After three days of intensive workshops designed to generate fresh ideas for Philadelphia's languishing Delaware waterfront, five dozen bleary-eyed planners and architects put aside their maps, satellite photos and sketches on Saturday evening, and jointly called on city and state officials to deal with the great highway canyon that cuts off the city from the river of its birth. Philadelphia Inquirer
6 Comments
The planning process (and all its political messiness) has been well-documented for the most part at the project web site: http://planphilly.com/
if hollywood can cover it's freeway with a park, then why can't philly?
Most of the other cities of significance in the US have reclaimed their waterfronts from 1950s traffic planners idea of urbanism. Boston, SF, and Seattle, to name a few of the best. Only NYC has resisted killing FDR Drive and the West Side Highway with more vengence then Philly's love for 95...
tree,
we haven't reclaimed the waterfront in seattle, though some of us are desperately trying.
(sorry) was thinking about the olympic sculpture park- that's reclaimed in my book.
Washington DC/Anacostia River has a portion of a freeway...
where else have freeway's been removed?
* Portland's Waterfront Park, built on what was once a major roadway along the Willamette River, is now one of Oregon's top attractions.
* Paris is reclaiming the north bank of the Seine by progressively closing an urban motorway.
* Seoul is proposing to remove a six-lane highway and replace it with a riverscape.
* Milwaukee recently converted a segment of its Park East Freeway into a boulevard, removing a major source of urban blight and opening access to the Milwaukee River.
* Washington, D.C., proposes to raze the Whitehurst Freeway to create similar improvements in Georgetown. Cleveland and Buffalo are considering doing the same.
what gives with seattle ignoring the big dig in boston???
the big dig has scared a lot of cities away from big projects because of the time, money, and effort that went into it, and the negative press it receive (time delays, huge budget overruns, etc)
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.