New Blog Focuses on Tearing Down the “Highway to Nowhere”

SheridanMap.jpg

Sheridan Swap is a new blog covering the Mother of All Livable Streets projects — the long-running campaign to convert one mile of little-used highway running along the Bronx River into affordable housing, parkland, greenway and economic opportunity for one of the city’s most beleaguered neighborhoods. The blog is run by the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. The state, it seems, is getting ready to weigh in on the merits of the project:

The New York State Department of Transportation announced last month
that it will weigh the costs and benefits of its plan to expand the
Sheridan Expressway against a Community Vision for the highway’s removal and redevelopment.

The
Community Vision, which includes decommissioning the Sheridan and
replacing it with affordable housing, open space, and new economic
development opportunities, will be included in NYSDOT’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion.

If
the analysis finds that the Community Vision makes more economic and
environmental sense than the expansion proposal, NYSDOT will be hard
pressed to move forward with its plan to stretch the Sheridan south
into Hunts Point.

Check back soon for updates on the DEIS process. In the meantime, check out what Wikipedia has to say about Environmental Impact Statements.

  • This is good news. I have created a website about freeway removals which might give proponents some ammunition, at http://www.preservenet.com/freeways. I hope they tear down the Sheridan, so I can add it to this site.

    Note that two of the six removed freeways on my site were built by Robert Moses – as, I believe, was the Sheridan.

  • Yes, it was a Moses project, Charles.

  • This is a great resource, Charles. Thanks for passing it along!

  • JF

    Note that two of the six removed freeways on my site were built by Robert Moses – as, I believe, was the Sheridan.

    That’s two down and what, twenty to go?

  • jmc

    I think that there should be a law passed to turn crumbling elevated highways to boulevards. Rebuilding these elevated highways is going to bankrupt cities.

    I was driving on the Cross Bronx Expressway to New Jersey today and I was struck by how easy it would be to cap that heavily-trafficked road to help filter out the particulate matter emanating from the trucks that pass through every day. The neighborhoods could be re-connected quite easily.

  • Expressway Lover

    Save the Sheridan!

    Extend the Sheridan north to the city line in order to provide relief for our other congested thoroughfares. The only traffic remedy is to build MORE highways.

    The Bronx River is suitable for paving over. I support NYSDOT in also extending this route southward into the already-blighted Hunts Point.

    P.S. — I really hope you all saw the sarcasm in that statement. I think the Sheridan is a good candidate for being torn down. It’s an incomplete highway that isn’t useful and it cuts the neighborhood off from the waterfront, in this case, the Bronx River.

    When the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco was dismantled (shortly after the ’89 quake damaged it), just look at happened there. So much better nowadays.

  • Sarcasm is tough on the Internet, Xway Lover.

    Before I even got to the end of your comment I went in to Sblog’s admin section and clicked on your IP address to see if we were being graced with a visit from The Reason Foundation or The Automobile Club of New York (not that I’d likely be able to tell from just an IP address, but still).

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