Freeway removal

Freeway removal is a public policy of urban planning policy to demolish freeways and create mixed-use urban areas, parks, residential, commercial, or other land uses. Such highway removal is often part of a policy to promote smart growth, transit-oriented development, walkable and bicycle-friendly cities. In some cases freeways are retained as less intrusive and expansive boulevards, retained as freeways within tunnels beneath a city, or relocated through less densely-developed areas.

In some cities, strategies were implemented or planned for freeway removal policies to tear down highways that cut through neighborhoods. These freeways created blight that minimized use of land space and reduced the quality of life for city residents. The alternative that some cities have chosen for urban design is to replace elevated highways with boulevards to restore neighborhoods affected by highway construction. In some regions, freeway removal has been proposed but these plans have not yet been completed or funded. There are political battles, in many cases, between citizens' groups who are proponents of freeway removal proposals and drivers that want to keep the freeways.

To increase land usage, the demolition of freeways is often a part of the discussion for both city and state’s governmental strategies. Cities planning redevelopment of certain neighborhoods such as Washington, D.C.’s Whitehurst Freeway in the neighborhood of Georgetown, were set for demolition but were frozen so the city may do an environmental impact study. Other cities – such as Nashville, Tennessee, whose government is planning to demolish the downtown loop where three major interstates (I-65, I-40, and I-24) converge – are planning to replace these areas with parks, boulevards, and mixed-use communities that will reconnect their cores with adjacent neighborhoods.

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