{"id":1194,"date":"2010-07-13T10:51:38","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T14:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2010-07-13T10:58:29","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T14:58:29","slug":"demapping-a-highway-restoring-a-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1194","title":{"rendered":"Demapping a Highway; Restoring a Neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sam Dolnick, NEW YORK TIMES, July 12, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a> For more than a decade, a plan pushed by some South Bronx residents and transportation advocates has sat on the fringes of the State Transportation Department\u2019s to-do list, in part because it would be a radical undoing: tearing down the Sheridan Expressway.<\/p>\n

Although the plan has no real precedent in New York, advocates recite the benefits. They say it would ease traffic, improve neighborhood life and right a decades-old wrong committed by the master planner Robert Moses of building an unnecessary highway.<\/p>\n

As other proposals for the Sheridan have been tossed aside, the idea to tear it down has improbably progressed to the center of the state\u2019s rethinking of the highway, which runs only a mile and a quarter long between the Cross Bronx and Bruckner Expressways.<\/p>\n

In the process, the Sheridan, a reliable thoroughfare for truckers and an eyesore for Hunts Point residents, has become something else: a battleground in a national fight to take urban spaces back from the automobile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re rolling back the freeway system,\u201d said John Norquist, president and chief executive of the Congress for a New Urbanism<\/a>, a group based in Chicago that promotes walkable cities. He pointed to Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; and Milwaukee, where he was mayor, as cities that have removed highways running through urban areas.<\/p>\n

Mr. Norquist said the Sheridan was \u201ca big important example because it\u2019s in New York and it\u2019s very visible; it would inspire other people that are trying to do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

State transportation officials have been studying the Sheridan for years. They have narrowed the field of proposals to three, including a plan to \u201cdemap\u201d the roadway, which would probably lead to its removal.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, officials will release long-awaited results of a study of the traffic implications for keeping and removing the Sheridan. While no final decision is expected, the report could presage the road\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realize that we can\u2019t just look at the highway facility itself; we need to look at the impact of a highway through the community it runs through,\u201d said Phillip Eng, the city\u2019s regional director of the State Transportation Department. \u201cIt needs to focus on not just moving traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sheridan carries roughly 50,000 vehicles a day, according to state officials. It provides a route for truckers to reach the major food distribution center in Hunts Point but also acts as a physical barrier between local residents and the Bronx River.<\/p>\n

Removing the Sheridan would open up 13 acres of open space along the river, land that advocates want to connect with some 15 other acres of service roads and riverfront property to create 1,200 affordable housing units, commercial and industrial space, and amenities like playgrounds, swimming pools and soccer fields. [Read rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Demapping and dismantling the little used mile-and-a-quarter-long Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx would restore a neighborhood and create 13 open acres along the East River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[612,164,609,611,608,607,610],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}