Reviving Urbanism
Transcript of Reviving Urbanism
REVIVING URBANISM:
Elevated Freeways, Boulevards, and Urban Renewal
James May
Candidate for Master of Community Planning
Auburn University
School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture
Spring 2012
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Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
History of the Urban Freeway ...................................................................................................................... 5
Pre-history ................................................................................................................................................. 5
It was never meant to go there................................................................................................................. 6
Birth of the Urban Freeway .................................................................................................................. 6
Futurama ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Highway and the City ............................................................................................................................ 9
How did we get here? ............................................................................................................................. 10
Urban Renewal.................................................................................................................................... 10
Urban Transportation ......................................................................................................................... 11
Total Approach .................................................................................................................................... 12
Urban Revival .......................................................................................................................................... 13
Freeway Removal ................................................................................................................................ 13
The Boulevard ..................................................................................................................................... 16
Research Design ......................................................................................................................................... 17
Octavia Boulevard, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA ................................................................................ 25
Boulevard Design .................................................................................................................................... 27
Impact Zone ............................................................................................................................................ 29
Rose Kennedy Greenway, North End, Boston, MA ................................................................................... 32
Boulevard Design .................................................................................................................................... 33
Impact Zone ............................................................................................................................................ 37
McKinley Avenue, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI ........................................................................................ 39
Boulevard Design .................................................................................................................................... 40
Impact Zone ............................................................................................................................................ 44
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Table of Contents (cont.) Impact Analysis........................................................................................................................................... 46
Population Density .................................................................................................................................. 46
Population Diversity ................................................................................................................................ 48
Racial Diversity .................................................................................................................................... 48
Age Diversity ....................................................................................................................................... 51
Employment ............................................................................................................................................ 53
Housing Density ...................................................................................................................................... 55
Structural Age ......................................................................................................................................... 58
Occupancy ............................................................................................................................................... 61
Development Density .............................................................................................................................. 64
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 67
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Table of Figures Figure 1: Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco, CA. Image provided by ESRI ArcGIS. Measurements are
approximate.................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 2: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Southbound, San Francisco, CA. Image provided by
Google Earth. ................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 3: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Local Lane Entrance, San Francisco, CA. Image provided
by Google Earth. ............................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 4: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Northbound, San Francisco, CA. Image provided by
Google Earth. ................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 5: Hayes Valley Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10. . Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 6: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA. Image provided by ESRI ArcGIS. Measurements are
approximate.................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 7: Rose Kennedy Greenway Pedestrian Realm, Boston, MA. Image provided by Google Earth.
....................................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 8: Rose Kennedy Greenway Pedestrian Realm, Boston, MA. Image provided by Google Earth.
....................................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 9: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA. Image provided by Google Earth. . Error! Bookmark not
defined.
Figure 10: North End Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10. .... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 11: McKinley Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by ESRI ArcGIS. Measurements are
approximate.................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 12: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Westbound Facing West, Milwaukee, WI. Image
provided by Google Earth. ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 13: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Westbound Facing East, Milwaukee, WI. Image
provided by Google Earth. ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 14: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Eastbound Facing East, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided
by Google Earth. ............................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 15: McKinley Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by Google Earth. ..... Error! Bookmark not
defined.
Figure 16: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Eastbound Facing West, Milwaukee, WI. Image
provided by Google Earth. ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 17: Haymarket Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10. ... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 18: Population Density per Acre, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Figure 19: Population Density per Acre, North End, Boston, MA. ............... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 20: Population Density per Acre, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 21: Diversity Index - Race, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 22: Diversity Index - Race, North End, Boston, MA. ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Table of Figures (cont.) Figure 23: Diversity Index - Race, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. .................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. .......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, North End, Boston, MA. .......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 27: Generational Frequency, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ....... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 28: Generational Frequency, North End, Boston, MA. ...................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 29: Generational Frequency, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 31: Labor Participation, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 31: Unemployment, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 33: Labor Participation, North End, Boston, MA. .............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 33: Unemployment, North End, Boston, MA. .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 35: Labor Participation, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ....................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 35: Unemployment, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 38: Employment Type, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 38: Employment Type, North End, Boston, MA. ............................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 38: Employment Type, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 39: Housing Units per Acre, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ....... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 40: Housing Units per Acre, North End, Boston, MA. ....................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 41: Housing Units per Acre, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 42: Housing Units by Year Built, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 43: Housing Units by Year Built, North End, Boston, MA. ............... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 44: Housing Units by Year Built, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ........ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 45: Housing Occupancy, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. ............. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 46: Housing Occupancy, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ...................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 47: Housing Occupancy, North End, Boston, MA. ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 48: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
....................................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Figure 49: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, North End, Boston, MA. ............. Error!
Bookmark not defined.
Figure 50: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI. ....... Error!
Bookmark not defined.
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Abstract
Since the inception of a nationwide system of roadways planners and designers have
recognized the difficulty of integrating multi-lane, limited access freeways into the delicate
complexity of the urban form. Prominent planners and designers of the pre-Interstate era
advocated routing the expressways around urban centers, citing an incompatibility of land use.
Where expedience and politics won the day, the urban freeway cut through the urban fabric,
erected walls between and within communities, and impacted the value and use of property of
the surrounding area. As many elevated urban freeways approach the end of their useful
lifespans, requiring greater investment for upkeep and repair, several cities across the country
have adopted an alternative approach. From New York to San Francisco, Boston to Portland,
Milwaukee to New Orleans, municipalities have determined that the best way to mitigate the
effects of the urban freeway is to remove it.
By the end of the 20th
Century freeway removal had become a viable option for many
cities seeking to revive their urban fabric. After a half-century of experimentation with urban
expressways, urban planners have returned to the wisdom of the early planners and now seek to
revive the urbanism that once defined most major American cities. However, each city that has
attempted to revive the urban form with the removal of an urban freeway has chosen a different
alternative for the replacement roadway. In The Boulevard Book Allan Jacobs, Elizabeth
MacDonald, and Yodan Rofe present a set of guidelines for the creation of a multi-use, mutli-
modal urban boulevard. Using these guidelines to measure three different freeway replacement
projects, this research explores the effect of boulevard design on urban renewal.
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Introduction
“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” – Pablo Picasso, artist
In March 1995, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in coordination with the Brookings
Institute and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, held a conference titled “Alternatives
to Sprawl.” At this conference, attendees discussed the origins of, the problems associated with
and the potential solutions to the most common form of urban development in the United States.
Speakers at the conference included professional architects such as Peter Calthorpe and Andres
Duany, academics such as Robert Burchell of Rutgers and Peter Linneman of the University of
Pennsylvania, representatives from public interest organizations such as Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy and Urban Mobility Corporation, as well as the administrator of the Federal
Highway Administration.
This conference concluded that the causes of sprawl are complex, varied and engrained in
our national culture. From the pre-industrial age vision of Manifest Destiny to the mid-century
American Dream of a quarter-acre lot with a two-car garage, the culture of America has
promoted the occupation of space. This report cited two primary forms of land use that “result in
abandonment or underutilization of existing infrastructure in older neighborhoods, coupled with
duplication of services and infrastructure in sprawling newly developed areas.”1 According to
Richard Moe, the President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, these land use forms
are “sellscape”, major arteries fenced by large-scale retail establishments requiring massive
parking lots, and “leapfrogging,” new single-family residential developments located on the
ever-elusive urban fringe.2 This low-density development pattern has led to a hyper-reliance on
the automobile as the primary, and in many instances sole, form of transportation.
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At the end of the report, Andres Duany, one of the founders of the Congress of New
Urbanism, identifies “the public realm – the street system – that is among the most degraded in
the world” as the central problem of sprawl. “It is stressful to use, ugly to look at, and expensive
to maintain.”3 This recognition of the street system as a primary driver of sprawl and urban
decay demands a re-imagination of the urban form. The report then details some of the negative
consequences of sprawl, including the drain on economic vitality and the detrimental health
effects of long commutes and exhaust fumes. To resolve and correct the pattern of sprawl, the
conference report suggests, among other treatments, a reinvestment in urban centers.
The major challenge for planners in the coming decades will be what Emily Talen, AICP
calls “sprawl repair.”4 In many locations, this will mean increasing the density of suburbs,
repurposing existing vacant structures, and improving the alternate transportation network. The
opposite end of sprawl repair will be the continued reinvigoration of our central cities as livable
environments for diverse populations. During the era of Urban Renewal, programs designed to
connect outlying areas with central cities resulted in the displacement of populations,
degradation of urban landscapes, and depletion of central city economic resources. The largest
program of this age, the Interstate Highway System, continues to pose significant obstacles to the
repair of the urban fabric.
The Congress of the New Urbanism has proposed as one of its major initiatives the
redesign of these behemoths from obtrusive urban barriers to multi-modal mixed-use
boulevards.5 Several cities across the nation have implemented highway removal schemes. More
than thirty years ago, Portland became the first American city to intentionally remove an urban
freeway, reviving its dormant waterfront. In response to the damage caused by a massive
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earthquake, San Francisco successfully converted two urban freeways, the Embarcadero and the
Central Freeway, to attractive urban thoroughfares. Boston famously buried its Central Artery
beneath a linear park during the Big Dig. In 2011, the American Planning Association awarded
the city of New Orleans the National Planning Achievement Award for a Hard-Won Victory for
the city-wide plan that included the replacement of I-10 in the center of the city with a renewed
Claiborne Avenue.6
Many municipalities across the country are considering removing their urban freeways.
From Cleveland, Ohio to New Haven, Connecticut, local planners have sought to revitalize urban
cores by removing the largest piece of single-use infrastructure from the urban landscape.7
However, the success of this new era of urban renewal has not been uniform. San Francisco has
seen economic growth and has been spared the predicted traffic nightmare. 8 Conversely, while
some improvements have been made over the last few years, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has not yet
seen the promised economic bonanza nearly a decade after removing the freeway, though
progress had no doubt been slowed by global economic factors.9 Clearly, the simple act of
demolition will not correct the economic degradation that surrounds so many urban freeways.
Cities face several decision points after the demolition of the urban freeway as they seek
the redevelopment of the area and the revival of the urban form. The challenges include traffic
mitigation, contextual design, economic development, and population return. How these cities
respond to these challenges often determines the success or failure of the urban renewal project.
By analyzing three key intra-urban freeway removal projects, common themes may emerge to
better prepare other municipalities as they undertake the herculean effort to remove the urban
freeway, repair the urban fabric, and revive the urban form. This paper will attempt to determine
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the requisite factors for the successful conversion of an urban freeway to a mixed-use urban
boulevard.
