A freeway lid (also known as a lidded freeway, freeway cap, highway cap or highway deck) is a type of deck bridge built on top of a controlled-access highway or other roadway. It is commonly used to create new parkland in urban areas, but can also be used to house buildings or other heavy structures like convention centers. [1] [2] [3] In some locations, the terms stitch or cap-and-stitch are used to describe overpasses containing widened bridges that accommodate wider sidewalks or small amenity space beside the roadway above the highway. [4]
Cities and highway departments who propose building freeway lids over highways often cite potential benefits including reconnecting street grids near highways, or providing increased access to neighborhoods harmed by displacement caused by past highway construction. [5] Freeway lids are often criticized by highway expansion opponents, who accuse highway departments of using freeway lids to "greenwash" their lane expansion projects to be more palatable to the public. [6]
In Downtown Atlanta, the Downtown Connector or 75/85 is the concurrent section of Interstate 75 and Interstate 85 through the core of the city. Beginning at the I-85/Langford Parkway interchange, the Downtown Connector runs generally due north, meeting the west–east I-20 in the middle. Just north of this is the Grady Curve around Grady Memorial Hospital. Continuing north, the terminus of the Downtown Connector is the Brookwood Interchange or Brookwood Split in the Brookwood area of the city. The overall length of the Downtown Connector is approximately 7.5 miles (12 km). Since the 2000s, it has been officially named James Wendell George Parkway for most of its length, although it is still designated the Connector in the mainstream. It also has unsigned designations State Route 401 (I-75) and State Route 403 (I-85) along its length, due to I-75 and I-85 having 400-series reference numbers.
Interstate 980 (I-980) is a short 2.03-mile (3.27 km) auxiliary Interstate Highway entirely within Oakland in Northern California, connecting I-580 and State Route 24 (SR 24) to I-880 near Downtown Oakland. I-980 passes the Oakland Convention Center and near the famous Jack London Square. I-980 is commonly considered the dividing line between Downtown Oakland and West Oakland. The freeway was planned as the eastern approach to the Southern Crossing. It is officially known as the John B. Williams Freeway, after the former director of the city of Oakland's Office of Community Development.
Montlake is a wealthy residential neighborhood in central Seattle, Washington. It is located along the Montlake Cut of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, bounded to the north by Portage Bay, to the east by the Washington Park Arboretum, and to the south and west by Interlaken Park. Capitol Hill is on its south and west sides, and the University of Washington campus lies across the Montlake Cut to the north. State Route 520 runs through the northern tip of Montlake, isolating four blocks from the rest of the neighborhood. The (unofficial) City Clerk's map of Montlake considers it to extend further west, past Interlaken Park, extending to Broadway Avenue E. and, between Lynn Street and State Route 520, all the way to Interstate 5.
State Route 520 (SR 520) is a state highway and freeway in the Seattle metropolitan area, part of the U.S. state of Washington. It runs 13 miles (21 km) from Seattle in the west to Redmond in the east. The freeway connects Seattle to the Eastside region of King County via the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on Lake Washington. SR 520 intersects several state highways, including Interstate 5 (I-5) in Seattle, I-405 in Bellevue, and SR 202 in Redmond.
State Route 99 (SR 99), also known as the Pacific Highway, is a state highway in the Seattle metropolitan area, part of the U.S. state of Washington. It runs 49 miles (79 km) from Fife to Everett, passing through the cities of Federal Way, SeaTac, Seattle, Shoreline, and Lynnwood. The route primarily follows arterial streets, including Aurora Avenue, and has several freeway segments, including the tolled SR 99 Tunnel in Downtown Seattle. SR 99 was officially named the William P. Stewart Memorial Highway by the state legislature in 2016, after a campaign to replace an unofficial moniker honoring Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
Interstate 579 (I-579) is a north–south Interstate Highway entirely within Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The highway is 2.73 miles (4.39 km) long. I-579 is also known as the Crosstown Boulevard since it crosses the backside of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Interstate 676 (I-676) is an Interstate Highway that serves as a major thoroughfare through Center City Philadelphia, where it is known as the Vine Street Expressway, and Camden, New Jersey, where it is known as the northern segment of the North–South Freeway, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Its western terminus is at I-76 in Philadelphia near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fairmount Park. From there, it heads east and is then routed on surface streets near Franklin Square and Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell, before crossing the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. On the New Jersey side of the bridge, the highway heads south to its southern terminus at I-76 in Gloucester City near the Walt Whitman Bridge. Between the western terminus and downtown Camden, I-676 is concurrent with U.S. Route 30 (US 30).
Interstate 395 (I-395) in Virginia and Washington, D.C., is a 13.79-mile-long (22.19 km) spur route of I-95 that begins at an interchange with I-95 in Springfield and ends at an interchange with US Route 50 (US 50) in Northwest Washington, D.C. It passes underneath the National Mall near the US Capitol and ends at a junction with US 50 at New York Avenue, roughly one mile (1.6 km) north of the 3rd Street Tunnel. Despite its proximity to I-395 in Maryland, the route is unrelated and unconnected.
