6 Freeway Removals That Changed Their Cities Forever

monument

I've read about a few of these before: many include no replacemt route for cars:

http://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-demolitions-that-changed-their-cities-forever-1548314937

And traffic on other existing routes does not notably increase.

Louche Lad

The mayor of Paris is pushing to pedestrianise the banks of the Seine: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/paris-mayor-plans-to-pedestrianise-seine-anne-hidalgo

Edited to add: perhaps I should say "re-pedestrianise", because the banks weren't roads 40-odd years ago. It seems a crime now that the river banks in a beautiful city were handed over to cars in the first place.

Louche Lad

Another link re Paris scheme: seems it was in the 1960s that they converted the banks into roads, described as "one if the worst planning mistakes Paris made in the twentieth century": http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/05/in-paris-plans-for-a-river-seine-reinvention/392639/?utm_source=SFTwitter

MGWR

monument wrote: »

I've read about a few of these before: many include no replacemt route for cars:

http://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-demolitions-that-changed-their-cities-forever-1548314937

And traffic on other existing routes does not notably increase.

Well, when jobs keep going away, traffic cannot "increase", can it. Specious to cite an economy that is almost on the brink of death, too.

monument

MGWR wrote: »

Well, when jobs keep going away, traffic cannot "increase", can it. Specious to cite an economy that is almost on the brink of death, too.

Which example are you refering to?

AngryLips

Would be interesting to see what the effect is on the local economy when this happens as opposed on the coffers of the local authority.

icdg

It's not really something applicable to the Republic though is it, Sligo is the only major urban area with a throughpass and it's not a motorway.

Belfast is the only real example of one on the island with its Westlink.

monument

icdg wrote: »

It's not really something applicable to the Republic though is it, Sligo is the only major urban area with a throughpass and it's not a motorway.

Belfast is the only real example of one on the island with its Westlink.

The quays in Dublin have been described as a dual carriageway separated by the Liffey.

Aard

It's a somewhat scalable concept. Patrick St / Christchurch axis would be comparable in a Dublin city centre context.

lucernarian

icdg wrote: »

It's not really something applicable to the Republic though is it, Sligo is the only major urban area with a throughpass and it's not a motorway.

Belfast is the only real example of one on the island with its Westlink.

Drogheda? A very substantial one and is the main river crossing in the town.

Subpopulus

Blackpool Bypass or the South Link Road in Cork City. The Blackpool Bypass is particularly bad for cutting off Blackpool from the area east of it.

The South Link would be a good candidate for covering over - it's already in a very deep cutting so you could cover it over between the South Douglas Road and the Old Blackrock Road and make a 1km long linear park... It's not the worst though, the permeability over the top of it is pretty good, it's pretty narrow so often you don't realise that you're passing over it

Chris_5339762

Belfast Westlink would be a candidate but the city would need both a western and probably an Eastern bypass to cope with it. Well, it needs both anyway, so in for a penny and all that.

Muahahaha

I get the whole reasoning behind the whole if you build a road cars will fill it but what might happen in a Dublin context where many/most feel they have little alternative but to take the car. You could certainly see people who live inside the m50 being able to make alternative transport arrangements but those living outside the m50 and needing to get to the city centre would be more inconvenienced. Without decent public transport and large scale park and rides its hard to see how it could work well.