- By Phil Faroudja | Special to The Examiner
- Dec 10, 2024 (SFExaminer.com)
A majority of San Francisco voters in November cast ballots in favor of closing part of Great Highway, joining a recent reexamination of the impact of freeways, highways and roadways on urban areas.
Proposition K’s passage came nearly 30 years after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to remove the Embarcadero Freeway, and it followed another critical entry in the national conversation from earlier this year: Houston Chronicle investigative journalist Megan Kimble’s “City Limits,” a thorough study of the U.S. highway system published in April.
The book, perhaps inadvertently, demonstrates which community protests have been effective in combating roadways, and which have not.
Its early chapters detail the eye-opening origins of the U.S. highway system, going back to the passage of the first federal highway act in 1916. That legislation only covered rural regions, and states carried most of the costs.
In the 1930s, futurist Norman Bel Geddes envisioned a massive network of national highways, which caught the attention of President Franklin Roosevelt. Congress eventually passed a second highway act in 1944, allocating $1.5 billion for three years.
President Dwight Eisenhower is the man most responsible for our current highways. Aware that America lacked quality roadways, he based his concept on the German Autobahn, which he had seen at the end of World War II. It was an impressive network of freeways that crisscrossed the nation. Crucially, highways never went into towns, stopping at the outskirts.
The Interstate Highway Act was passed in 1956, initiating today’s system. In 1960, Eisenhower said he was frustrated to learn that the freeways cut through cities, and he stated that was never his intention. But Eisenhower’s hands were tied at that late stage: It was an election year and halting the program, with funding headed to states, was deemed unwise.
“City Limits” author Kimble has said in interviews that she, like Eisenhower, is fine with freeways traversing the countryside, but is concerned about them in urban settings. Having discussed the history, the book illustrates destructive effects with specific stories of displaced city residents, increased inequality and damaged neighborhoods.
In Austin, for example, many families will lose child care if a preschool is demolished to make way for an expanding Interstate. In Houston, a woman will no longer have her brand-new home due to a widened Interstate 10.
Kimble further argues that bringing freeways into cities has the net effect of moving people out, as they are encouraged to live elsewhere and commute.
It’s also noted that widening freeways makes congestion worse. This seems counterintuitive, but according to the principle of induced demand, when you make it easier and cheaper for people to drive, more people will drive.
While the book is focused on Texas, San Francisco plays a prominent role.
Several pages are devoted to the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway, and it’s used as a shining example. Then-Mayor Art Agnos called the demolition “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and the Board of Supervisors agreed. Following the teardown, Kimble writes that “the elevated structure was transformed into a populated, palm-tree-lined boulevard, soon to be surrounded by apartments and restaurants and offices.”
Architect Sinclair Black is also profiled. Originally from Texas, he lived in San Francisco while earning a master’s degree and became familiar with the Embarcadero Freeway issue. He later moved back to Austin and watched a new double-decker being constructed. “It seemed absurd that as San Franciscans were agitating to remove an elevated highway, [the Texas Department of Transportation] was building a new one — and right through the middle of Austin,” Kimble writes. Black assembled a whole coalition opposed to the freeway, but protests were directed solely at the Texas Department of Transportation and were unproductive.
Adam Greenfield also resided in The City for several years and relocated to Austin and joined the same coalition. At a public demonstration, he called Austin’s I-35 highway “a dangerous, polluting, dead zone in the heart of what should be thriving, bustling neighborhoods.” The impact of these complaints, though, is negligible.
If truth be told, the book’s anti-freeway community groups in Austin, Houston and Dallas — called “freeway fighters” — don’t have much success. Part of the problem is that their energies are mainly aimed at Texas transportation officials, but the Texas Department of Transportation is not a government branch. The agency simply follows policy determined by others, in this case elected officials.
Texas groups profiled in the book also talk to federal agencies, which are indifferent. The closest anyone gets to an actual win is an appeal to Dallas city council members. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is committed to building more and wider roadways, and he prevails.
In New York State, by contrast, Gov. Kathy Hochul has supported freeway removal, and it has started in cities such as Rochester.
It could also be that Texas does not have a significant protest culture. People speak out, but it seems nobody listens.
In one poignant passage, a South Dallas neighborhood prepares for a new life following the removal of an expressway. Revitalization of an old movie palace accelerates, and people work to improve the area. The expressway’s demolition is not the result of community pressure, but the idea of the Texas Department of Transportation, as the roadway was unsafe.
“City Limits” suggests that if highways are removed from towns, more transit options such as bus and train lines could compensate. Historically, federal transportation funding for freeways has far exceeded mass transit, and this could be reserved.
Overall, the book has nothing positive to say about city highways. It is entirely opposed. The only argument in favor is a sentence about the Embarcadero Freeway teardown: “Merchants in Chinatown insisted it would kill their businesses; nearby residents feared traffic would flood their streets.” We are told these concerns were wrong.
Still, as we have all been conditioned to respect the automobile, Kimble’s point of view is refreshing. Perusing the pages, one realizes that while infrastructure can seem permanent and immutable, it eventually ages and falls apart. Opportunities then arise. “City Limits” is a must-read for anyone interested in urban planning.
Phil Faroudja is a San Francisco writer whose work has been published in The Examiner and SFGATE.