History of the Urban Freeway
Pre-history
Throughout the ages, governments have razed sections of the urban fabric and converted
the space to roadway. Kostof traces this pattern of destruction and development beginning with
the “facelifts” of ceremonial axes through Hellenistic cities and ending with the sventramenti
(disemboweling) of Italy under the heavy hand of Mussolini. Prior to the Baroque Period, when
governments built or widened streets, the intent was to connect two points to better facilitate
communication. In Rome, for example, Via Giulia connects Ponte Sisto, the pilgrims’ entrance
to the city, to the church of San Giovanni die Fiorentini on the western most curve in the river.
The connection “cut(s) willfully through a built area, running counter to the existing street net.”10
Later, the reshaping of Paris by Baron Haussmann, and the gutting of Rome by Mussolini,
sought to create vistas for the traveler and to display the power of the state. To improve
connections or to display power, “the regime will attack the most defenseless, unresisting bits of
the city, the live tissue around the solid anchors of historic piles, the tissue that happens
unfailingly to be the densest and most restive neighborhoods of working-class families, the urban
poor, small craftspeople.”11 This trend continued in the United States with the construction of the
Interstate Highway.
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It was never meant to go there
“motorway – for that means a right of way explicitly designed for and adapted to
the uses of motor traffic.” – Norman Bel Geddes, designer12
Birth of the Urban Freeway
When professional planners gathered for their first national conference in 1909 the
automobile had not yet taken its dominant position among transportation alternatives. Attendees
addressed transportation in the context of land use, asserting that “land use would determine the
size and kinds of transportation facilities needed.”13 With an emphasis on “multi-modalism,”14
the conference sought to integrate transportation with the other major activities of urban living.
Not only did conferees fail to recognize the force of the automobile in defining urban form, it
barely registered as a topic of conversation at this first conference. Rather than simply
facilitating movement, attendees sought to create a coordinated transportation system “to provide
access to healthier living, especially recreational facilities.”15
However, within twenty years, the automobile had assumed its role as the preferred mode
of transportation. Planners recognized that accommodating the massive numbers of automobiles
in a safe and responsible system required segregation rather than integration. Adapting
characteristics from rural parkways for an urban context, these planners designed grade-
separated, limited-access freeways for automobiles and transit vehicles. By eliminating all
unnecessary impediments to traffic flow, this new system reduced the risk of collision while
increasing speeds, both on the freeway and on cross streets.16
Planners advocated multiple
freeways throughout the urban fabric to facilitate short internal trips. Above all, freeways were
seen as “tools for urban renewal, particularly to revive flagging central business districts,
facilitate slum clearance, direct growth into desired areas, and, over time, slow suburban
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sprawl.”17
They recognized freeways as a particular type of land use that “would provide great
benefits if sited and scaled properly, but . . . could be highly disruptive if they were not.”18
Shortly after the invention of the urban freeway, the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE)
adopted a hierarchical system of roadway management, called Functional Classification. This
system reversed existing ideas of street importance. Traditionally, the most important street had
the tallest buildings, the most activity and the highest economic rent. Under the new system,
mobility became the primary concern, accessibility its inverse. Automobiles were discouraged
from using residential streets in favor of multi-lane freeways with few amenities and fewer
access points. The urban freeway had displaced Main Street as the most important roadway in
the city.
Futurama
At the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, Norman Bel Geddes presented his vision of
a utopian metropolis. Dubbed Futurama, this scale model and the accompanying film, ride and
book, Magic Motorways, proposes the restructuring of American cities to facilitate the dominant
form of transportation: the automobile. The sponsors of this exhibit, General Motors,
commissioned Bel Geddes to construct this model as the focal point for their entry to the fair,
“Highways and Horizons.” The model did not argue for or against the car, but simply accepted
its prominence and sought to mitigate its effects by focusing on the four principles of road
building: safety, comfort, speed, and economy. 19
In Magic Motorways Bel Geddes identifies the four major attributes of roadway design
that cause “delay, congestion, exasperated drivers, more accidents.”20
Crossings bring
congestion; hazards at the road edge force drivers to the center of the roadway; cars moving in
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opposite directions create hazards at the center; speed variation creates hazards within the lane of
travel. To mitigate these dangers, Bel Geddes proposes a new form of urban design that
completely separates the automobile from the rest of the urban form. Although acknowledged as
a land use, the urban roadways of Futurama are independent of and protected from their
surroundings. 21
All roadways occupy the ground level of the urban form. The urban roadways would
offer two levels of service, express and local. Similar to the proposals for the early urban
freeways, express roads maintain their trajectory by leaping over and under the local roads.
Above the “automobile only” level, pedestrians take advantage of the retail and business
opportunities along wide overhanging walkways and overpasses. Above this, offices and
residents fill the massive towers that punctuate this utopia. The separation of uses and the
segregation of people from cars offer promises of safety and convenience. However, this
proposal not only reinforces the ideal of an automobile centered society, it removes man from his
place of prominence. The car owns the ground level and man must be content to navigate along
overpasses and within protective walls.
Bel Geddes design approach of separate places for separate uses doe not end at the city
limits. He also argues for the separation of interstate travel and local travel. To traverse the great
continental expanse, Bel Geddes suggests the construction of massive interstate roadways that
connect urban centers. Bel Geddes’ motorways run parallel to urban centers, providing off-ramps
and feeder routes to the established grids of urban areas. By-passes, he argues, decrease trip time
and trip cost for the interstate traveler, allow for the construction of shorter routes between cities,
and increase safety for local and non-local traffic.22
Bel Geddes even presciently warns against
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allowing these by-pass routes to be exploited by developers wishing “to use every eye-catching
device to stop cars which must maintain an even flow if the by-pass is to serve its purpose.”23
Although Futurama admitted, and even celebrated, the dominance of the automobile, it warned
against the detrimental effects of confusing urban form with high speed travel.
Highway and the City
The Federal Highway Act of 1938 charged the Bureau of Public Roads with the design
and development of a system of six national superhighways to connect population centers across
the country. The initial proposal, a toll system, did not enter urban areas, but served as by-pass
routes for through traffic. After determining that the tolls would not provide sufficient funds for
the maintenance of this system, the Bureau proposed an alternative plan for free inter-regional
highways. This alternative system improved and expanded existing roads to facilitate
connections between major urban centers. While the largest cities would be encircled by beltline
by-pass routes, the majority of cities and towns would see these free highways, or freeways, run
directly through them.24
Thus, the urban freeway and the inter-regional highway became one.
After languishing in the United States Congress for nearly two decades, the proposal for a
national system of inter-regional highways finally won passage and funding with the National
Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. To win the votes of urban legislators, the design
of the interstate highway system included explicit routes for the urban sections of the highways
resulting from a process that included little input from local officials. In just eight months, all
urban sections of the national highway system had been determined. Local officials, who saw the
highway as an engine for urban renewal, could either accede to the federally determined routes
or surrender the funds.25
Additionally, state highway engineers had taken primary responsibility
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for the design and construction of freeways and tended to promote rural transportation over
urban form, or worse, their own parochial interests.26
Upon implementation, “many existing multiway boulevards were reconfigured; their
central roadways were widened and, in some cases, turned into recessed limited-access
expressways.”27
Yet when these local routes were reconfigured for non-local traffic, this only
served to impede the traveler’s progress, lowering speeds as the roadway entered the urban area,
introducing more traffic through more access points, and diminishing the value of the roadway
for through transportation.28
Additionally, the town suffered as motorists brought congestion,
noise, and contempt for a town that had become another “nuisance along the straightaway.”29
By
conflating the urban freeway and the inter-regional highway, road builders frustrated both local
and non-local travelers and impeded both local and non-local trips.
How did we get here?
“the automobile has virtually destroyed cities as they once were.” – Allan Jacobs,
planner
Urban Renewal
Through the half-century of its existence, the Interstate Highway System has brought
tremendous advantages for the nation, from increased mobility to rapid economic expansion.30
However, it has also brought significant detriment to the urban areas through which it passes.
Though the intent of the Interstate Highway System was to remove blight, and attract the middle-
class back to the central city, the effect was the exact opposite. Having razed the existing
community of the inner-city and dislocated the population, the urban freeways left in their wake
racialized poverty and dilapidated infrastructure starved for investment.31
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Yet again, Bel Geddes proves prescient, though he sees this alteration of the city as a
necessarily positive outcome of his proposal. He admits that new roadways offering travel at
higher speeds will increase the number of automobiles and their use. His proposal celebrates the
separation of uses and the increase of travel distance. With a nationwide system of roadways that
connect country to city and focuses commercial development in dense urban clusters, “Cities
tend to become centers for working, the country districts centers for living.”32 He argues that
cities should only “serve as occupational units, nerve-centers, headquarters.”33
This view of cities
as useful only for commerce and business matched the views of many contemporary planners
who saw cities as “congested, sclerotic, cancered, gangrenous,”34
and unfit for human habitation.
The adoption of the urban freeway made cities obsolete for anything but commerce and
business. Urban form was reduced to a series of “pods placed off freeway ramps.”35 This new
urban pattern can be seen as a combination of the Radiant City, with its sweeping roadways as
advocated by Bel Geddes, and the Garden City, with the discretely formed subdivisions
connected to the urban center by a single artery. However, in their zeal to escape the depravity of
the urban core, these utopian designers failed to recognize the benefits of urban life or the
purpose of an urban transportation system.36
Urban Transportation
The urban form brings together a variety of people, goods, and services into relatively
close proximity. This allows increased choice for consumption and for production, improved
quality of life through invention, and greater economic efficiency due to lowered cost of travel.37
In the words of Lewis Mumford, “A good transportation system minimizes unnecessary
transportation.”38
In 1966, Britton Harris, FAICP outlined several goals for urban transportation
systems, the most important being for transportation “to stop getting itself talked about.”39
To
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achieve this, Harris identifies a series of conflicts which must be overcome. Although Harris
approaches transportation as a whole, two conflicts relate directly to the development of urban
freeways. First, “transportation is excessively space-consuming . . . disrupt(ing) and
disintegrate(ing) many of the few remaining opportunities which exist for pedestrian
interaction.”40
Second, “transportation as a service is insufficiently segregated from other urban
functions and services . . . it moves while other activities are stationary.”41
To resolve these
conflicts, Harris proposes an evolution of the transportation planning process to integrate
transportation planning with land use planning. As an intermediary service, transportation must
become a secondary goal for urban planners.
