Urban Freeways

 I grew up with urban highways, and I have never really lived anywhere without them, so I'm well aware of the costs of urban highways. 

I also understand the impulse to build them.

When you're in a city and all you have is a car, or all you imagine your population will have is a car, then access to a highway feels like a necessity. You want to get places faster, don't you? You want people from elsewhere to come to you, don't you? You want to be integrated into the nationwide system, don't you?

Well, yes, you do. But that of course ignores the negative externalities of urban highways. And while from Seattle to Boston to Chicago to Rochester to the Quad Cities, I've never actually gotten away from them, I want to expand on why I wish I could.

1. Making Pleasant Spaces Unpleasant

A highway is a fine place for driving, usually. But underneath or around a highway is not a pleasant place for people.

That's usually fine in the middle of rural areas where there aren't many people to experience the unpleasantness, and those who are there generally have wide open non-freeway spaces to escape into.

It's less fine in an urban setting where the literal point is to have a lot of people.

It's even less fine when the freeway is not only urban but taking up prime urban real estate, places you should want people congregating. Places that, because of the positive aggregate effects of density, would be really pleasant if there weren't, you know, a freeway overhead.

I'm going to pick on Milwaukee here for the paradoxical reason that they've done about as well as I think you can do with an urban downtown freeway. The area around the Public Market is great. But it would be infinitely better without a literal freeway just above you.

They've used this space very inventively, and it's nicely decorated, and it's a space I want to spend time in when I'm there.

It's also impossible to pretend you aren't actually directly beneath a huge multilane freeway deck.

This is a space that is pleasant, and should be more pleasant, but the existence of the urban freeway depresses its excellence. 

2. Disconnecting Cities

The  Milwaukee Public Market is the best case in some ways because it is made less pleasant by the freeway but at least you can walk under the freeway. In many places, the freeway is an actual barrier, cut across only by a few overpasses or literally nothing.

Here in Louisville, yes, I'm taking the photo from an overpass. But look: no one is going to cross this in any direction down there. And while there are nice trees implying that you're in a rural area where you wouldn't need or want to cross, that's not actually the case. Behind those trees are city. If there were no highway, that city could connect across (but it doesn't, of course).

Even in some cases where the main freeway is elevated, like here in Toronto, the Gardiner Expressway is accompanied by a big surface road, which breaks up the continuity of pedestrian or even just street-level non-car transportation. This is what Alaska Way is (or at least was) with the viaduct and the surface street both blocking Seattle's waterfront when I was growing up.

There are more vile examples of redlining and the destruction of whole neighborhoods by urban freeways, but even when that didn't happen freeways tend to break apart a city.

Even when there is legally a sidewalk, there isn't necessarily connectivity, Boston. This is why I say Milwaukee is the best version here: it's made less pleasant, but they at least put a there there.

3. Noise

All of this is about the physical built environment. Now let's talk about there being cars going 55-75 mph at all times on a freeway. 

This guy is quiet when parked, but not when moving.

The tires, the engines, the roar of traffic; freeways are loud. And if the cars aren't moving, that has other problems: gas fumes, to start, not to mention the removal of the supposed benefit of speed.

Basically this: almost every city I like has urban freeways but I'd like them a lot better without.

Hmmm, maybe there's a reason Vancouver and London, with their lack of (downtown) freeways did so well in my CityBracket...after all, no one wants to live next to a freeway.

CityBracket 2025, Round 1, Matchup 7: Louisville vs Lincoln

Welcome to our penultimate matchup of round 1, Louisville, Kentucky vs Lincoln, Nebraska! My experience of both of these can be blamed on (or traced to, depending on your perspective) my partner, who spent three years while we were dating living in one and hails from the other. As such, I've spent quite a bit of time in both these places, but in idiosyncratic parts of them; I'll admit up front that will probably color my analysis, but I'll try not to make it just about those parts of the cities.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Now, neither of these cities is going to compare to most of the cities I've considered in this bracket: no train lines to airports, no super-frequent bus lines (though both cities do have bus service to the airport). 

