway system over going back to the old highways. Let's not get too nostolgic about the good old days . The good old days weren't all that that good. (On a personal note, if I was even 20 years older, I'd would have been dead at 52 in the good old days. The first heart cath wasn't done in GR until 1989. I had one in 2002 that saved my life :good:.)

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But, first, blame the allure of driving any where at any time. That kind of autonomy appeals to the very core of what it is to be an American, freedom and choice. Secondly, today we don't have much choice other than to drive a car thanks to municipalities, states, and feds all but abandoning mass transit options and smart city planning in favor of automotive centric infrastructure because they too, like the average Joe, were spellbound by the allure of driving. I'm not saying remove all freeways. However, if folks back in the 50's and 60's kept cool heads and took a more balanced approach to automotive and mass transit needs coupled smart city planning, I bet a dollar and a dozen donuts that US cities would still have gotten most of the economic benefits of freeways but with allot less sprawl, leaving vibrant DT's intact, and way less social and environmental damage.
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A glance at any US highway map and a look at our railroad map demonstrates the highway lobby and Big Oil, conspired to build these things right alongside our mainline railroads. The highways, waterways and airways all get dedicated funding from the government...sometimes with tax money paid by private railroad companys. Sad state of affairs.

As a City Councilman in Oklahoma, I learned these arterys are on constant "life-support" as well. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation, told me that one single semi truck passing over a bridge, will do as much damage as 80,000 automobiles! So next time some politician trys to sell you on a cheap roadway or the new Bus Rapid Transit systems, find out if the constant resurfacing and rebuilding has been worked into the numbers. I doubt it.[

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When you get right down to it, it wasn't the freeways themselves which destroyed the urban core of many cities but rather, in hindsight, very poor planning and decision making related to where the freeways were to be located. I remember hearing somewhere that the man who had originally come up with the plan warned officials to NOT run them through cities because they were designed to connect major urban cores via the country side as opposed to the metropolitan thoroughfares which they became.

Many highways cut right through or right next to many already established suburban or rural communities which inevitably brought development out of the city and into the fringes. My favorite example of the highway done right is the stretch of I-80/90. Aside from the tools, there is very little out of control commercial strip development between Angola, IN and Toledo. This is due to good policy and the fact that the highway was constructed too far out of the way of most established communities for things like McDonald's and what not to build at those exits.

Of course state routes tend to foster this same type of sprawl, albeit not so much anymore. Which is why again, you must blame the policies and philosphies concerning them for sprawl's negative effects as opposed to the road itself.

It would neat to sit down with old late 40's/early 50's regional map and try to design highway transportation network for Grand Rapids using the knowledge and philosophies we have today. Of course, you would still be facing many of the same issues planners of that time had to deal with including an already deteriorating urban core, outdated/dirty industrial land uses, congestion, and a post-war population boom. One can only wonder what it would look like.

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One of the biggest factors that makes me question the way US cities have evolved is European cities. Like US cities European Cities to have allot of freeways and cars. Maybe its just European Envy at work, but cities in many European countries seem to still have strong, viable, and more well used mass transit options for people to get around and more walkable and vibrant urban cores. Even though they too have urban sprawl problems, its seems nowhere near as bad as it is in the US.

You need to keep in mind "the people" had a choice and it was to drive and abandon mass transit. I forgot to mention the fact that downtown retail closed at 5 maybe 6 on Wednesdays. Rogers Plaza was open every night (except Sunday) to 7 then 8 then 9. The choice for my mom was take the bus downtown with 2 kids and try to shop during the day or wait until my dad got home and we piled in the car to go to the "malls". McDonald's opened the first store on 28th west of Michael /DeHoop in 1959 and $0.15 burgers were a big hit. The only way the govt could have stopped that would have been to have laws restricting suburban retail construction and restricting business hours. That wasn't going to happen even in the name of "smart city planning" in the USA after we had just fought WWII (lots of veterans around the country just like my dad) to ensure our freedom which included developers building malls and people choosing to shop there.

I'm not saying that all the decisions back then were the best, but then again I don't think they're all the best today either.

Let's agree on you think they could have done a lot better back then and I think they didn't do too bad given the information and the era it was :)

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...

Second: The highways were built following the railroads because they used the railroad to bring in the raw materials, gravel, sand, and cement. It was a business decision as well as a practical way to move the materials, not a conspiracy. There were very few trucks to haul the materials. The road contractors built narrow gauge railroads to haul the materials from the railroad siding to the construction site. I have the photos and reports documenting it in our county. The Good Roads lobby wanted to get folks out of the mud and ruts.

...

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Imagine taking all the traffic today off I-96 and putting it back on Cascade Road. Traffic to Muskegon could take 28th St to Wilson to Remembrance or Cascade to Fulton to Division to Leonard to Remembrance to get thru GR. Can you imagine what the city streets would look like traffic wise. US 131 would be Division to Plainfield to EBL to Northland Drive to Wolverine Blvd t back to Northland. Back in the pre-freeway days, a 30 foot semi trailer was a big one. (Today's are 48 or 53 foot). I can remember seeing the 40 footers when they first showed up, they were huge compared to the 30's (at least to a little kid) Can you imagine these 53 footers all trying to get through downtown today? I am convinced the prosperity this country has enjoyed is due to quick and convenient transportation that the freeway system provides.

In 1957 my dad and a friend of his took their boys to a Tigers ball game. I can remember the other dad's car, 1957 Oldsmobile. I didn't want to ride in it because it was pink :(. I do remember the two lane ride to Detroit. Down by Brighton they experimented with a 3-lane road. The center lane was for passing. They also called it "killer highway" because people would get impatient and pass on the hills and there were frequent fatalities. The introduction of the freeway greatly reduced highway fatalities.