However, through the peak of urban freeway construction, Harris’s warnings went
unheeded as engineers erected massive urban freeways, demanding the rest of urban design to
work around them.42
Whether elevated or recessed, the urban freeway occupies massive
expanses of urban space. By creating an impenetrable wall within the urban fabric, it promotes
“separation of activities and discontinuity of the public realm.”43
Additionally, due to the desire
to maintain constant speeds, it cuts through the urban grain with little regard for community
boundaries or land use. The freeway negated the advantages of proximity to the urban core and
promoted development on the ever expanding, and consequently elusive, urban fringe. The
development of the freeway caused an epochal shift in urban development from a centripetal
force to a centrifugal force. Thus, sprawl predicated more sprawl.44
Total approach
After freeway construction reached its peak in the mid-1960s, the Department of
Transportation issued a report recommending improved practices for incorporating freeways
within urban fabric. In response to the revolts that had halted construction in several cities, most
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notably in San Francisco, the Department sought to repair the image of the freeway as an integral
piece of modern urban life. To achieve this, the report suggested designing urban freeways with
“multilevel, split-level, cantilevered, depressed, and elevated cross sections to yield a
concentration of traffic flow within a narrow right-of-way.”45
The problem of the freeway was its
size; conversion to a human scale would make the freeway more acceptable to the urban
residents. This design, later dubbed the “total approach,” buried freeways underground and
returned to the Futurama model of surrounding freeways with massive architecture and
pedestrian platforms.46
However, the total approach lasted only a decade as the cost of the design tended to
outweigh the assumed benefits. Though the freeway would occupy a narrow strip of urban space,
the report suggested a 500- to 1,000-foot right-of-way drawn from the urban fabric for the
development of transit corridors, civic structures and pedestrian zones.47
Where possible,
roadways would be capped, offering more open space for recreation and pedestrian activity.
Generally, however, pedestrians would be offered only the observation decks envisioned by Bel
Geddes, constrained by artificial barriers and protected from the primacy of the automobile.48
As
the total approach lost sway with freeway developers, urban freeway construction returned to
form as massive, land-consumptive monolithic barriers within the urban fabric.
Urban Revival
“In the town a road is not a route, it’s a polyvalent space.” – Laura Bonanomi,
architect
Freeway Removal
Beginning with the earliest proposals, planners, designers and engineers have attempted
to fit the urban freeway into its urban context. However, because the pedestrian must be
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separated from the roadway, the urban freeway has been unable to integrate successfully into a
vibrant urban environment. As these massive structures age into obsolescence, the areas
surrounding them continue their long marches into disarray. The urban freeway, decimating the
land it touches, continues to depress property value and repulse citizenry. But the decay of these
concrete walls brings opportunity for reinvestment. While most areas repair the dilapidated
structures, many have chosen to remove the freeway from the urban environment. By including
this option in the analysis of the infrastructure, municipalities can “better understand the
opportunity costs associated with using urban land for infrastructure.”49
In their call for a new Urban Design Manifesto, Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard
present a series of problems for modern urban design to address. Central to the issue of the urban
freeway are the first four: poor living environments, giantism and loss of control, large-scale
privatization and the loss of public life, and centrifugal fragmentation. Neighborhoods have
become lost in poisonous clouds of pollution and noise, surrounded by massive, faceless
installations of single purpose, private facilities, offering no connection to their surroundings.
This has pushed people into their cars and further out into the isolation of suburbs and exurbs
where social groups no longer interact.50 By expanding the focus beyond measures of mobility
and movement, urban designers and transportation planners can better balance the needs of
pedestrians and the needs of motorists for an integrated urban environment.51
This expanded
framework rejects the view of the freeway as savior of the central city through increased
mobility, recognizing the detrimental effects on inner-city neighborhoods, communities,
economic stability and the physical environment.52
The central city has once again gained
prominence as a valuable commodity; the collapse of the freeway makes this possible.53
REVIVING URBANISM
15
Cities across the country have recognized the advantages of a vibrant central business
district used for work space as well as living space and recreational space. Yet even as
populations and businesses return to the downtown, the success is constrained by the urban
freeway.54
City leaders see the deconstruction of the urban freeway as an opportunity to expand
the usable space for parks, retail, housing, and other more attractive uses that spark new
development.55
Large swaths of newly available urban land inspire urban politicians and
property owners with visions of waterfront developments, entertainment districts, sports venues
and other tourist attractions that promise economic growth.56
As local business leaders, historic
preservationists, environmentalists, real estate interests, planners and professors come together to
discuss the revival of the urban form, they find that each seek the removal of the urban
freeway.57
However, while these individuals represent powerful interests, they will require
leadership from a policy entrepreneur who can promote this idea with those who value mobility
more than urban development.58
The demolition of urban freeways improves access to the urban core for those
neighborhoods immediately surrounding it while restricting automobile access for those on the
periphery of the city.59 This shift in focus from regional transportation needs to the health, safety,
and economic vitality of the urban core represents a return to the planning goals articulated at the
1909 conference.60
However, while most laud the goals of urban revival, the issue of
automobility remains a serious concern for many municipalities.61
The demolition of a freeway,
some claim, will loose freeway traffic onto city streets and cause unprecedented congestion, a
transportation nightmare. Others, such as the Congress for the New Urbanism, claim that
removing roadway capacity “will encourage drivers to find different routes, take mass transit, or
REVIVING URBANISM
16
make fewer trips by car.”62
This theory of “reduced demand,” while supported by anecdotal
evidence, has not been studied as extensively as its opposite theory, “induced demand.”
The Boulevard
After removing the urban freeway, the municipality must decide how best to utilize the
public space for the benefit if the urban inhabitants. To repair the urban fabric while maintaining
a modicum of mobility, several urban areas have opted for the construction of a multi-use
boulevard. A boulevard offers lower carrying capacity than the urban freeway, but interacts with
the environment rather than destroying it. The boulevard has the ability to offer service for “fast-
moving through-traffic as well as slower local traffic within the same right-of-way but on
separate but closely connected roadways.”63
This combination of service allows the roadway to
serve automobiles while improving the urban form and adding value to the surrounding
neighborhoods.64
Where the urban freeway allowed large amounts of traffic to bypass the urban
amenities, an urban boulevard offers space “for the coexistence of parked vehicles, pedestrians,
cyclists and traffic streams of variable speed.”65
The central benefit of the urban boulevard lies in its ability to attract high levels of
density of use to the urban center. Where the mega-structures of Urban Renewal failed, the urban
boulevard succeeds. With multiple streams of traffic, both automobile and pedestrian, the urban
boulevard provides opportunities for travelers to leave the roadway and interact with the urban
texture. This interaction brings life to the area, where individuals can accomplish multiple tasks
and take part in a variety of activities without the interruption and isolation of the automobile.66
Multiple uses attract higher numbers of people, creating the density necessary for urban life. The
urban form that can attract this level of density and diversity does not map readily to the
REVIVING URBANISM
17
functional classification system, requiring a new understanding of roadways as part of the urban
fabric rather than connections between destinations.67
The Congress for the New Urbanism advocates the removal of urban freeways and the
construction of urban boulevards as a key process for the return to an urban form that is healthy,
attractive and efficient. A major concern for New Urbanists is the development of walkable
communities, incompatible with the urban freeway but integral to the development of a viable
urban boulevard.68
As Alex Marshall says, “Urbanism is a result of putting people and their
activities under pressure.”69
This pressure facilitates a return to pedestrianism and community.
With easy access to local stores, the New Urban community promotes the health of the local
economy as well as the health of the individual.70
By focusing on the health and safety of the
local community within the context of the urban environment, the New Urbanism movement
rejects the mid-20th
Century American Dream that brought devastation to urban centers and
sprawl to the surrounding areas. The conversion of an urban freeway to an urban boulevard
serves as the physical embodiment of this shift in attitude.
Research Design
The purpose of the urban freeway system, moving large amounts of traffic at high speeds
through densely developed areas, demands a rupture in the urban fabric that destroys the
surrounding communities. The removal of the urban freeway allows municipalities to reclaim
urban land for a new mixture of uses, attract a new population, build new structures, and repair
connections for travel. This dramatic alteration of the urban form represents a shift in focus away
from the movement of traffic through an area and toward the people, businesses, activities and
structures that define it. This shift invites new uses and multiple modes of transportation,
REVIVING URBANISM
18
rejecting the automobile as the exclusive form of travel. The revival of urbanism and walkable
communities signals a revival of density and choice, two key characteristics of a vibrant urban
community.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs defines the four conditions
necessary for a vibrant urban community to prosper: a dense population; a diversity of uses; a
variety of building ages; and short, walkable blocks.71
First, a vibrant community requires a
dense population to provide eyes on the streets. This dense population must be diverse enough to
maintain support for a variety of uses. Moreover, a vibrant community is an open community,
comprised of a demographic distribution similar to the metropolis as a whole. A diversity index
can be calculated to determine the probability that two randomly selected individuals from the
population would be from the same class type. In a homogeneous area, the diversity index score
would be 1; in a heterogeneous area, where all class types are represented equally, the diversity
score approaches 0. The diversity index (D) is
� =�(� �⁄ )
where n is the total for each class type and N is the total population of the area. In economics this
is referred to as the Herfendahl Index; in ecology it is the Simpson Index. Here, this index is used
to determine the racial diversity and generational diversity of the local areas as compared to the
city as a whole. A low racial diversity index score suggests that the area is open and accessible to
all class types. A low generational diversity index score suggests a stable community wherein
individuals can age in place and families can enjoy the benefits of multiple generations living in
close proximity. In a vibrant urban community, the racial diversity index and the generational
diversity index is less than or equal to the respective diversity indices for the city.
REVIVING URBANISM
19
Second, a vibrant community requires a diversity of uses, residences, employment sites,
and entertainment venues, that attract a variety of people to the public realm throughout the day.
This live-work-play design allows individuals to achieve the majority of their daily needs within
a short distance and encourages walking or using other alternative modes of transportation.
Marshall suggests that a minimum density of ten homes per acre produces the requisite volume
of traffic to support local businesses.72
A variety of uses potentially provides a variety of
employment opportunities for the local population. A density of opportunity provides more
incentive for local residents to join the workforce and find gainful employment. Housing density
for the community, measured as the total number of housing units per acre, is compared to the
housing density for the city as well as to the minimum standard set by Marshall. Labor
participation rates, unemployment rates, and diversity of employment type are compared to the
city averages to determine the level of opportunity within the area. An area with housing density
below ten units per acre may not be able to provide a volume of traffic necessary to support local
businesses. A vibrant urban community has higher levels of housing density and higher rates of
employment with more variety than the city average.
Third, diversity of structure refers most directly to the age and condition of the buildings
in the area. This characteristic demands the preservation of old buildings, in various states of
repair, which allows a diversity of businesses to occupy the same district. Structural diversity
provides affordable accommodations to a variety of individuals for a variety of uses. When the
urban freeways were installed, entire city blocks were leveled. Generally, this decimation was
followed by underinvestment and decay. With the adoption of urban boulevards, the surrounding
buildings are rehabilitated and vacant lots are filled with new construction. Where existing
buildings have been maintained, these structures also offer the diversity of age and condition that
REVIVING URBANISM
20
add to a vibrant community. Housing construction, measured by the number of units built minus
the number of units destroyed, is compared to the rate of construction for the city. A vibrant
urban community will enjoy a balanced distribution of age among the structures. The pattern of
demolition and construction provides additional insight for the pace of development within the
area and the timing of investments.
