States and cities received over $3 billion in grant funding aimed at redressing the damage caused by freeways.
The Biden administration announced over $3.3 billion in Reconnecting Communities grants in cities including Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, Houston, Jacksonville, and other cities.
As Daniel C. Vock explains in Route Fifty, the grants will pay for freeway caps, trails, commuter rail stations, and flood management infrastructure. “All told, the Department of Transportation awarded 132 grants, including 52 for construction. The rest were to help communities with planning.”
According to Vock, “The mix of projects, though, shows the Biden administration is focusing on fine-tuning existing infrastructure, rather than funding more drastic changes that some advocates had hoped for when the programs were created. Community activists in places like New Orleans and Tulsa initially pushed to remove highways that devastated their neighborhoods, but the administration has largely avoided those kinds of proposals,” promoting freeway caps and other less drastic changes. However, some projects are tied to highway expansions, such as an underpass project in St. George, Utah.
Disconnecting Communities: Measuring the Social Impacts of Freeways
Research from 50 major U.S. cities shows social connections are weakest in neighborhoods where highways are present.
Portland Advocates Call on Feds to Oppose Freeway Expansion
The Oregon DOT is requesting a federal grant to fund a controversial freeway expansion through the Rose Quarter.
Reconnecting Communities Grant Round Offers $600M for Highway Mitigation Projects
The program is part of the 2021 infrastructure law and calls for improving access in communities disadvantaged by freeways.
Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage
Trump deemed the landmark civil rights agreement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees
More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?
Ken Jennings Launches Transit Web Series
The Jeopardy champ wants you to ride public transit.
BLM To Rescind Public Lands Rule
The change will downgrade conservation, once again putting federal land at risk for mining and other extractive uses.
Indy Neighborhood Group Builds Temporary Multi-Use Path
Community members, aided in part by funding from the city, repurposed a vehicle lane to create a protected bike and pedestrian path for the summer season.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Clanton & Associates, Inc.
Jessamine County Fiscal Court
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service