For another trip down memory lane: I was born in 1950, my sister in 56. My dad was a tool & die guy at American Seating. Mom was a stay home mom. We only had one car - single stall garage :) in the Leonard/Diamond area. My dad took the car to work every day, if my mom needed it, she'd take my dad to work. Tthat didn't happen very often because my mom would use the city bus for transportation. I can remember her taking me with her on the bus to her OB-GYN appointment. The doctor's office was upstairs next to the currents Reynolds & Brown Sporting Goods on Monroe center. After my sister was born, she take both of us to get our pictures taken at Versluis Studios north of Herpolshimers Dept Store (current GRPD). In the summer when school was out, it was a treat for me to ride the bus when mom went shopping downtown.

In high school, my dad took us in the morning (myself, my buddy and 2 neighbor girls) on his way to work. (Christian High on Madison & Franklin - current Social Services Bldg - largest gym in the city at the time). We took the city bus home at night. Franklin bus downtown and transfer to the Eastern bus. Things got a little rowdy at times on Monroe Ave (Monroe Center today) with all the high school kids hanging out there waiting for their buses (Transit Center incidents sound familiar?). My junior year my buddy bought a 54 Chevy. It had set for 10 years and had a rusty gas tank. It had the old style glass bowl fuel filter. It would start sputtering and he'd coast to the curb. He's empty the rust out of the bowl, put it back on and it would be good for a few more miles. There'd be two or 3 unscheduled stops on the way home every night and on the way to school in the morning until he saved enough money for a new gas tank.

Ah yes, the good old days :whistling:

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I have heard that when the Eisenhower administration envisioned the highway system, that they planned the highways to ring the cities, with boulevard connections from the city to the highway, rather than 6 lanes of elevated highway traffic ripping through neighborhoods. It was only after a revolt by the urban mayors, that these highways were placed where they are.

I am not sure if this is true, but in concept it seems better than the solution that was arrived at. It also seems feasible, considering the leadership of the era.

The highways are single use systems that are designed to move traffic efficiently. Their design does not care about context or the quality of the public realm. Never did, never will. Whatever benefits that they provide are overidden by their sheer brutalism. They disconnect neighborhoods, create blighted landscapes around them and disrupt vehicular and pedestrian connectivity. The movement of traffic, in a connected street network is a far superior system than building car sewers.

Significant mistakes were made in the post WWII era - not just highway building, although the highways did significant damage and not just to big cities, but also to small towns and rural hamlets.

Besides the highway building frenzy, that continues today, the post WWII era gave us single use, segregated zoning (although this was seeded well before the war and implemented unabashed after the war), redlining, block-busting, biased government sponsored mortgages, co-opting of the American Dream into everyone owning a "cabin in the woods", and of course the scrapping of our public transportation systems by some pretty sinister corporations.

So 60+ years after we won the war, our cities look worse than those of the countries that lost the war. And not only our cities, but our countryside, our rural lands, our towns - just about everything.

And all of this misinvestment over the last 60 years has left us with no choice but to lust every oil in order to sustain it.

So were the decisions sound. I would say absolutely not. They were borderline negligent.

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Mom would take me downtown on the old GM green and yellow City Coach Lines buses.

All that said, I remain very ambivalent about the US-131 routing, and the way it walled off the West Side from both the river and the rest of the City. It may be that this was the only way to go, but the impacts remain with us today.

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By the way, folks who seek that old-time experience need only take M-37 to Traverse City rather than US-131. It brings it all back.

All that said, I remain very ambivalent about the US-131 routing, and the way it walled off the West Side from both the river and the rest of the City. It may be that this was the only way to go, but the impacts remain with us today.

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I had forgot about the old green & yellow ones. I do remember the new ones, the cream colored ones with the green stripe with "modern" rounded tops. I always wanted the bus we took to be a new one :) BTW: The bus garage ex-streetcar barn is still there on the north side of Hall just east of Divison (G&T Plastics?). You can see were the old tall arched windows used to be.

I'm not trying to necssarily defend the location of US131 or I-196, just trying to give the perspective and technical reasons of why they were chosen.

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Ah, memories. I think that the cream and green-striped ones were just green and yellow ones, repainted. It wasn't until about 1968 that GR finally got the stainless steel sided modern GM buses that other cities had used since the late 1950s.

Since my Mom didn't drive until I was 10, and we had only one car, we took a lot of those buses. I loved the freedom that the buses gave me to go downtown on my own when I was old enough.

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You might be right on the buses :thumbsup: I vaguely remember the dark green with brighter yellow trim buses. I do remember the cream with green stripe were quiet and new interiors, they may have been refurbished. The dark green ones rattled real bad. I looked on the net and the cream ones were bought by GR in 44 and 48 so they probably were due for refurbishing in the mid 50's. (What you can't find on the internet ;)) I want to say some of the dark green ones were not built by GM but I can't find any documentation. This was during the era when it went from privately owned to city ownership IIRC.
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I have heard that when the Eisenhower administration envisioned the highway system, that they planned the highways to ring the cities, with boulevard connections from the city to the highway, rather than 6 lanes of elevated highway traffic ripping through neighborhoods. It was only after a revolt by the urban mayors, that these highways were placed where they are.

So 60+ years after we won the war, our cities look worse than those of the countries that lost the war. And not only our cities, but our countryside, our rural lands, our towns - just about everything.

So were the decisions sound. I would say absolutely not. They were borderline negligent.

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Where did Civitas go? He doesn't post here anymore. :dontknow:

Here a couple of pictures, posted by Civitas, I found while thumbing through the "Grand Rapids Then and Now" thread. It shows what Grand Rapids looked like before 131's construction as a comparison shot taken after construction had begun.

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.ph...23034&st=60

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