The final condition calls for “short, walkable blocks,”73
with multiple opportunities to
change direction or turn a corner, creating a variety of paths, while also providing opportunities
for multiple modes of travel. In a vibrant community, individuals can walk, bike, drive, or take
mass transit to reach their destinations. The freeway limits the choice of path for travelers by
restricting access for non-automobile travelers. The removal of the urban freeway necessarily
improves the diversity of path for the area by offering pedestrians and other non-motorists
increased safety and access. A network of pathways helps distribute traffic while improving the
quality of path for travelers, providing them with the option to choose the path they prefer most.
Diversity of path requires quality, accessibility and economy, measured using the three-part
development density model provided by Chatman.
In his analysis of the effect of development density on travel behavior and mode choice,
Chatman identifies three types of density that define the urban form. First, high built form
density, “the density of structures on developed land,”74
improves the quality of the urban
environment and helps to promote walking. Chatman measures this as the sum of the residents
and employees divided by the developed acreage. Second, high activity density, “the number of
local desirable non-work activities,”75
shortens the average length of trips while increasing the
total number of non-work travel activities. Chatman equates this measure to the number of retail
REVIVING URBANISM
21
employees in the area. Third, high network load density, “the number of potential local
transportation system users per unit of transportation network capacity,”76
slows traffic speed
and incentivizes system users to choose other forms of transportation. Chatman measures this by
dividing the total population, the total employed population, the total number of retail workers,
and the total number of service employees independently by the total number of road miles.
These four numbers are then averaged together. When all three measures increase beyond the
median, Chatman found as much as a fourfold increase in walking and bicycling as
transportation alternatives.77
Although the practice of urban freeway removal offers nearly four decades of history
from which to draw examples, a limited number of case studies exist. Additionally, a large
portion of freeway removal projects have been part of waterfront revival efforts. To maintain
consistency, this research focuses only on the removal of urban freeways within the urban fabric,
ignoring freeway removals designed to revive waterfronts. While this decision narrows the
universe of potential case studies, it also removes confounding variables associated with the
natural amenity of the urban waterfront. To determine which intra-urban freeway removal
programs should be reviewed, this research relies upon the preconditions identified by Napolitan
and Zegras. First, questions must be raised over the structural integrity of the urban freeway for
the discussion to begin. Second, this discussion must fall within a window of opportunity for
removal to be considered a viable option. Third, mobility must lose its place as the prominent, if
not sole, concern. Finally, the decision to remove the freeway requires leadership from a policy
entrepreneur who can promote this idea with those who value mobility more than urban
development.78
Three intra-urban freeway removal projects, replaced by three design
alternatives, meet these four requirements: Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco, California; The
REVIVING URBANISM
22
Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, Massachusetts; and McKinley Avenue in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
Several considerations must be addressed prior to analyzing this case of freeway removal.
First, the freeway was technically not removed. However, the freeway runs underground,
allowing the surface to be converted to a mulit-purpose boulevard. Though not a traditional
boulevard, this roadway/greenway offers access for quick-moving through traffic, slower-moving
local traffic, parking, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Second, Napolitan and Zegras call for a policy
entrepreneur as the final condition for freeway removal. As this project required multiple levels of
government and at least two decades to complete, no one person can be identified as the driving
force. Several governors, representing both political parties, local officials and even the Speaker
of the United States House of Representatives all played a role in the design, funding and
implementation of this project. Third, the Central Artery served as an internal urban wall,
separating the North End community from the rest of downtown, as well as a wall along the
waterfront. While the total impact of the project can only be measured by analyzing the waterfront
revitalization as well as the reknitting of the urban form along the first section, the scope of this
study limits the analysis to only the land-locked section of the greenway.
In deciding to remove an elevated freeway from the urban fabric, all three case studies
sought to reknit the urban fabric and revive the urban form. However, each project has followed
a different design paradigm, fostering radically different results. In Boston, following the Total
Approach, the “Big Dig” produced a winding greenway above a buried multi-lane expressway.
In Milwaukee, adhering to more conventional standards of roadway design, a multilane avenue
replaced an underused freeway. In San Francisco, a mixed-use, pedestrian-focused roadway
REVIVING URBANISM
23
separates through traffic from local traffic following the design approach proposed by Jacobs,
MacDonald and Rofe in The Boulevard Book. Using the guidelines offered in The Boulevard
Book, each replacement design has been scored according to the three main areas necessary for a
mixed-use boulevard in a vibrant community that offers both density and choice. These design
guidelines are:
1) Automobile Realm
� The central portion of the boulevard should provide two to three lanes of
travel in both directions
� The central portion of the boulevard should provide an alternating turn
lane.
� A pedestrian refuge should be provided in the central portion.
� Central roadway lanes should be between 9.5 and 12 feet.
� Intersections should allow multiple directions of travel, from central
roadway to cross street, from cross street to access road, et cetera.
2) The Pedestrian Realm
� Buildings that line the boulevard should face the boulevard.
� The pedestrian realm should occupy at least 50% of the right-of-way.
� The pedestrian area should allow no more than one lane of local traffic to
encourage slow driving.
� Parking should be provided along the local lanes of the pedestrian area.
� Parking lanes should be between 6 and 9 feet.
� Access lanes should be between 7 and 11 feet.
REVIVING URBANISM
24
� Access roads should be differentiated from the central road and the cross
streets to remind drivers that they have entered a pedestrian area.
3) Medians
� Medians should be continuous divisions, from 5 to 50 feet wide, lined with
rows of trees.
� Trees should be spaced between 12 and 35 feet apart, depending upon the
species, creating a continuous overhead canopy.
� Public Transit should avoid the local travel lanes of the pedestrian area.
� Public Transit should provide access through the medians.
� Bicycle lanes should be incorporated between the pedestrian and central
realms.
There are multiple advantages to using this design approach. First, The Boulevard Book
provides a comprehensive analysis of boulevard design around the world and distills this
information into a set of concise guidelines. These guidelines have been condensed for the
purpose of this study to only those that can be measured from aerial photography and
cartographic images. Second, as the primary author of The Boulevard Book Allan Jacobs also
served as the primary designer of Octavia Boulevard. Third, this design approach meets the four
principles of road building established by Bel Geddes: safety, comfort, speed, and economy.
Finally, this design approach seeks to mitigate the four hazards defined by Bel Geddes as well as
the two conflicts identified by Harris. The medians provide protection at the road edge and at the
center; local lanes limit speed variation and congestion at intersections; integration of the
roadway with other modes of travel as well as pedestrian amenities limits the space consumed
REVIVING URBANISM
25
solely for automobile traffic; and the medians protect the mobility of the center roadway and the
stationary pedestrian zone.
Each boulevard has been measured according to the characteristics identified by Jane
Jacobs as essential to a vibrant community. First, each area has been analyzed prior to the
construction of the urban freeway. This establishes the potential level of urbanism for the area of
consideration. Following the construction of the urban freeway, the change in population, use,
structure and path has been analyzed. This shows the impact of the urban freeway on the area of
consideration. Then, when freeway removal becomes a viable alternative, the measurements
begin to shift again. As these replacement projects were not completed until the first decade of
the Twenty-first Century, limited data has been collected on the impact of the replacement.
However, population and housing data provide considerable insight into the revival of these
areas. The zones of analysis are comprised of the census tracts that fall within a quarter-mile of
the roadways. The Census Tracts are then compared to the municipality to determine how well
the area of impact attracts the conditions of vibrancy.
Octavia Boulevard, Hayes Valley,
San Francisco, CA
In 1951 the City of San Francisco developed a plan that imposed a grid of freeways across
the entire peninsula, dominating the landscape while facilitating the rapid movement of traffic.
As residents saw the impact of urban freeways, the severing of communities that inevitably
resulted from the imposition of these walls, the freeway revolt began. By the time the first
section of the Central Freeway opened in 1959, San Franciscans had petitioned their government
to scale back the plan, canceling construction of many of the remaining urban freeways.
REVIVING URBANISM
26
However, for several communities, the damage had been done. For more than forty years the
Central Freeway penetrated the heart of Hayes Valley, until the Loma Prieta earthquake caused
the destruction necessary for creation.
Just after five o’clock on a Tuesday night in October, 1989, the earth beneath San
Francisco convulsed. The Loma Prieta earthquake caused the collapse of several elevated
freeways in San Francisco and Oakland, including the Central Freeway. In 1992, the California
Department of Transportation demolished the section of the Central Freeway north of Fell Street
after reconstruction proved cost prohibitive and unnecessary. Conversely, the section just south
of this, between Market Street and Fell Street, became a point of contention between the City of
San Francisco and the State of California. While both sides sought to demolish the damaged
elevated structure, the state believed a surface-level freeway would be both cost effective and
necessary for the efficient movement of traffic.
The city disagreed, suggesting traffic demands could be met by the construction of a
boulevard integrated with the existing street network. When demolition of the remaining section
of the elevated freeway failed to produce the predicted traffic nightmare supporters of the
surface-level freeway lost a key argument. However, the battle between freeway advocates and
boulevard supporters continued for the rest of the decade in the form of ballot measures. Finally,
in 2002 Octavia Boulevard replaced the quarter of a mile stretch of freeway between Market
Street and Fell Street, reconnecting the urban grid and reviving the surrounding community.
Where the Central Freeway once stood, a boulevard offers commercial development, residential
space and office space along a throughway that terminates in a park, connects two major
thoroughfares and facilitates multiple modes of travel.
REVIVING URBANISM
27
Boulevard Design
At 133 feet of total right-of-way, Octavia Boulevard falls at the lower end of acceptable
boulevard width. The central roadway provides two 11-foot wide lanes of travel for each side of
the roadway and a central median to serve as a pedestrian refuge. At intersections, motorists can
cross from the central roadway to the local lanes, from the local lanes to the central roadway, or
turn from the cross street to either the central roadway or the local lanes. This multiplicity of
options forces drivers to be more cognizant of their surroundings when entering the intersection.
However, the boulevard restricts left turns from the central roadway, removing one variable from
the intersection while forcing drivers to maintain constancy of speed and trajectory through this
urban environment.
The central roadway occupies little more than forty percent of the total right-of-way,
returning nearly 80 feet of right-of-way to pedestrian, bicycle, and ecological use. By
reintegrating land uses for commerce and transportation Octavia Boulevard incentivizes density,
helping to revive the area. Each pedestrian
area includes an 18.5-foot local roadway
that provides one lane of travel to be shared
with bicyclists and one row of parallel
parking, protecting pedestrians from
automobile traffic. The entrance to the
pedestrian zone uses an alternative form of
pavement which is slightly raised, alerting
the driver that she is entering an area where
the automobile is not dominant. Buildings Figure 1: Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco, CA. Image provided by
ESRI ArcGIS. Measurements are approximate.
