Deck the Highways With Piles of Greenery and New Development

I've been a fan of capping highways or tunneling highways in cities, ever since I learned about the Big Dig in Boston. Now Boston has dozens of acres of new urban greenscape and parkland and reconnected neighborhoods b/se they recouped that lost acreage from the interstates. Similar things can happen with air rights over railyards such as the plan to cap the Union Staion railyard in Washington, DC for development. Similar plans are in the works for Paris, NYC, and even Charlotte, NC. The idea of getting more all purpose capabilities out of infrastructure is becoming rather important and smart in this generation of urban planning. This is short article about capping urban freeways in the U.S. What do u think??? Benefiting from a Cover Up Cities reap rewards for decking highways with parks By PETER HARNIK and BEN WELLE U.S. cities are increasingly putting freeway segments underground and covering them with parkland. Whether called a lid, deck, bridge or tunnel, there are already some 20 highway parks in the country, several under construction — most notably, the Rose Kennedy Greenway park atop Boston’s Big Dig — and at least a dozen more in the planning pipeline. As urban auto impacts become less welcome, these decks have moved from the novel to the expected. Despite the sometimes considerable cost — as much as $500 per square foot — they are no longer classified as porkbarrel. They’ve been redefined as amenity investment with high economic payback. It wasn’t until the 1970s construction of Seattle’s Freeway Park atop a downtown section of Interstate 5 that the “deck-the-freeway” concept began getting serious attention — opening as it did in time for the Bicentennial. Since then, there have been many more deckings. Phoenix, for instance, put 10-acre Hance Park over the Papago Freeway, uniting uptown and downtown and providing open space adjacent to the city’s central library, while Duluth, Minnesota, put in place three different deck parks over Interstate 35 to bridge the divide the road created between the city and the Lake Superior waterfront. More recently, New Jersey placed innovative freeway parks in Trenton and Atlantic City. A study carried out by the Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence found that the average size of freeway parks in the U.S. is about nine acres, and that, on average, each one covers 1,620 linear feet of highway. While construction costs for deck parks can be wincingly high, there is also an upside: The land itself is generally free, made available as air rights by state transportation agencies. In center-city locations, this can amount to a multimillion-dollar gift. Land near the Santa Ana Freeway by Los Angeles City Hall, for instance, goes for between $2 million and $3 million an acre. In near-downtown San Diego by Balboa Park, an acre is worth up to $13 million. OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS Regardless of cost, the actual force driving the trend is the opportunity for private development and redevelopment around the parks. In Trenton, for instance, the New Jersey Department of Transportation spent $150 million on the new 6.5-acre Riverwalk deck over U.S. 29, linking the city to the Delaware River. In response, there was a significant spike in prices of nearby property. One lot, worth $120,000 pre-construction, was developed with six housing units that sold for $200,000 each. The park’s existence also helped recruit a new 82-unit market rate residential building. Projects where freeways are already below grade are much more feasible than others, and there are four particularly high-prospect opportunities in major downtowns. In St. Louis, one of Mayor Francis Slay’s top priorities is the “three-block solution,” a plan to cover a portion of I-70 between center city and the Gateway Arch so that visitors to the Arch — there are about 3 million a year — can get into downtown St. Louis easily, while making it easier for those downtown to reach the Arch and Mississippi waterfront. An early rough estimate put the cost at a minimum of $40 million. Cincinnati faces a similar situation. An interstate highway, Fort Washington Way, blocks downtown from the Ohio River and the city’s two new sports stadiums. However, there the political will has not yet solidified. Cincinnati had an opportunity to construct a five-block-long park deck during a recent reconstruction (and road narrowing), but opted not to because of cost. As a compromise, the new Fort Washington Way was equipped with $10 million worth of steel pilings capable of supporting a future park. (Adding the park deck is estimated to cost $46 million.) Dallas, on the other hand, is fired up about the opportunity of building a park over a stretch of the Woodall-Rodgers Freeway. The freeway separates the city’s downtown and arts district from the Uptown neighborhood, and a three-block park cover is seen as both improving the urban form and opening up new opportunities for development. An existing trolley line would run through the park, and condominium towers are expected to flank it on both sides. The park’s price tag is estimated at more than $60 million, but boosters are seeking to raise one-third of that from private sources. Downtown interests in San Diego are in the early stages of evaluating decking a few blocks of I-5 so as to link with Balboa Park. The city is in the midst of an unprecedented center city residential construction boom, and the highway presents a major barrier for the thousands of apartment dwellers who have little access to green space. PAYING THE WAY Despite the cost of a park deck, there are numerous sources of local, state and federal funds to cobble together, particularly if an analysis shows that associated development will generate significantly more tax revenue. One direct approach is to create a tax increment financing district, whereby future increased tax revenue is used to pay back the costs of the deck park. (Chicago used a TIF as partial funding for Millennium Park, which was built over railroad tracks.) Other local funding sources include general public works capital funds, revenue from another form of a special tax district, or municipal bonds. (Seattle’s “Forward Thrust” bond paid 20 percent of the cost of Freeway Park.) Often the deck superstructure is paid for by the federal government while actual park development is financed by the city. Phoenix, for instance, spent $5 million landscaping Hance Park. On the federal level, several decks were built using the Transportation Department’s Interstate Construction Program, but that no longer exists. At present, a state can use National Highway System or Surface Transportation Program funds (although only at the time of road construction, not as an after-the-fact retrofit). The Transportation Enhancement program conceivably could be used if the project provides pedestrian and bicycle facilities and landscaping and scenic beautification. In addition, while the Community Development Block Grant program has shrunk since Seattle used it for Freeway Park in the 1970s, it is still available. It may also be possible to tap into state transportation funding. The Trenton project involved reconstruction of a New Jersey highway, and the state transportation department paid for it. In Duluth, the Minnesota Department of Transportation contributed 10 percent of the cost. Private funding can play a role, too. In Cincinnati, 20 percent of the narrowing of Fort Washington Way was financed through private dollars, including $250,000 from the Cincinnati Bengals. The real key to a successful highway park deck is the economic spinoff that’s generated. A project needs to show its potential impact as a redevelopment tool for surrounding real estate. Only then will the rate of return give both public and private funding sources a sound idea of the value of the investment. Many years ago, urbanist and public intellectual Lewis Mumford said, “Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.” Building parks over freeways doesn’t forget the automobile, but if done right, it offers some help to lovers and friends. That’s a combination that could make political leaders happy. Peter Harnik is director of the Center for City Park Excellence of the Trust for Public Land, and author of Inside City Parks. Ben Welle is a program assistant with the Center. http://www.governing.com/articles/1parks.htm>