Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about highway expansion

Pima County Holds Better Sidewalks Hostage to Get a Road Expansion

By Tanya Snyder | Dec 16, 2014 | No Comments

West of downtown Tucson, Arizona, the city runs up against the interstate first and then the mountains, cutting off development. But east of downtown, the city sprawls on for miles. The Sunshine Mile, a shopping and dining corridor centered on Broadway Boulevard, stretches two miles just east of downtown, between Euclid Avenue and Country Club […]

A Better Way to Spend $1 Billion Than Ramming More Roads Thru Milwaukee

By Angie Schmitt | Dec 3, 2014 | No Comments

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is set on widening Interstate 94, a highway that runs east-west through Milwaukee. The agency is so committed to this idea that it is proceeding, at great expense and over the objections of Milwaukee’s mayor, with a project to double-deck a portion of the road through a relatively densely populated […]

How Macquarie Makes Money By Losing Money on Toll Roads

By Angie Schmitt and Payton Chung | Nov 19, 2014 | No Comments

This is the second post in a three-part series about the Indiana Toll Road and privately financed highways. Read part one. Macquarie Group, the gigantic Australian financial services firm with some $400 billion in assets under management, has made a lot of money in the infrastructure privatization game. The publicly traded company owns the Brussels Airport, […]

To Destabilize Detroit’s Fragile Renaissance, Go Ahead and Widen I-94

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 30, 2014 | No Comments

A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. Here’s the latest installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good. Michigan highway planners want to spend […]

How Colorado DOT’s Dubious Traffic Projections Could Soak the Public

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 29, 2014 | No Comments

Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct: King of the Highway Boondoggles

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 26, 2014 | No Comments

Using L.A. Traffic Counts to Justify Sprawl in the Arizona-Nevada Desert

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 24, 2014 | No Comments

What AASHTO’s “Top Projects” Tell Us About State DOT Leadership

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 19, 2014 | No Comments

Who can build the biggest road slab the fastest? Those seem to be the major criteria used by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials to determine the “best” projects by state DOTs across the country. In another sign that most state Departments of Transportation should still be called “highway departments,” there are […]

Wisconsin’s Highway Spending Mania Makes Less Sense Every Day

By Shaun Jacobsen | Sep 10, 2014 | No Comments

Wisconsin isn’t known as a state that makes smart use of transportation dollars, whether it’s Scott Walker rejecting federal funds for high-speed rail service, denying funds for what would have been Milwaukee’s first suburban commuter rail service, or cutting millions in state aid for transit. Now a new report from the Wisconsin Public Interest Research […]

In Dallas, You Can Get a “Sustainability” Grant to Widen a Road

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 5, 2014 | No Comments

Some folks on Twitter have been having a laugh about these PowerPoint slides from the North Central Texas Council of Governments. But it’s more sad than funny. The slides outline what kinds of projects are eligible for the Dallas region’s Sustainable Development Funds, according to local planner Patrick Kennedy. More than $43 million was awarded […]

Quinn Borrows $1.1 Billion to Keep IDOT’s Steamrollers Going

By Steven Vance | Jul 22, 2014 | 15 Comments

Governor Pat Quinn signed two bills today that allow the state to issue $1.1 billion in general obligation bonds to spend on highway resurfacing, widening, and bridge repair. The bills explicitly exclude transit from the new funds, and while they don’t seem to exclude bike lanes, trails, or sidewalks, all of the funds are already […]

8 Monster Interchanges That Blight American Cities

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 2, 2014 | No Comments

Ramming highways through the middle of American cities was undoubtedly one of the worst mistakes of the 20th century — demolishing urban habitat, dividing neighborhoods, and erecting structures that suck the life out of places. What could be worse than a highway through the middle of town? How about when two highways intersect, with all […]

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