REVIVING URBANISM
28
on the southbound side face the roadway,
attracting drivers and pedestrians. On the
northbound side of the boulevard, fences line
the sidewalk separating the pedestrian zone
from private parking lots and side-yards. This
limits the commercially productive use of the
boulevard to only one side.
To further protect and separate the pedestrian realm from the automobile realm, medians
between the local and through lanes provide clear definition. Down the center and along both
sides of the central roadway, 10-foot medians lined with trees and walking paths provide
continuous divisions between the different roadway users. Trees bracket the central roadway,
while the paths extend the pedestrian realm to the medians. The trees provide a continuous
canopy to offer shade and comfort for the pedestrian along the medians. Conversely, while the
center median provides a pedestrian path, the broken canopy created by the clustered tree pattern
reminds pedestrians that the central median is a refuge from the automobile, not an extension of
the pedestrian realm.
At the end of The Boulevard Book,
Alan Jacobs, the former Planning Director for
the City of San Francisco, and his co-authors
present their design for Octavia Boulevard.
Clearly, the boulevard designed by Allan
Jacobs should adhere to the guidelines
Figure 3: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Local Lane
Entrance, San Francisco, CA. Image provided by Google Earth.
Figure 2: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Southbound, San
Francisco, CA. Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
29
prescribed by Allan Jacobs. However, the
implementation of his plan did not include
every design amenity provided in The
Boulevard Book. First, the central roadway
fails to provide a left turn lane. While this
helps to maintain the flow of traffic for the
central roadway, it limits the variety of
travel at intersections. Additionally, this maintenance of traffic flow has the potential to increase
speed, as drivers are less concerned with other drivers entering, exiting and crossing their lanes of
travel. Also, public transportation is not offered along Octavia Boulevard. While several routes
cross the boulevard and many run parallel on neighboring streets, no transit line runs from Market
Street to the Hayes Green. The guideline only states where transit access should be located, along
the central roadway side of the medians, and not whether public transit should be provided.
However, it can be assumed that more modal options would be advisable under this guideline.
Finally, although front doors and building facades line the southbound side of the boulevard,
chain-link fences on the northbound side provide an inhospitable pedestrian environment. With
these three deviations from the guidelines, Octavia Boulevard meets fourteen of the seventeen
guidelines.
Impact Zone
The six Census Tracts that lie within a quarter-mile of Octavia Boulevard comprise the
impact zone of this freeway removal project. Although portions of several neighborhoods lie
within these Census Tracts, the neighborhood closest to the epicenter is Hayes Valley. Since the
1950 US Census, this cluster of Tracts has seen only one major division: in 2010 Census Tract
Figure 4: Octavia Boulevard Pedestrian Realm, Northbound, San
Francisco, CA. Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
30
168 was split. Because the geographic data has remained constant, the demographic data can be
analyzed with fewer complications. While significant variation exists within and between each
Census Tract over the course of the research period, this analysis seeks only to study the area as
a whole. Therefore, only the aggregate measures for the Hayes Valley impact zone have been
compared to the measures for the City of San Francisco.
REVIVING URBANISM
31
Figure 5: Hayes Valley Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10.
REVIVING URBANISM
32
Rose Kennedy Greenway, North End,
Boston, MA
When the first section of the Central Artery opened in 1954 it culminated more than forty
years of planning and urban design seeking to connect the North End of Boston with the southern
end of the city. From the beginning, the Central Artery, soon known as “the other Green
Monster,” proved inadequate for the traffic demands of the City of Boston. This elevated
freeway cut from the Charles River through Haymarket Square to wharfs on the eastern shore,
severing the North End and walling off the waterfront. Seeing this detriment, city and state
traffic engineers decided to bury the final section of the freeway as an urban tunnel project. This
option not only protected the southern end of the downtown waterfront, but it occupied less
space and allowed existing structures to remain.
As the roadway aged, and traffic congestion worsened, state and local officials became
increasingly interested in alternative approaches to improve the Central Artery. As early as 1982,
plans to bury the elevated portions of the Central Artery had been drafted. While structural
integrity no doubt played a role in the timing of the demolition and replacement, traffic mitigation
and urban development served as motivating factors. In design as well as timing, the plan for
“The Big Dig” aligns closely with the Total Approach advocated by the Department of
Transportation during the late 1960s and 1970s. This design ethic retains mobility as a major
concern for freeway design, but tries to integrate the massive structures into the urban
environment by shrinking their footprints and recognizing the third dimension of right-of-way
design, depth. After decades of congestion and agitation, the City of Boston and the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts agreed to bury the elevated portion to match the southern
REVIVING URBANISM
33
section. This project, dubbed “The Big Dig” quickly became the most ambitious and expensive
public works project in the history of the country.
Boulevard Design
While the freeway may not have been removed, the completion of the Big Dig in 2008
created an environment conducive to the development of a multi-way boulevard. At the center of
the right-of-way, above the buried freeway, the Rose Kennedy Greenway winds through the
downtown like a green ribbon offering motorists and pedestrians a sense of nature in the midst of
the urban fabric. This section of the boulevard stretches over 380 feet from building line to
building line. Although the total width of the right-of-way falls well outside the maximum width
suggested for a boulevard, the greenway occupies 205 feet of the right-of-way. Because it offers
space for recreation and relaxation, but no space for commercial activities, in many ways, the
greenway serves as an oversized center median. However, treating the greenway as a median
reduces the pedestrian realm
to only slightly more than a
quarter of the right-of-way.
Alternatively, the greenway
can be seen as a destination
rather than a pedestrian
refuge, expanding the
pedestrian zone to over 80%
of the right-of-way.
38275
205
ft
25
Figure 6: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA. Image provided by ESRI ArcGIS.
Measurements are approximate.
REVIVING URBANISM
34
The roadway that encloses the greenway adheres closely to the guidelines presented in The
Boulevard Book. Each side of the roadway provides two eleven-foot-wide lanes of travel. As on
Octavia Boulevard, no left turn lanes are provided; unlike Octavia Boulevard, left turns are
permitted. The width of the greenway requires an additional design feature that increases
variability at intersections. Each side of the roadway has been equipped with traffic signals,
creating two separate intersections per cross street. The inter-greenway sections of the cross
streets include one through lane and one left-turn lane for each direction. Slightly removed from
the intersection, breaks in the side medians allow access to the local lane of travel. This
intersection design provides drivers with multiple options, creating a complex intersection that
slows traffic and improves pedestrian
access.
The pedestrian realm of the
boulevard adheres less closely to the
guidelines, but provides a safe and effective
environment for pedestrians and local
traffic. Buildings that once faced an
elevated freeway now face the open expanse of the greenway and the narrow surface roads that
surround it. Excluding the greenway from the total width of the right-of-way, the pedestrian realm
occupies as much as 60% of the remaining width. The pedestrian realm is marked by an entirely
different paving surface than the roadway, offering unavoidable signals to the driver about the
diminished role of the automobile in this area. Street balusters and a lane of parallel parking
further separate the pedestrian from the single lane of the local roadway. Contrary to the
guidelines, parallel parking is permitted along both sides of the local lane. Additionally, the total
Figure 7: Rose Kennedy Greenway Pedestrian Realm, Boston, MA.
Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
35
width of the parking lanes and the local
travel lane exceeds the maximum suggested
width for the automobile allowance within
the pedestrian zone.
While the guidelines suggest
medians should provide clear definition
between the center roadway and the
pedestrian realm, the medians along the Rose Kennedy Greenway serve to blend the two areas
together. On the pedestrian side of the median, fifteen-foot planting strips denote the outer
boundary of the pedestrian realm. Between the planting strips, the red brick paving stones of the
pedestrian realm meet the center roadway, giving pedestrians access to another row of parallel
parking in the far right lane of the center roadway. This extension of the median into the center
roadway effectively closes the far right lane for through traffic. The narrow path alongside the
parked cars has become a bicycle lane. While similar to the intent of the guidelines, this traffic
pattern may become dangerous for bicyclists as drivers enter and exit the parking lane.
Along the greenway side of the roadways, street trees and pavement variations define the
separation between the roadway and greenway. The trees have been spaced 25 feet apart, offering
a continuous canopy upon maturity. This canopy should provide an additional incentive for
pedestrians to use the greenway regularly. The wide expanse of the greenway allows bicyclists
and other non-automobile traffic to avoid the roadway if safety concerns make this necessary. As
more than 80% of the right-of-way has been reserved for non-automobile use, the possibilities for
local travel are numerous. Non-local travelers seeking to use mass transit can access the
Figure 8: Rose Kennedy Greenway Pedestrian Realm, Boston, MA.
Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
36
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
Haymarket Station at the western edge of
the greenway or at the Aquarium Station, a
quarter of a mile to the east. The mass
transit system in Boston provides
alternative transportation throughout the
area either with subways or with trolley
buses, but no transit service on the main roadway along the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Although this freeway removal design deviates considerably from the central components
of the design proposed in The Boulevard Book, it follows many of the guidelines. First, although
the freeway has been buried as opposed to full removal, its location allows the right-of-way to be
measured as if it had been removed. While entrance and exit ramps interrupt the greenway and
separate Haymarket Square and North End Park from the Waterfront, the greenway itself
reconnects the North End with the rest of downtown. Second, although the right-of-way falls
outside the proposed maximum width for a multi-use boulevard, the greenway absorbs the vast
majority of this excess.
The area takes on multiple identities: a multi-modal boulevard, an urban park system, a
pair of local access lanes for the freeway below. However, it fails on several counts. Like Octavia
Boulevard, it provides no turning lanes or public transit service along the central roadway.
Additionally, the excessive width of the local lanes and the provision of two lanes of parking in
the pedestrian zone surpass the maximum suggested width. Finally, the lack of signage or
Figure 9: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA. Image provided by
Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
37
pavement markings offers bicyclists no safe haven within the roadway. Due to these failings, the
Rose Kennedy Greenway earns only twelve out of seventeen points.
Impact Zone
Eight Census Tracts within a quarter of a mile of the North End portion of the Rose
Kennedy Greenway comprise the impact zone of the is freeway removal project. Unlike San
Francisco, however, this area has seen considerable variation in the delineation of Census Tracts
over the study period. To maintain a level of consistency within the total area of consideration,
the 1970 US Census map was used as a base, as this map included the smallest number of
Census Tracts covering the largest land mass. Any Census Tract that falls within the boundaries
of this base map has been included in the analysis. Due to this variation of tract boundary, only
aggregate data for the impact zone has been analyzed and compared to the City of Boston at
large.
REVIVING URBANISM
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Figure 10: North End Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10.
