How Freeways Came About from Cities Designed for Cars

Planning for Cars in Cities - Planners, Engineers, and Freeways in the 20th Century (18 page pdf, Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, and Brian D. Taylor, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 75, No. 2, Spring 2009)

Also discussed here: Los Angeles Transportation Facts and Fiction: Freeways (Eric A. Morris, Freakonomics, Feb. 24, 2009)

Today’s review article describes the development of major roads in cities, how and why they evolved from the original concepts for urban planning 100 years ago with examples from Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston, through the introduction of the national interstate highway system and ending with the state of roads in most cities today- which seem deem as “traffic sewers” but others call urban freeways.



Key Quotes:

“[100 years ago] Suburbanization was seen at the time not as a problem, but as a strategy for allowing people in congested cities to escape to areas where they could enjoy higher quality housing, healthier lifestyles, and parks and open space”

“They advocated hierarchical road networks that would concentrate through traffic on major boulevards and arterials rather than uniform street grids that would distribute traffic through residential neighborhoods”

“Automobiles consumed a large amount of street space and, even more importantly, they traveled at speeds considerably higher than the other types of traffic with which they shared the road. These factors caused large traffic tie-ups, particularly in dense downtown areas”

“Among the traffic control measures he [William Phelps Eno] invented or popularized are the stop sign, the pedestrian island, the traffic circle, and the taxi stand.”

“The freeway borrowed two important design characteristics from earlier rural and suburban parkways: limited access and grade separate”

“Gas taxes were in many ways superior to the property tax as a form of finance for road construction and maintenance; they placed the tax burden directly on the users of the system, they were comparatively simple to collect, and fuel consumption proved surprisingly robust during the lean years of the Depression.”

“In the 37 largest urban areas in the United States, freeways account for a mere 3% of roadway miles, yet carry 40% of daily vehicle miles of travel”

Related articles

• Mid-Town Freeways, Sprawl and Quality of Life (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
• Because Freeways Are Not Free (slog.thestranger.com)
• 7 of 10 most congested freeway segments are here (laobserved.com)
• Warning: Freeway Closed (nytimes.com)
• Carmageddon Begins: Why Is One Freeway Closure So Apocalyptic? (newsfeed.time.com)