The interaction between automobile and central city provides one of the arresting dramas of our time. Where the city has the time and space to adjust, some tolerable compromises have been achieved; the real crunch comes when the auto imposes itself on the center of older cities. As land-eating in freeways plunge into the city, flattening buildings and dividing neighborhoods, the protests of city dwellers have caused many a highway project to founder in dissension. Events during the past year suggest a type of accommodation that may hold use both for the integrity of the city and the needs of transportation.
A transportation rights-of-way essentially is a two-dimensional land use, with the space above it available for other purposes. Such use is expensive, but in built-up central districts the cost of platforming over rights-of-way (generally running $10 to $15 per square foot) often is more than covered by the value of the new "land" produced.
Air rights construction has a relatively long history in the case of railroads in central business districts. Grand Central Terminal in New York, the nearby Pan Am Building, and the Park Avenue complex of high-rise buildings were built on a platform over what are now the Penn Central tracks, with initial construction occurring in the early years of the century. Similar use of railroad air space has occurred in other cities. Chicago, for example, has a number of landmark buildings in this category, including the Merchandise Mart, the Prudential Plaza, and Marina City.
These uses continue. Last year's announcement of a proposed 55-story building on top of New York's Grand Central Terminal is a case in point. Likewise, in Chicago the city has released guidelines for the development of a 50-acre Illinois Central air rights property just north and east of the Loop. This joint venture of city, railroad, and three private developers is expected to call for a billion dollars in private investment plus $133 million in public services invested over a fifteen-year period. Plans include office space for 45,000 employees, 17,500 housing units, and multilevel streets and walkways.
Despite the long-term example of railroad air rights use, similar construction over urban highways has been limited. This probably reflects both its higher cost and greater in-convenience. Buildings and building occupants over freeways must be protected from noise, fumes, and vibration generated by the traffic; roads incur additional costs for ventilation and lighting; and auto drivers face the inconvenience of tunnel driving.
Yet, if costs are higher some see the advantages as greater. Utilization of the air space may augment the local tax base and reduce costs and problems of relocation for those in the path of freeways. Moreover, under these conditions freeway construction can become a deliberately used tool for restructuring the city. One of the attractions for local planners is the fact that federal highway funds are used to acquire the land.
Local authorities may also consider the less costly alternative of developing structures alongside, rather than over, freeways. Recent planning has moved in the direction of acquiring a broad highway right-of-way, a part of which is then developed intensively for commercial and residential use. (A major legal question will involve the physical limits of this off-roadway area.)
Opposition to inner city freeways sometimes has assumed racial overtones. The major relocations often are imposed on ghetto residents, while those who remain complain of "white roads through black bedrooms."
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 was amended to require that local highway departments consider social effects of highway location, including consistency with community objectives. Administrative rules implemented by Federal Highway Administrator Lowell K. Bridwell fit the pattern: instead of a single hearing of limited scope as now required, most projects would be subject to two hearings—the first on the selection of the broad highway corridor, the second on road design and impact. Significantly, at a recent conference Bridwell proposed that the federal government establish a formal policy to promote multiple use as a routine basis. He argued, "we are moving toward a concept which says highways should try to contribute to the satisfaction of community desires and to the fulfillment of community goals, while at the same time providing mobility."
Attention to the impact on the community of highway planning is reflected in the much greater emphasis on multidisciplinary expertise, including the social sciences. This has been exemplified during the past year by the work of design teams in Baltimore and Chicago, and by the organization of an environmental development division in the Bureau of Public Roads.
Two major projects are indicative of the present trend. In response to vehement opposition to freeway construction in the District of Columbia because of the attendant demolition of housing, the construction of low- and moderate-income housing over and adjoining a leg of the planned inner loop freeway was proposed. In November 1968, the Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the project, making it eligible for low-interest, long-term financing. It will involve the construction of 300 housing units over the freeway on a thousand-foot platform costing $2.8 million, paid for out of highway funds.
In New York City, efforts are underway to involve local residents directly in planning a freeway-and-community development—"a linear city"—to be built in conjunction with a six-mile section of expressway in Brooklyn. This half-billion dollar project will include such features as schools for 20,000 students, 6,000 housing units, and a regional shopping center and space for industry. Archibald Rogers, a planner-architect concerned with preliminary planning for the linear city, is skeptical about structures over the expressway because of the costs involved. Again, community acceptance is a major problem—in this case, acceptance by both a middle-class white and a low-income Black and Puerto Rican community. Rogers stresses the need for a design team concerned with the whole gamut of problems, including community impact, and with recognition of the need for community ratification of the design developed.
These developments represent a shift in urban highway planning, but a number of highway officials express concern at possible interference with what is seen as their primary goal of furnishing high-speed transportation facilities. But others, among whom is Philip G. Hammer chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, feel that the nation is saddled with enormous social problems in the inner cities, which multiple use of rights-of-way can help to alleviate.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1969 issue of Resources magazine.
