Lessons From Rochester’s Highway Removal Project
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After a sunken expressway was filled in, residential and retail development has transformed this downtown Rochester neighborhood.
Photographer: Kim Smith Photo
In the Neighborhood of Play, a new walkable development near downtown Rochester, New York, it’s not obvious that a multi-lane highway once stood in its place. The transformation is the result of a $21 million project launched in 2014 to replace a stretch of the Inner Loop encircling the city’s core with mixed-use buildings and hotels, as well as bike lanes and landscaped sidewalks.
As cities from New Orleans to Baltimore embark on efforts to remove urban highways and repair the communities they tore through, Rochester’s project serves as a national model for how to actually get it done. The city is also learning about the process along the way as it plans the project’s next phase — to remove loop’s northern quadrant and reconnect the neighborhoods, contributor Mark Byrnes reports. Today on CityLab: What Happens After a Highway Dies