26 November 2021

Said to be the "world's largest freeway"


The Katy freeway (Interstate 10) in Houston "was expanded to as many as 20 total lanes in Houston, but due to induced demand, travel times along the highway within the city increased as much as 30 percent."  Comments about the road at the via.

That photo reminded me of this one, of "Detroit before and after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956":

5 comments:

  1. Old school GPS can’t tell which lane you’re in on the Katy, so it’s constantly telling you to turn left when, in fact, it’s impossible. Simply the most annoying business trip I have taken in my entire life was trying to get from Bush Intn’l to a hospital supply business.

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  2. Those photos of Detroit are heartbreaking. As a kid, I was aware of San Francisco's fight against the Feds on freeway plans. SF pretty much won with freeways ending at the city's edge or skirting the city limits. No freeway ever bisected the city. Getting through SF is still a matter of traveling on surface streets with lots of stop lights. A small victory.

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  3. Reminds me of a nice documentary on a freeway in downtown Portland, OR that was demolished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_yNrP0hCY

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  4. I wonder what general shade the people of that Detroit neighborhood were.

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  5. They tried to do the same to DC, but local opposition won and now we have metro here (semi-working). Here's an an article about the plans in DC.

    https://ggwash.org/view/28313/1950-plan-shows-never-built-freeways
    https://ggwash.org/view/83218/heres-how-u-street-almost-became-strip-malls-and-office-parks

    Meanwhile, Brussels decided to undo the damage of running a highway into town.

    https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium-all-news/195589/a12-motorway-into-brussels-to-become-green-boulevard

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