Both cities have Amtrak service, but Lincoln has an actual train.

Not just a mural either, though the train comes late enough that the station is staffed only from about 11:30pm to 7:30am. 

Back when I was visiting, Louisville had Megabus service to Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Cincinnati, and the tourism website thinks it still does, but Megabus doesn't. Lincoln still has service, though, primarily to Omaha.

VERDICT: Louisville 0, Lincoln 1.

b) How do you get around?

Well, without a car you're either walking or you're taking a public bus in both cities.

Lincoln's bus system (StarTran) probably does a better job covering the whole metro area. Most of those buses are infrequent, though, and Louisville metro is enough bigger that TARC still has superior service, especially downtown.

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 1

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Both cities ramp up their transit options if you're going to the biggest events: Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby) has regular transit service that gets increased for the Derby/Oaks weekend, and StarTran operates special additional buses for Husker gamedays (at an increased fee). 

I will say, however, based on personal experience, that while both cities are walkable downtown, the fact that the University of Nebraska dominates Lincoln's downtown makes it a more walkable tourist destination: it's basically all for college students. Louisville's isn't bad, but it's just that little bit more limited.

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Well, it depends where you work, doesn't it? Both of these cities are very car-centric: one study shows them with both over 90% of households having a car, and basically if you don't live downtown that makes sense. 

This is Louisville, and if it weren't for the trees it could be Lincoln too. 

Because Lincoln has such a focus of its employment at UNL, though, it is much more likely that if you work in Lincoln you can not have a car (since the bus service and the walkability are both focused on that area).

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 3 

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Again, very few people do. Lincoln scores higher than Louisville on both WalkScore and BikeScore, partly because of the bike lanes it has built: Louisville has potential for these but hasn't implemented them well. Lincoln's are better and across more of the city. 

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 4

c) How are the basic amenities?

This is the classic example where I'm going to once again declare a tie (don't worry, the stakes and standards for this will go up in later rounds). Both of these cities have places with bad sidewalk infrastructure:

And both of them also have places with absolutely lovely parks:

Those examples are only a few blocks away from each other, but what can you do.

Neither of these cities is a Washington DC for either, but both are doing OK.

VERDICT: Louisville 2, Lincoln 5

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Here it really depends on where you are on the street. Louisville has parks with great gathering spaces:

And it has some areas where people do walk from business to business (though note the cars all around too):

Lincoln has a lot more walking downtown, but honestly it's pretty rare in my experience to see anyone on the street outside of the Haymarket.

VERDICT: Louisville 3, Lincoln 5

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Conveniently, both TARC and StarTran make their analyses of their city's current transportation infrastructure public, albeit with differing levels of being up to date. Louisville has focused on getting frequent transit service (hence the better frequency of their service!) while Lincoln has focused more on multimodal solutions (like the biking infrastructure). Overall, however, I have to give this to Lincoln, because they're looking beyond just transit in a more effective way (and losing Megabus certainly didn't help people visit Louisville without a car!).

VERDICT: Louisville 3, Lincoln 6

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Now here we have a showdown of greater segregation (Louisville, with a long history still relevant today) vs lesser overall diversity (Lincoln, which is over 3/4 white). Louisville certainly has problems here, including a long history of judicially mandated busing of school-children to desegregate schools. 

You're still much more likely to see a diverse group of people walking down a street in downtown Louisville, though, even if the city is still suffering the effects of segregation.

VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 6

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

This is an easy one; Louisville the only place I've ever been met with actual gasps that I didn't use a car to get around.

VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 7

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Here again the centrality of the university pulls for Lincoln. The University of Louisville just isn't as much of a central driver of the city's identity, and thus the density needed for university housing just isn't as significant to the city. That doesn't mean that there isn't density in Louisville, but it does mean that people are less weird about it in Lincoln. 

FINAL VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 8