Highway Removal
Basics
Biden Decries US DOT’s Destruction of Black Communities — But Will His Administration Make Reparations?
President Biden won points among some antiracist transportation advocates for calling out federal highway projects for destroying Black communities — and then lost points by failing to call for the USDOT itself to make reparations to the people it has harmed.
January 28, 2021
Senate Considering $10B for Highway Removal
Cities might soon get the kind of federal money they need to tear down the downtown highways that federal dollars paid them to build — and to reinvest in communities of color that those highways destroyed.
January 11, 2021
Nominee Buttigieg Vows To Dismantle ‘Racist’ Freeways
“It’s disproportionately Black and brown neighborhoods that were divided by highway projects because they didn’t have the political capital to resist,” Buttigieg said on Sunday. "We have a chance to get that right.”
December 22, 2020
Can COVID-19 Finally Kill the Highway Boondoggle?
America was already faced with the need to make critical transportation investments. And then COVID-19 hit, upending travel patterns and undercutting the traditional sources of government transportation revenue.
December 11, 2020
Why Highway Teardowns Make Great Infrastructure (and Equity) Investments
Progressive advocates are making the case that new infrastructure money would actually be best spent tearing urban highways down — and reinvesting in the Black and brown communities that those bad road projects tore apart decades ago.
December 10, 2020
Op Ed: We Shouldn’t Fix Some ‘Crumbling’ Highways
Americans shouldn't have to choose between building endless new highway miles and endlessly fixing the roads that destroy our places — because there are a lot of highways that deserve to be decommissioned.
July 8, 2020
Memo from Seattle: Burying Crumbling Urban Highways Isn’t the Answer
It's tunnel vision! Lawmakers in New York are looking to Seattle for advice on how to fix a crumbling highway — but the Emerald City's experiment with a highway tunnel is no model. Here's why.
March 4, 2020
Op-Ed: A $7.5B Boondoggle Advances in Austin
Austin just approved funding to expand its most notorious highway. It's bad news for public safety — and for their municipal budget.
March 2, 2020
It’s Progressives vs. Labor over Transportation Money
It's the latest battle for the soul of the Democratic party.
November 6, 2019
Federal Program Would Help Cities Tear Down Highways
A new pot of money would help undo the sometimes-racist legacy of urban highway construction.
August 14, 2019