Highway Expansion

Advocates in Portland, Ore. have sued to stop the expansion of an urban renewal era highway project — and possibly writing the next page in the playbook for fighting bad urban freeway redesigns across the U.S.

One of Texas's most-notorious highway expansion projects is being put on pause, thanks to a U.S. Department of Transportation that's newly committed to mitigating the racist impacts of federally funded transportation projects.

Advocates from St. Paul, Minn. are hoping to restore some of what the Black community lost when a highway was run through their core neighborhood — and to provide an unconventional model for other communities across the country to do the same.

It is time for Maryland to shed obsolete highway-focused traffic solutions, and pursue alternative strategies that give residents more, and cleaner, choices for how to get around.

The $5.3-billion project is a 52-mile, six-lane expressway that's almost entirely reliant on intermittent and insufficient federal funding, and scheduled to take at least 40 years to complete.

Illinois officials have budgeted $206 million for a new interchange on I-57 that would take drivers onto a road through undeveloped farmland 44 miles south of Chicago in Will County, Illinois.

The Texas Department of Transportation is currently reviewing plans for a major expansion to a 23-mile section of Loop 1604, a suburban highway loop that encircles San Antonio. The project, which would expand Loop 1604 between state Highway 16 and Interstate 35 north of the city, includes four to six additional lanes along the entire length of roadway, new frontage roads and a five-level interchange with Interstate 10. This $1.36 billion expansion, while likely failing to solve local congestion problems, would threaten one of the region’s primary sources of drinking water.

Ohio and Kentucky transportation officials are considering a new four-lane bypass around the eastern side of Cincinnati that would cause sprawling development and damaging community impacts, while overwhelming Ohio’s state transportation budget. The proposed Cincinnati Eastern Bypass (CEB) would entail approximately 75 miles of new freeway. 

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.