REVIVING URBANISM
39
McKinley Avenue, Haymarket,
Milwaukee, WI
Built in the 1960s at the height of the Freeway Era, the Park East Freeway was intended to
be part of a ring of freeways surrounding the core of downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As in
San Francisco a decade prior, citizens of Milwaukee rose up in protest of the imposition of these
behemoths on the urban landscape. Although the freeway revolt prevented a loop of freeways
from marring the urban form, several spurs and connections were constructed. The Park East
Freeway, planned as a connection from the North-South Freeway to the lakefront, halted
construction just over the Milwaukee River with less than a mile built. This spur provided
limited access to the downtown and remained underused for the entirety of its lifespan.
The freeway stood for three decades until an idealistic mayor led the charge to tear it
down. As a resident of Milwaukee in the 1960s John Norquist participated in the protests that
halted completion of the Park East Freeway. In 1998, Mayor Norquist began a campaign for the
complete removal of the Park East Freeway, replaced by an urban boulevard. A member of the
board of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Norquist promoted the boulevard as a mixed-use,
multi-modal urban throughway designed to revive the urban form and promote economic
redevelopment. After a four year legal and political battle, demolition of the Park East Freeway
began. With demolition completed in April 2003, the street grid was revived and the area became
available for private and public investment. Where the Park East Freeway once stood, McKinley
Avenue now serves as the southern boundary of Haymarket, a commercial and industrial area of
redevelopment on the western banks of the Milwaukee River. Along this section of urban
freeway, the removal process has unearthed an urban park that reconnects the city to its
REVIVING URBANISM
40
riverfront, and has begun the construction of an urban boulevard complete with residential,
commercial and office space.
Boulevard Design
The design of this roadway follows the standard design model promoted by the ITE
wherein mobility and accessibility stand in direct opposition. This design model retains a focus
on the automobile as the primary user of the roadway. Two lanes for travel in either direction and
an alternating left-turn lane allow drivers easy access to the area while maintaining mobility.
Intersections offer no limitations for travelers, allowing right and left turns onto and off of cross
streets. Although the outer lanes surpass the maximum width proposed by the guidelines, the
automobile realm of McKinley Avenue meets four out of five guidelines, indicating a well-
designed central roadway. However, while this roadway provides adequate facilities for
automobile travel, it fails to provide any accommodations for a substantial pedestrian realm or
123 ft 92 ft
35 ft
Figure 11: McKinley Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by ESRI ArcGIS. Measurements are approximate.
REVIVING URBANISM
41
for useful and attractive medians.
Assigning the outer edge of the
sidewalk as the edge of the right-of-way,
this boulevard measures a mere 123 feet
across, below the minimum standard.
Within this narrow right-of-way, the
pedestrian realm occupies a total of 31 feet, or just over 25%. The pedestrian area offers no
provision for local traffic, merging local and through traffic on the center roadway. With no
access roads, the pedestrian realm is reduced to a narrow six-foot sidewalk protected by a six-
foot median on the westbound side and a nine-foot median on the eastbound side. Public transit
is not provided along McKinley Avenue. Lanes have not been marked for bicyclists; signs do not
inform drivers of the presence of bicyclists. Though bicyclists are allowed by right to use the
roadway, no provisions have been made to separate bicyclists from pedestrians or from
automobile traffic. The diminished size, lack of local access lanes, and poor provision for
alternative modes of travel create an atmosphere hostile to the pedestrian.
The building frontage is
inconsistent and often fits a more suburban
environment than an urban boulevard.
Between 6th
Street and 4th
Street, four
parcels comprise the northern side of the
roadway. On the corner of 6th
Street, a
blank brick wall faces McKinley Avenue.
Figure 13: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Westbound Facing
East, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by Google Earth.
Figure 12: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Westbound Facing
West, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
42
While this building is positioned at the
edge of the parcel line providing definition
for the pedestrian realm, the two structures
to the east are not. Separating these
buildings from the roadway are large
parking lots and a suburban-style front
lawn. On the corner of 4th
Street, a historic
warehouse has been converted into multi-use space with windows and doors that face the
roadway, providing the transparency necessary for a high quality pedestrian realm. On the
southern side of McKinley Avenue, a vacant lot awaits development. Along this central portion
of McKinley Avenue, only one eighth of the building frontage promotes an active pedestrian
environment.
While McKinley Avenue provides no local lane, parallel parking is provided along the
main corridor. But with no markings to separate it, the parking lane blends into the outside lane.
This causes confusion not only for drivers, but also for motorists seeking to park their vehicles
who may not know where to position themselves relative to the meter or to the curb. As traffic
increases during peak driving hours,
motorists have adopted the parking lane as
a third, unmarked lane of travel. When this
lane is in use for parking, as designed, the
pedestrian realm enjoys an additional layer
of protection from the central roadway.
Figure 14: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Eastbound Facing
East, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by Google Earth.
Figure 15: McKinley Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by
Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
43
However, as parking is only permitted on the westbound side of the roadway, pedestrians
traveling on the eastbound side are not afforded this additional protection.
A landscaped central median provides a refuge point for pedestrians. The center median,
landscaped with trees, shrubs and flowers, provides clear definition between the two sides of the
roadway. Up to 17-feet wide, this median could provide pedestrian use in portions, but no
amenities are offered. Along the edges of the roadway, variation in paving surfaces delineates the
median from the walkway. The medians are lined with trees and municipal furniture, such as
light posts and street signs, to separate the pedestrian from the automobile. Although the
pedestrian realm includes a line of trees, these trees are spaced at the absolute maximum
suggested distance. Additionally, every
third tree has been replaced by a light post
alternating between pedestrian-scale posts
and automobile-scale posts. When these
trees are in full bloom, the canopy will be
incomplete and will fail to provide
appropriate protection from the elements.
The central limitation of this freeway removal project, the width, has complicated the
replacement process and led to a less than adequate urban boulevard. While the central roadway
carries enough capacity to replace the underused Park East Freeway, it occupies more than half
of the right-of-way. The automobile remains the central component of this roadway, the
pedestrian remains an afterthought. By not assigning greater weight to the needs of the
pedestrian or to other modes of transportation, this roadway fails to meet the majority of the
Figure 16: McKinley Avenue Pedestrian Realm, Eastbound Facing
West, Milwaukee, WI. Image provided by Google Earth.
REVIVING URBANISM
44
design guidelines for an urban boulevard. Having met all but one guideline for the automobile
zone, McKinley Avenue fails to meet any guideline for the pedestrian zone and only one
guideline for the medians, giving it a final score of five out of seventeen.
The area under consideration centers on the only portion of this roadway named
McKinley Avenue. Although it only constitutes one third of the total Park East Freeway removal
project, it serves as the only internal urban portion of the removal, as the other sections
reconnected downtown with the Milwaukee Riverfront. Although this impact zone includes
portions of several neighborhoods, McKinley Avenue serves as the southern boundary for the
Haymarket neighborhood.
Impact Zone
Similar to the North End of Boston, the Census Tracts that fall within a quarter of a mile
radius of this roadway have been realigned several times over the last half century. The 2010 US
Census offers the largest area with the fewest Census Tracts, serving as the base map for the
other Census Tract maps. All Census Tracts from previous years that fall within this boundary
have been included in the analysis as part of the Haymarket neighborhood. This zone stretches to
Interstate 94 at its southern edge, causing some inconsistency in the land mass between 1960 and
1970. However, this inconsistency should not substantially affect the results of this survey.
REVIVING URBANISM
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Figure 17: Haymarket Impact Zone. Map created using ESRI ArcGIS 10.
REVIVING URBANISM
46
Impact Analysis1
Population Density
The first measure of a vibrant community concerns the density and diversity of the
resident population. Though all three areas began the study period with population densities well
above their municipal averages, each area experienced varying levels of impact from the
construction, removal and replacement of their urban freeways. In 1950, when Hayes Valley had
its highest density, and again in 1970, when it had its lowest density, the area housed 2.67 times
as many people per acre as the city average. Even as density in Hayes Valley dropped nearly
15% during the 1950s, an
additional 14% in the next decade,
and remained static in the
following decade, San Francisco
density fell 17.5% in the first
decade, 11.8% in the next, and
27.8% in the third. By 1980, the
density of San Francisco was
barely half what it was in 1950
while Octavia Boulevard had lost
only one quarter of its density.
1 All Census data has been provided by The College of William and Mary and the Minnesota Population Center
through the National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota 2011. http://www.nhgis.org.
Figure 18: Population Density per Acre, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
REVIVING URBANISM
47
By contrast to this steady,
though relatively modest decline,
the North End of Boston and the
Haymarket in Milwaukee
experienced precipitous drops in
population density. In 1950, the
North End exhibited a population
density 3.60 times the average
density in Boston. By 1960, with
the Central Artery fully in place, the population density had dropped by nearly 60%. As the city
average density fell over the course of the next several decades, the density of this area rose
modestly until 1980 when the density of the North End was 2.38 times the density of Boston.
However, the North End of 1980 enjoyed little more than half the density as it had in 1950. In
the Haymarket, after losing more than two thirds of the area density over this period, population
density reached a nadir in 1980 of one quarter of its 1950 level. Although Milwaukee began with
a lower average population density than the other municipalities, and the Haymarket began the
study period with half the density of the other two study areas, the decline is even more
pronounced.
During the period of removal and replacement, the three study areas each saw moderate
increases in population density at similar rates of return. However, no impact zone has returned
to the level it saw in 1950. Beginning in 1980 the density of Hayes Valley began to increase
more rapidly than the density of the city. In two decades, Hayes Valley population density
increased by 15%, the majority of which occurred during the removal process in the 1990s.
Figure 19: Population Density per Acre, North End, Boston, MA.
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48
Similarly, San Francisco saw a
nearly 20% increase in density
between 1980 and 2000. However,
a rapid decline in the city density
by 2010 left Hayes Valley with a
density 4.65 times the city average.
By 2000, just before the
completion of the Greenway, the
Haymarket area enjoyed a density
more than twice that of the city as a whole. After the opening of the Rose Kennedy Greenway,
the density of the North End increased by nearly a quarter over the previous measurement and
approached three times the average density for the city. Similarly, in 2010 the Haymarket was
more than three times as densely populated as the city of Milwaukee, a 15% rate of increase from
1980.
Population Diversity
Racial Diversity
Hayes Valley has
consistently enjoyed a more
positive racial diversity index than
the city as a whole. Even as the
diversity of the city has increased,
the diversity of Hayes Valley has
Figure 20: Population Density per Acre, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
Figure 21: Diversity Index - Race, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
REVIVING URBANISM
49
increased. However, this diversity growth shows an inverse relationship with the density growth
of the area during the decades that the Central Freeway was in use. This resulted from the white
population leaving the area and minority populations moving into the area. From 1950 to 1990,
the white population of Hayes Valley dropped from 35,842 to 12,110. During this same period,
the minority population of Hayes Valley grew from 3,807 to 19,403. By 2010, the white
population and the total minority population had achieved near parity with 16,240 and 17,807,
respectively.
