Bridging Divides: The Crucial Role of Collaboration in Highway Removal

Highway removal is having a moment. With new federal funds flowing in and multiple cities in the process of planning for removal, the momentum has never been stronger. City leaders and residents increasingly recognize the devastation that highway construction inflicted on communities of color and the negative impacts on public health, social cohesion, and quality of life these roads continue to yield. And while the incoming administration will likely take a more hostile approach to sustainable transportation funding, federal funding is largely locked in and less subject to annual appropriations.

Yet removing a highway is not an easy process, and it is even harder to do it right. This infrastructure is both literally and figuratively entrenched in urban environments. Taking highways down can feel like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. But if leaders can bring together the right partners, the new land use possibilities and the renaissance sparked by removal projects can make the difficult process worth it.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provides an excellent case study of the pitfalls and possibilities provided by highway removal projects. An early adopter of freeway removal with the demolition of the Park East Freeway in 2003, Milwaukee continues to push for changes in its freeway system, with two more freeway removal studies underway today (sections of WI-175 and I-794). The Milwaukee projects, both past and present, exemplify the need for extensive collaboration — across jurisdictions and siloes and alongside residents — to create the transformational change that many hope to see through highway removal.

Bringing governments together

Highway removal projects are inherently cross-jurisdictional. With the land under highways often consisting of a patchwork of state, county, and city ownership, the price tag required for such an immense infrastructure project necessitates support from the federal government. Generating alignment between these different levels of government, each of whom brings a distinct array of priorities, is a tall task.

The Park East freeway removal in Milwaukee illustrated the complex web of government ownership and authority typical in urban freeway projects: the land underneath the Park East freeway was owned by Milwaukee County, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation held an easement that allowed the land to be used for freeway purposes, and the City of Milwaukee owned adjacent parcels and controlled zoning in what would become the Park East Redevelopment Area.

Because of the reality of this multi-party control over the infrastructure and the land underneath it, state, county, and city leadership all had to agree to remove the freeway and plan for the future of the right of way. Then-Mayor John Norquist used connections from his tenure as a state senator to secure support at the state level, but it was federal funding in the form of an Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) grant that succeeded in bringing all three parties together. The negotiations that followed required commitments from all sides, including the city’s agreement to pay for any costs exceeding the $25 million in ISTEA funding for the project. Ultimately, breaking ground on removal required everyone to be on the same page, and the project only moved forward after the signing of the 1999 Interstate Construction Estimate Agreement and resolutions adopted by both the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and the City of Milwaukee Common Council.

Partnership between these entities continued as the city led the process of updating zoning and planning for redevelopment on 60 acres of largely county-owned land, with a smattering of city and private parcels included. The relationships between these different governments were not without their sticking points, and there was some jostling over who would control the land and consequently who would benefit from the sale of parcels. In hindsight, Peter Park, the Director of City Planning at the time, wished the city had held more power in land disposition given that the freeway had suppressed nearby property values for decades, depriving the city of much-needed funds via property taxes. Disagreements aside, however, the legacy of the Park East removal shines through the success of the vibrant neighborhood that sprung up on and around the reclaimed land — an achievement that never would have happened without the cooperation of all three parties.

Removal projects in today’s era, including Milwaukee’s WI-175 and I-794 (if either or both of them move forward), will likely need to be as or more collaborative than the Park East removal project was. The cost of such a project has only gone up, which means federal and state funding sources will both be necessary, and in some cases enumeration by the state legislature may be required for approval, a reality that will require compromise in places where city and state level politics differ.

Recognizing this, the City of Milwaukee is building upon the lessons of Park East about the importance of genuine partnership between different levels of government. In the case of the Reimagining WI-175 Study, the city, county, and state have a signed memorandum of understanding outlining each entity's role in the project and commiting them to shared decision-making. This type of formal agreement goes a long way, and Kevin Muhs, the City Engineer for Milwaukee, said it is already paying off in terms of consensus building: “The [Wisconsin Department of Transportation] wants to be a good partner with Milwaukee, and so we are working hand in hand to explore what the alternatives could be, including freeway removal.”

Working across sectors

While at first glance highway removals might seem like they fall squarely in the realm of transportation projects, their success depends not just on vertical collaboration but horizontal collaboration too. Any project on the scale of highway removal in an urban environment touches on a broad set of issues, from land use and housing to climate resilience and economic development.

The State Department of Transportation tends to be a major player in removals, given their control over the roads that are being removed, but they don’t have an all-seeing eye. In fact, they may be short-sighted when it comes to thinking through the possibilities offered by highway removal. As Carl Glasemeyer, the Transportation Policy Director at 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, the organization that is leading advocacy efforts to remove I-794 in downtown Milwaukee, explained “The State Department of Transportation is not in the business of removing highways historically, right? They build them and they argue on why they're needed.”

For this reason, other departments at the city and state level must contribute their expertise, paint a fuller picture of what removal could look like, and identify opportunities for capitalizing on removal to address other issues. In Milwaukee, these parties might include the Environmental Collaboration Office, the Office of Equity and Inclusion, the Housing Authority of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Department, and Milwaukee County Transit, among others. Staff from these entities can help elevate wider city goals and plans and ensure that they are incorporated into removal and redevelopment efforts. 

