Highway Expansion
Streetsblog Basics
Study: Two-Thirds of Americans Know Highway Expansions Don’t Cure Traffic
American voters understand what "induced demand" is, even if their leaders do not.
June 29, 2023
Memorial Day Op-Ed Special: To Halt Wasteful Highways, America Needs a ‘Road Review’
America has a highway-happy, boondoggle-building transportation policy system. It doesn't need to.
May 29, 2023
A Teen Activist’s Message to Transportation Leaders That Everyone Needs To Hear
Teenage climate organizers are standing up to adult policymakers.
May 7, 2023
These 10 Urban Freeways Deserve To Be Demolished — But Will They?
America is at a watershed moment in the fight to heal the harms of urban freeways that tore apart predominantly BIPOC and low-income communities, a new report argues — but what that healing will look like, exactly, is still an open question.
April 19, 2023
Analysis: City Ignored BQE Panel Recs To Ease Local Traffic From Two-Lane Conversion
The city has failed to adopt key recommendations by its own appointed experts to curb congestion near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway after officials reduced the highway from six to four lanes — and the Adams administration may be now using that same congestion as a justification for building a wider highway.
March 20, 2023
Rest In Pieces, ‘Fix-it-First’: Biden Caves to GOP on Highway Expansions
The Biden administration has caved to GOP pressure and will no longer push states to repair existing highways before building new ones, a move that angered livable cities advocates.
March 7, 2023
Congress’s Messy ‘Fix-It-First’ Fight Heats Up
A long-fought effort to get states to spend more of their federal infrastructure dollars on fixing highways rather than building new ones is in peril in the newly GOP-lead head house — and if it succeeds, it could force President Biden to take an unprecedented stand in favor of progressive road priorities.
January 23, 2023
Syracuse’s Messy I-81 Teardown Fight Shows the Challenge of ‘Reconnecting Communities’
An 11th-hour legal battle over the future of one of America's most talked-about highway teardowns is sparking a debate about what it really means to "reconnect communities" devastated by highway construction — and possibly offering a preview of similar fights on deck in other U.S. cities.
December 12, 2022
Advocates Warn ‘Reconnecting Communities’ Program Could Actually Expand Highways
A massive coalition of advocates is calling on the federal Department of Transportation to make sure a historic fund that could tear down harmful urban highways across America isn't used to expand or maintain them instead.
November 3, 2022
Highway Boondoggles Part V: Duluth’s ‘Can of Worms’
It’s sometimes said that Minnesota has two seasons: winter and road construction. In Duluth, an ongoing, multiyear highway project has sucked up millions of taxpayer dollars on a road that many residents believe shouldn’t even be there in the first place.
September 20, 2022