The diversity within the minority population provides an additional point of analysis.
After reaching a maximum population of 10,510 in 1980, the black population has steadily
decreased to 4,342 in 2010. Hayes Valley follows a pattern similar to the City of San Francisco
where the black population has steadily decreased since 1970. The Asian and Pacific Islander
population of the city has increased dramatically since the Census began counting this population
in 1970. However, Hayes Valley has seen only limited growth in this population.
In contrast to the diversity of
Hayes Valley, the North End in Boston
shows a consistent pattern of
diminished racial inclusion. In 1950,
the City of Boston had a racial
diversity index of .92, signifying a
very homogeneous population.
However, the North End showed a
racial diversity index of .99, a nearly
Figure 22: Diversity Index - Race, North End, Boston, MA.
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absolute racial homogeneity. As the racial diversity of Boston improved, the diversity index of the
North End improved as well, but not nearly as quickly. It was not until 2000 that the North End
achieved the diversity score that Boston achieved in 1970. Although racial diversity increased in
the North End more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than it had in any decade prior, the area still
scores nearly twice as high on the index as the city average. Over the course of the study period, it
is clear that while the white population has consistently been over represented in the North End,
the black population has consistently been under represented.
The diversity of the Haymarket area has remained remarkably consistent over the six
decades of the study period. In 1950, the Haymarket area enjoyed a racial diversity index of .59,
while Milwaukee had an index of .95. Over the decades, the Haymarket index has gradually
decreased to .42 in 2010. However, the stability in this index compared to the gradual
improvement of the city index hides some of the volatility the Haymarket population has seen
over the study period. As population density declined, the minority percentage of the population
increased, suggesting the population decline was more pronounced in the white population than
in the minority population. As the
minority population has increased as a
percentage of the total population of
Milwaukee, it has decreased as a
percentage of the total population of
the Haymarket area to the point where
the local and the city racial diversity
indices are nearly equal.
Figure 23: Diversity Index - Race, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
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51
Age Diversity
Age diversity in all three areas has
followed a similar pattern over the course of the
study period. In 1950 and 1960, age diversity
within the areas of consideration matched the age
diversity of their respective cities. Over the next
several decades, the impact zone began to deviate
slightly from the municipal score. This elevation
denotes a larger than average population of early
working age adults in all three impact zones. This
population grew steadily in relation to the other
generational cohort groups for all three areas. In
Hayes Valley and in the North End, this
population has a 10% greater share of the total
population than in the respective municipalities.
For both of these areas, this increased share has
come at the expense of a diminished school age
population. Conversely, the Haymarket had a
15% increase in population share for the early
working age population. However, this increase
has come at the expense of the two older
generational cohort groups.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, Hayes Valley,
San Francisco, CA.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, North End,
Boston, MA.
Figure 26: Diversity Index - Age, Haymarket,
Milwaukee, WI.
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52
Figure 29: Generational Frequency, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
Figure 28: Generational Frequency, North End, Boston, MA.
Figure 27: Generational Frequency, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
REVIVING URBANISM
53
Employment
Over the course of the study period, the Hayes Valley labor participation rate has trended
alongside the labor participation rate for the City of San Francisco, while the unemployment rate
has been much higher than the city average. Following construction of the Central Freeway, the
unemployment rate in Hayes Valley was double the San Francisco rate. By 1960, the
unemployment rate had dropped by almost 50%, but was still well above the city unemployment
rate. By 1990, unemployment in Hayes Valley had fallen more in line with the San Francisco
average, but remained elevated.
Conversely, the North End has seen an elevated labor participation rate and tremendous
fluctuation in the unemployment rate. Prior to the construction of the Central Artery, the
unemployment rate for the North End was nearly double that of the city. As demolition of the
Central Artery loomed over the North End, the unemployment rate had fallen three percentage
points below the Boston rate. By 2000, North End unemployment and Boston unemployment
were nearly equal.
Figure 31: Labor Participation, Hayes Valley,
San Francisco, CA.
Figure 31: Unemployment, Hayes Valley,
San Francisco, CA.
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54
In contrast to the labor and unemployment trends of Hayes Valley and the North End, the
Haymarket saw a substantial decline in labor participation that did not follow the Milwaukee
trend line. By 1970 the labor participation rate for the Haymarket area had fallen by nearly one
quarter. In 2000, labor participation in Haymarket was fourteen percentage points lower than the
Milwaukee average. Additionally, the unemployment rate for Haymarket has consistently been
well above the Milwaukee unemployment rate. When labor participation matched the city
average, unemployment in Haymarket was three times as high as the city rate. In 1970, when the
labor participation rate fell below 50%, unemployment in Haymarket dropped to slightly more
than the city rate. In the following decade, unemployment spiked to 13.5% in the Haymarket
area, while the city rate stayed below 6%. Since then, the unemployment rate has fallen for the
Haymarket area as the rate has risen for Milwaukee.
The improving employment situation for all three study areas follows a national shift in
employment type over the second half of the study period. In 1960, professionals, executives and
management comprised approximately 20% of all employed individuals in San Francisco,
Boston, and Milwaukee; in the local areas this group comprised as little as 10%. As this
employment type increased as a share of the employed population in all three cities, it increased
Figure 33: Labor Participation, North End,
Boston, MA.
Figure 33: Unemployment, North End, Boston,
MA.
REVIVING URBANISM
55
even more rapidly in the study areas. By 2000, this employment group included 47% of all
employed individuals in San Francisco and in Hayes Valley; 43% in Boston and 66% in the
North End; and 33.5% in Milwaukee and 53% in Haymarket. In direct contrast to this trend has
been the decline of construction and labor employment throughout all three municipalities and
the three study areas. During the first two decades of this study, construction and labor
employment held an elevated share of the employed population in all three study areas. In 1970,
all three areas saw a decline in this employment type that continued through the remainder of the
study period. While this trend could also be seen in the municipalities, it is more pronounced in
the impact zones. By 2000, each study area claimed a diminished share of employed individuals
in the construction and labor trades.
Housing Density
A vibrant community with a dense population requires an adequate number of housing
units in which the local population can reside. To provide adequate support for local businesses,
housing density must be at least ten units per acre. As the areas have changed over the six
decades of this analysis, the level of housing density has followed a pattern similar to that of the
Figure 35: Labor Participation, Haymarket,
Milwaukee, WI.
Figure 35: Unemployment, Haymarket,
Milwaukee, WI.
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56
Figure 38: Employment Type, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
Figure 38: Employment Type, North End, Boston, MA.
Figure 38: Employment Type, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
REVIVING URBANISM
57
local population density, though
lagging by a decade. Where
population density has remained
many times higher than the city
average, the housing unit density
has remained similarly elevated. In
1950, Hayes Valley offered three
times as many housing units per
acre than the city as a whole. As
the population density receded,
housing density fell; as population density grew, housing density increased.
Although housing in the North End saw only a dramatic decline after the construction of
the Central Artery, it was not as precipitous as the decline in population. In 1950, the North End
held more than five times as many units per acre than the city average. This density of housing
units allowed the large population
of the North End to enjoy less
crowding per unit than the city
average by more than one person
per home. Following the
construction of the Central Artery,
the number of housing units
declined steadily to a low of 14.25
Figure 39: Housing Units per Acre, Hayes Valley, San
Francisco, CA.
Figure 40: Housing Units per Acre, North End, Boston, MA.
REVIVING URBANISM
58
units per acre, a decline in density
of more than 40%. As the
population slowly returned,
housing density increased in the
North End. After the removal of
the Central Artery and the opening
of the Rose Kennedy Greenway,
both the population density and the
housing density jumped by 23%
and 25% respectively.
Unlike the North End, housing density in Haymarket saw a more rapid decline than
population density over the same period. Prior to the construction of the Park East Freeway, the
Haymarket area supported a housing unit density more than four times that of the City of
Milwaukee. By 1970, housing density in Haymarket fell by 50%. Over the life of the Park East
Freeway, housing density gradually increased to more than twice the city average. After the
removal of the freeway housing density spiked by more than 25%, matching a 21% increase in
population density in the same period. However, even before construction of the Park East
Freeway began, housing density did not meet the requisite 10 units per acre to support local
businesses. To reach this threshold, housing density will have to double.
Structural Age
A variety in the age of housing units may suggest an amount of permanence within the
community. As old structures decay, some are rehabilitated while others are removed in favor of
Figure 41: Housing Units per Acre, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
REVIVING URBANISM
59
new construction. The City
of San Francisco shows a
balance between housing
unit retention and new
construction. The attrition
of housing units built
before 1940 allows the city
to build twenty- to thirty-
thousand new housing units
each decade. While Hayes
Valley follows a similar
pattern, two significant
differences must be addressed. First, throughout the study period, the study area has exhibited a
greater share of housing stock built before 1940. The age of this stock allows the area to facilitate
a greater variety of uses and users. Second, as a result of the construction of the Central Freeway
Hayes Valley lost nearly 2,000 homes between 1960 and 1970, a 10% reduction in the
availability of housing. As new homes have been built in the area, the variety of housing options
have increased.
After the construction of the Central Artery, the North End showed an elevated rate of
homes built prior to 1940. This is unsurprising as few homes would have been built during the
planning and construction phases of the Central Artery. However, the housing demolition
continued through the 1960s as more than two thousand homes built before 1940 were
demolished, replaced by just over fifteen hundred new homes. The City of Boston also saw a
Figure 42: Housing Units by Year Built, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
REVIVING URBANISM
60
depletion of the housing
stock over the 1960s.
However, by 1980, both the
city and the North End had
experienced a housing
boom, adding seventeen
hundred new homes in the
North End and more than
twenty-seven thousand
across the city. In 2000, the
City of Boston enjoyed a
greater diversity of housing
ages while the North End offered a greater concentration of homes built between 1960 and 1979.
The most apparent cause for the deviation is the pause in homebuilding during the planning and
construction of the Central Artery.
Housing in the City of Milwaukee follows an expected pattern of an increasing supply of
housing units decade over decade with the older stock removed and replaced with new housing
stock. This pattern ends in 2000 with less than a quarter of all housing stock over sixty years of
age, slightly more than one fifth built in the 1950s during the postwar boom, with construction
steadily decreasing over the subsequent decades. Haymarket does not follow this pattern. In
1960, more than 88% of all housing units in the Haymarket area were built before 1940. By the
following decade, the housing stock in Haymarket had been cut in half; three quarters of all
housing stock built before 1940 was demolished during the 1960s. The 1960s also saw a spike in
Figure 43: Housing Units by Year Built, North End, Boston, MA.
