This image from Rethink81 shows what Almond Street might look like without the Interstate 81 viaduct. The CNY Chapter of the American Institute of Architects supports demolition of the highway in favor of a Community Grid plan that would bring life and commerce into spaces now in the shadow of the interstate.
Close your eyes and visualize a mini Park Avenue in New York City, or Millennium Park in Chicago. These urban areas are pedestrian-friendly spaces with a mix of high-rises and street-level mixed-use properties. These locations, home to some of the most valuable real estate in the world, are also critical components of a city street grid.
The I-81 Viaduct Project is an opportunity for our region to think big. Not a big new highway, but grand and innovative ideas on what to do with the (hopefully) soon-to-be former viaduct corridor.
Selecting the Community Grid option over replacing the current Viaduct with a newer, bigger highway should be a "no-brainer." Removing the elevated highway will open up a range of opportunities for our region; to further reinvigorate the city, to reconnect divided communities and to stimulate unprecedented growth.
Syracuse was one of many cities across the country which made the fateful urban planning decision in the 1950s and 1960s to build elevated highways through their urban centers. In every case, the neighborhoods in the shadows of the viaducts suffered a similar fate; abandonment and isolation, reduced property values, pollution and noise. Beyond the socio-economic impacts on neighborhoods, city highways severely limit economic development, and they are not terribly efficient, either. Have you ever been one of the 44,000 people a day who use Exit 18 (Harrison/Adams) during the morning and evening commute?
Today, cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston, Dallas and New Haven have already, or are in the process of, tearing down elevated city highways. In Milwaukee, where the Park East Freeway was razed in 1999, urban development has flourished with property values in the affected area increasing by 45 percent. In 2007, Manpower relocated its 900-employee global headquarters to a site in downtown Milwaukee formerly occupied by elevated the highway.
This can happen in Syracuse.
The economics favor the Community Grid option as well. The Grid costs $400 million less than the Viaduct, which also takes longer to build and requires increasing annual maintenance costs over the next 50-plus years. Equally important, the Community Grid stimulates economic growth. There is a need to re-densify the city, especially in walkable areas like those around Almond Avenue. Walkable zones attract people and development generating sales and property tax revenue. We have an opportunity to revitalize the valuable areas currently shadowed by I-81.
In addition to the community-building and economic development benefits, there are compelling logistics arguments for the Community Grid. Eighty-eight percent of the traffic on the existing viaduct consists of people travelling to the city - most for work. The current highway, however, is designed to help cars bypass the city altogether.
The Community Grid design taps into the existing infrastructure, dispersing traffic throughout the city grid by promoting broader use of the existing underutilized street network. The design provides direct connections to key destinations in the city and adds new exits to ease congestion and further spread traffic. In the grid, instead of one path to their destination, drivers will have multiple access points.
The grid design is also the least disruptive option, requiring the acquisition of just five buildings. The construction of a new Viaduct will condemn and demolish 24 buildings, including at least 12 structures of historical significance.
The American Institute of Architects Central New York chapter created the AIACNY81 Task Force in 2013 to carefully follow this process; to help broaden community knowledge and promote good design and planning practices. Based on our review of the current plans, we strongly recommend the Community Grid alternative, which would knit the city together again and offer unprecedented redevelopment potential.
For this process to be truly successful we must view this as more than just fixing a mistake, or designing a better traffic pattern. The Community Grid presents an urban development opportunity which will have a profound effect on our region for generations.
Syracuse, Central New York and New York state must maximize this opportunity. Let's get this right with big ideas not a big new highway. We look forward to being an integral part of this important planning conversation.