Two critical challenges demand special attention in highway removal projects: the climate and housing crises. In regards to the former, environmental and climate professionals too often work in silos far afield from other issue experts. But when it comes to highway removal, which has the potential to impact greenhouse gas emissions and offers opportunities for climate-ready development, these professionals need to be in the room. 

Park East showed us that the removal of a highway does not necessarily mean a reprioritization of transportation modes. The replacement of the Park East (McKinley Avenue) did not include much in the way of pedestrian or bike infrastructure, and thus it failed to move the city away from car-centric planning. And though some green infrastructure was implemented as part of the redevelopment, it was far from the focus. As climate risks intensify, strategic use of excess land for green space and other heat and flooding mitigation measures will become increasingly imperative in these types of projects.

Housing affordability is another essential consideration. Research has shown that when a ‘disamenity’ (like a highway) is removed and replaced by an amenity (i.e. commercial space, entertainment, retail) nearby housing prices can rise and lead to gentrification and displacement. This is particularly troubling given the narrative, touted by federal grants, of highway removal as repair for the disproportionate harms that Black communities shouldered as a result of highway construction. For highway removal to proceed in an equitable, let alone reparative, way, redevelopment plans must center affordable housing and collaboration with government housing agencies and affordable housing nonprofits.

Ultimately, the transformative power of highway removal hinges on embedding a city’s larger goals and priorities into the use of the reclaimed land. While trade-offs will be inevitable, coordinated involvement across sectors can help navigate conflicts and build capacity for the type of interdisciplinary leadership that results in real change.

Elevating community voices

Even if state, regional, and local entities create strong partnerships and work across disciplines, it is only with the partnership of community members that highway removal projects can reach their full potential. Research has shown that meaningful, collaborative participation processes can lead to better outcomes — building trust with government entities, strengthening social capital among residents, and improving decision-making through the incorporation of local knowledge. 

Deja Garner, the former Director of Community Programs at Groundwork Milwaukee, a local environmental justice organization, has seen this through her practice: “You can tell when something is community-led, because then it gets utilized by the community… and when you don't have community voice in projects like these, especially with highway removal, you'll see more adverse effects, just naturally, because the community wasn't involved. And you may have done something that the community does not want.”

For I-794, community leadership proved crucial in initiating removal discussions. The state was not initially interested in taking down the freeway because it had just spent significant funds rebuilding parts of the roadway as recently as 2016. The city had not been pushing for it either, Peter Park said: “They had been kind of accepting what the state's going to do, right?” Instead, Park credits “grassroots efforts” with elevating the road to the removal agenda.

It is the arena of community engagement, too, in which removal projects can differentiate themselves from their highway construction predecessors, which targeted communities for highway construction specifically because they had limited voice or political power to fight back. There is a risk of repeating history, as development pressures for the land under freeways can crowd out the voices of the people most impacted by the freeway’s presence without a concerted effort to prioritize them during the removal process.

Marcos Guevara, who leads community engagement at the Urban Ecology Center, a nonprofit with a presence in the park that runs alongside WI-175, pointed out that whether or not highway removal projects deliver on their equity promises depends on the extent to which there is meaningful community collaboration. “The devil’s in the details, right?,” he said. “So we want to make sure to engage fully with the planning team and to bring along the communities that we're connected to, to make sure that their voice is part of the process.”

Though only time will tell whether community voices are truly heard, many stakeholders are impressed with the engagement efforts of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and their partners, particularly when it comes to WI-175. For the Reimagining WI-175 Study, WisDOT has convened a Community Advisory Committee and is giving stipends to community-based organizations to support outreach to residents. Guevara reported that they have been open to thinking creatively about meeting community members where they are, something he sees as key for residents who are strapped for time and struggling to make ends meet. If this type of participatory process is successful, it could protect against further harms to a community that has had a freeway carving a moat through their neighborhood for too long.

Scaling up, scaling wide, scaling deep 

Highway removals are still very much experiments. There is a lot to be learned from them and there will inevitably be mistakes made today that future projects will know to sidestep. At this stage, the freeway sections being considered for removal across the country are still largely underutilized freeways to nowhere, not mainline highways. Removing them will not fundamentally change the freeway system, and we have yet to see if highway removal’s current moment will grow into a sustained movement.

But the opportunity that highway removals provide is real. They allow cities to begin conversations across levels of government, across disciplines, and with the people most impacted by the presence of freeways about what a co-created vision for the future might look like.

As Glasemeyer put it, while they care deeply about the change that the removal of one small highway could bring, the thing they are most excited about is what might come next. “If communities actually have a voice and a say and an understanding of what's going on, then we can have truly impactful conversations about the future of [larger freeways].”

Glasemeyer and their fellow highway removal advocates recognize something important: in order to think bigger and to restructure our systems of transportation and land use to better meet current and future community needs, we have to start small. And, perhaps more importantly, we have to start together.

Morgan Florsheim is a writer and resilience practitioner from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has a Master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University, where she completed a thesis on highway removal as a tool for equity, sustainability, and climate resilience.