REVIVING URBANISM
61
housing construction in the
Haymarket area, but much
of this housing stock was
removed in subsequent
decades. By the end of the
century, the total housing
stock of the Haymarket
area was less than 60% of
the total in 1950. However,
the age distribution of this
diminished housing supply
more closely aligned with
the age distribution for the housing supply in the City of Milwaukee than it had at any point
prior.
Occupancy
Homeownership in all three impact zones has consistently fallen short of the respective
citywide averages. In the City of San Francisco, the homeownership rate has remained fairly
constant since the 1950s; around one third of all homes are owner occupied. In Hayes Valley,
homeownership only achieved 15% in 2010. Prior to this, the rate of homeownership has steadily
increased from a low of 6.1% in 1970. The rate of homeownership dropped by more than a third
from the 1950 rate of 9.6%, still far below the municipal average. Not surprisingly, the
fluctuation of the homeownership rate has followed the rise and fall of the vacancy rate in the
area. In 1980, the vacancy rate for Hayes Valley reached 11.1%, double the rate for the City of
Figure 44: Housing Units by Year Built, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
REVIVING URBANISM
62
San Francisco. However, by 2000 the vacancy rate for the local area had dropped well below the
city average and remained there for the following US Census. While the rate of homeownership
has remained stable for the City of San Francisco over the study period, Hayes Valley has seen
stability only in the rate of renter occupied housing. Yet due to the low rate of homeownership in
the area, the renter occupied share for Hayes Valley has consistently been one third higher than
the city average.
Similar to Hayes Valley, the North End has shown a consistently weak homeownership
rate over the study period. Over the seven decades of this study, homeownership in Boston grew
at a measured pace, adding less than one percentage point per decade. The North End,
conversely, experienced a rapid growth in homeownership during the 1980s, jumping from
11.5% to 21.2% of all housing units. This rapid increase coincides with a spike in the vacancy
rate for the area. After this surge, the North End more closely followed the city homeownership
rate, though still at a depressed rate with higher than average rates of vacancy.
Figure 45: Housing Occupancy, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
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63
Homeownership in the Haymarket area has never approached the city average. In 1950,
while half of all residents of Milwaukee owned their own home, only 11% of Haymarket
residents owned their own home. As the rate of homeownership increased throughout Milwaukee
to a high of 55.7% in 1980, the Haymarket area reached a low point with less than 5% of all
homes occupied by the owner. After the removal of the Park East Freeway, the homeownership
Figure 47: Housing Occupancy, North End, Boston, MA.
Figure 46: Housing Occupancy, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
REVIVING URBANISM
64
rate in Haymarket more than doubled to 18.6%, a rate less than half that of the city average. In
combination with the low rate of homeownership, the Haymarket area consistently has seen
elevated rates of vacancy. In 1970, at the height of construction, the vacancy rate approached
13% for the Haymarket area. In 2010, the rate remained elevated at more than 10%, but only
moderately above the city average of 7.9%.
Development Density
The development density of Hayes Valley shows an improvement of path diversity since
1980, but does not necessarily promote pedestrianism. For the first three decades of the study
period, built form density and activity density for Hayes Valley were between 100% and 200%
greater than the built form density and activity density of the city as a whole. For the last three
available data points of the study period, the built form and activity density of the study area
were almost four times as high as the city average. This increased density suggests that the
quality of the environment attracts more travelers who use the area for a greater variety of
Figure 48: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.
REVIVING URBANISM
65
purposes. Between 1970 and 1980, both the relative quality and relative quantity of trips made
in the area increased dramatically. However, because the network load density remained no more
than 70% of the city average, streets remained viable pathways for through and local automobile
traffic.
Similar to Hayes Valley, the North End of Boston exhibits constant levels of elevated
built form density and activity density, with depressed levels of network load density. After
losing more than half of the 1950 built form density, the North End steadily rebuilt over the
subsequent decades, never achieving the relative density of more than three times the City of
Boston in 1950. Following a similar trend, the activity density of the North End fell by more than
half between 1950 and 1960. While the relative activity density of the North End improved faster
than the relative built form density, it never achieved the same level it had prior to the
construction of the Central Artery. Unlike Hayes Valley, however, the North End showed an
elevated network load density in 1950 that fell to one third less than the city network load
Figure 49: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, North End, Boston, MA.
REVIVING URBANISM
66
density. Even as the other two measures of density increased, the network load density of the
North End never matched the city network load density.
In 1950 the Haymarket area enjoyed elevated density on all three measures, creating an
environment conducive to pedestrianism and a vibrant urban community. The built form density,
at more than six times the city average, provided Haymarket with an extremely high quality
walking environment. With more than triple the activity density, Haymarket offered residents
and visitors multiple destinations in relatively close proximity. With double the network load
density, Haymarket offered a greater incentive for alternative modes of transportation, including
walking and bicycling. By 1960 all three density measures had fallen, with built form density
losing as much as 40%, activity density cut in half, and the Haymarket no longer holding an
advantage in network load density. Throughout the life of the Park East Freeway, built form
density remained above the city average, but only a fraction of the level seen prior to the
freeway. Activity density fluctuated from slightly below to slightly above the city average,
indicating that in the final decades of the Park East Freeway the Haymarket began to develop
Figure 50: Increase of Development Density over Local Average, Haymarket, Milwaukee, WI.
REVIVING URBANISM
67
more attractions. However, as network load density consistently remained half that of the city
average, this area would be unable to promote the level of pedestrianism necessary for a vibrant
community. In 2000, as the battle to remove the Park East Freeway raged, the Haymarket
showed elevated levels of all three density measures, the only instance after the freeway era in
any of the case studies.
Conclusion
This longitudinal analysis of the construction, removal, and replacement of urban
freeways serves as a starting point for a field of research that will require many more cases and
more granular data. Over the course of seven decades, each impact zone saw a decline in
population, employment, housing, and development density, followed by an increase in all of
these areas. The similarities in the inflection points explain the dramatic impact that urban
freeways had regardless of their placement. In all three instances, population density fell to a low
point the decade following the opening of the urban freeway. Housing density followed in the
next decade. Instances where housing density and structural age diverge can be explained by
vacancy rates or the internal changes of housing units from single family homes to duplexes or
apartments. As population and housing densities fell, employment opportunities left the area. As
Kostoff explained, the area traditionally targeted by road builders house and employ the working
class and minorities. These cases follow this historic pattern.
However, it appears that the rate of decline has a greater impact on the rate of recovery
than any variation in the design of the replacement. All three areas have seen an increase in the
population of young working age adults. Similarly, all three areas have seen a concentration of
professional and management employees. These young professionals appear to be the earliest
REVIVING URBANISM
68
adopters of newly revived neighborhoods. With the addition of new amenities and attractions,
future research should determine if these individuals choose to age in place or if these areas are
only suitable for a certain demographic.
Equally interesting is the effect, or lack thereof, of the design approach on the
development density. All three areas experienced increases in both built form density and
activity density. This is understandable as civic investment tends to drive private investment.
However, only Haymarket, the lowest scoring design approach, saw an improvement of the
relative network load density. The failure of the other two areas to see a similar shift can be
explained by the exaggerated time frame of each replacement project. After a decade of ballot
initiatives, residents of Hayes Valley had adjusted to life without the freeway. Octavia Boulevard
may have even resulted in more network load capacity. Similarly, as one of the goals of the Big
Dig was to ease traffic congestion, network load capacity may have been increased over this time
frame.
Even though each impact zone experienced positive growth in all four metrics prior to the
demolition of the urban freeway, growth accelerated after the decision to remove was made and
again after the removal was complete. As these installations age and more cases become
available for study, the long-term impact of boulevard design may become clear. With multiple
urban freeway mitigation programs under consideration, adopted, or implemented in the last few
years, this field of research holds many opportunities for reassessment and reevaluation of
metrics. While it is not the purpose of this paper to determine how much land should be used for
transportation, perhaps these case studies can help to show that context sensitive transportation
infrastructure allows for greater economic activity in the immediately affected area. If it can be
REVIVING URBANISM
69
shown that an area will benefit from the recalibration of the transportation-land use equation, and
if the theory of urban development that density follows density and sprawl follows sprawl holds,
then this survey may show that the unavoidable solution to the problem of the urban freeway will
be to remove it.
REVIVING URBANISM
70
Endnotes
1 Dwight Young, Alternatives to Sprawl (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1995), 4.
2 Dwight Young, Alternatives to Sprawl (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1995), 4.
3 Dwight Young, Alternatives to Sprawl (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1995), 25.
4 Talen, Emily, “Fixing the Mess We Made,” Planning, American Planning Association, Volume 76, No. 9,
November 2010. 5 Congress for the New Urbanism, “Highways to Boulevards,”http://www.cnu.org/highways.
6 Knack, Ruth Eckdish, “2011 National Planning Achievement Award for a Hard-Won Victory,” Planning,
American Planning Association, Volume 77, No. 4, April 2011. 7 Dan Bobkoff, “The End of the Road: Saying Goodbye to Urban Freeways,” NPR, Washington, DC, March 21,
2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/03/21/134743606/the-end-of-the-road-saying-goodbye-to-freeways. 8 Robert Cervero, Junhee Kang, and Kevin Shively, “From elevated freeways to surface boulevards: neighborhood
and housing price impacts in San Francisco,” Journal of Urbanism Vol. 2, No. 1 March 2009, 31-50. 9 Eric Jaffe, “Is Removing a Major Road Really a Good Idea?” The Infrastructurist, March 24, 2011,
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/03/24/is-removing-a-major-road-really-a-good-idea/. 10
Spiro Kostof, “His Majesty the Pick: The Aesthetics of Demolition,” Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public
Space, Ed. Zeynep Celik, Kiane Favro, and Richard Ingersoll (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994),
16. 11
Spiro Kostof, “His Majesty the Pick: The Aesthetics of Demolition,” Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public
Space, Ed. Zeynep Celik, Kiane Favro, and Richard Ingersoll (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994),
21. 12
Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
1940), 41. 13
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association 75, 2 (Spring 2009): 162. 14
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association 75, 2 (Spring 2009): 163. 15
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association 75, 2 (Spring 2009): 163. 16
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association 75, 2 (Spring 2009): 166. 17
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
Century,” Journal of the American Planning Association 75, 2 (Spring 2009): 167. 18
Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
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Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
1940), 16. 20
Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
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Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
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Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
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Norman Bel Geddes, Magic Motorways (New York, NY: Random House, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
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Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
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Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, Brian D. Taylor, “Planning for Cars in Cities: Planners, Engineers, and
Freeways in the 20th
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REVIVING URBANISM
71
27
Allan B. Jacobs, Elizabeth MacDonald, and Yodan Rofe, The Boulevard Book (Boston, MA: Massachusetts
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REVIVING URBANISM
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54
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