The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront of Port of San Francisco and a major roadway in San Francisco, California. It was constructed on reclaimed land along a three mile long engineered seawall, from which piers extend into the bay. It derives its name from the Spanish verb embarcar, meaning "to embark"; embarcadero itself means "the place to embark." The Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 2002.
Interstate 395 (I-395) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of Maryland. Known as Cal Ripken Way, the highway runs 1.98 miles (3.19 km) from I-95 north to Howard Street and Camden Street in Downtown Baltimore, where it provides access to the Inner Harbor and the Baltimore Convention Center. The Interstate also serves the Camden Yards Sports Complex, which contains M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, homes of the Baltimore Ravens and Baltimore Orioles, respectively. I-395 also serves as the southern terminus of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, an urban arterial that provides a western bypass of Downtown Baltimore and connects I-95 with U.S. Route 40 (US 40), US 1, and I-83. The Interstate is maintained by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) and, like all Interstates, is a part of the National Highway System.
State Route 480 was a state highway in San Francisco, California, United States, consisting of the elevated double-decker Embarcadero Freeway, the partly elevated Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge and the proposed and unbuilt section in between. The unbuilt section from Doyle Drive to Van Ness Avenue was to have been called the Golden Gate Freeway and the Embarcadero Freeway as originally planned would have extended from Van Ness along the north side of Bay Street and then along the Embarcadero to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Harbor Drive is a short roadway in Portland, Oregon, spanning a total length of 0.7 miles (1.1 km), which primarily functions as a ramp to and from Interstate 5. It was once much longer, running along the western edge of the Willamette River in the downtown area. Originally constructed from 1942–43, the vast majority of the road was replaced with Tom McCall Waterfront Park in the 1970s. Signed as U.S. Route 99W, it had been the major route through the city and its removal is often cited as the first instance of freeway removal in the U.S. and as a milestone in urban planning; the original road is remembered as the first limited-access highway built in the city.
The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington, United States. It consists of two buildings in Downtown Seattle with exhibition halls and meeting rooms: Arch along Pike Street and Summit on the north side of Pine Street. The former straddles Interstate 5 and connects with Freeway Park. The convention center was planned in the late 1970s and funded through $90 million in bonds issued by the state legislature.
Interstate 95 (I-95) is a major north–south Interstate Highway that runs along the East Coast of the United States from Miami, Florida, north to the Canada–United States border at Houlton, Maine. In the state of Pennsylvania, it runs 51.00 miles (82.08 km) from the Delaware state line near Marcus Hook in Delaware County in the southeastern part of the state northeast to the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge at the New Jersey state line near Bristol in Bucks County, closely paralleling the New Jersey state line for its entire length through Pennsylvania.
The Mount Baker Tunnel or Mount Baker Ridge Tunnel carries Interstate 90 under the Mount Baker neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is actually a group of three tubes that carry eight lanes of freeway traffic, plus a separate path for bicycles and pedestrians. The original tubes are twin tunnel bores completed in 1940 and rehabilitated in 1993. The new Mount Baker Tunnel was built north of the original tunnels and opened in June 1989. The tunnel has a double-decked roadway with the bicycle/pedestrian path above the traffic lanes.
Interstate 5 (I-5) is an Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States that serves as the region's primary north–south route. It spans 277 miles (446 km) across the state of Washington, from the Oregon state border at Vancouver, through the Puget Sound region, to the Canadian border at Blaine. Within the Seattle metropolitan area, the freeway connects the cities of Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett.
Freeway removal is a public policy of urban planning to demolish freeways and create mixed-use urban areas, parks, residential, commercial, or other land uses. Such highway removal is often part of a policy to promote smart growth, transit-oriented development, and pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly cities. In some cases freeways are re-imagined as boulevards, rebuilt as below-grade freeways underneath caps-and-stitches, or relocated through less densely-developed areas.
Downtown Dallas is the central business district (CBD) of Dallas, Texas, United States, located in the geographic center of the city. It is the second-largest business district in the state of Texas. The area termed "Downtown" has traditionally been defined as bounded by the downtown freeway loop, bounded on the east by I-345 (although known and signed as the northern terminus of I-45 and the southern terminus of US 75, on the west by I-35E, on the south by I-30, and on the north by Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
The Rondo neighborhood, or simply Rondo, is located within the officially designated Summit-University district in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The boundaries of the historically black neighborhood are sometimes referred to as Old Rondo. For much of the 20th century, Rondo was an important cultural and residential center of the black community in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan region. The core of Old Rondo was demolished between 1956 and 1968, to make way for the construction of the Interstate 94 freeway. At least 650 families were displaced from the neighborhood, as well as many businesses and community locations. The neighborhood, although scarred by highway construction, remained a notable area in Saint Paul with a strong sense of cultural identity. Popular media and historians have the explored the impacts of highway construction and gentrification on Rondo residents past and present. In the 2000s, residents and public officials have discussed ways to reconnect the former community.