Megan Kimble's "City Limits"

 Megan Kimble’s new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways,  is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the past and future of urban freeways and the opportunity we have to restore the damage they have caused to the urban fabric of American cities.  It’s an especially good introduction to “freeway fighting” for those new to the concept.

Kimble weaves a narrative, based on extensive interviews, around three current freeway projects in Texas: 

• The widening of I-35 through the heart of Austin from 12 lanes to 20 lanes,

• The widening of I-45 in Houston, including expanding the downtown loop, and

• The reconstruction of I-345 in Dallas.

The common thread among these case studies is the impact that these projects have on individuals and neighborhoods – and on sustaining a car-dependent society that ultimately limits personal freedom.  Although many of these stories are depressing (why is Texas destroying its own cities?), she does offer some glimmers of hope for a better future.

Along the way, Kimble also guides the reader through some fascinating history which illuminates the way we ended up with the problematic transportation planning and funding system we live with today.  Perhaps the most interesting historical segment is her account of President Eisenhower’s frustration when he discovered that a huge chunk of funding allocated for his new Interstate highway system was being used by states to fund urban freeway projects rather than the long distance, city-to-city connections he envisioned.  

Ultimately, as Kimble reminds us, stopping and reversing destructive freeway projects involves more than preventing and remediating harm – it opens up possibilities for the future: “Tearing down a highway is just the beginning.”

Riding the MBTA Green Line extension

 Recently I had a chance to ride the Green Line extension in Somerville MA – and I have to give it an excellent rating.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Green Line extension project, which opened in 2022, is a 4-mile, two-branch, six-station $2.2 Billion light rail line, which extends MBTA’s Green Line from Cambridge, through Somerville, to Medford.  The project makes obvious sense, filling in a blank space in Boston’s radial rapid transit network through a densely developed, transit-hungry sector.  In fact the project makes so much sense that it was first talked about a hundred years ago.  And the current project was first programmed nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The ride was very smooth, frequency was excellent (posted times 8 to 13 minutes apart in nonpeak times), station access was easy, and the line was very well utilized.  The smooth ride was especially notable when compared to the jerky, rolling, noisy ride on the older sections of the Green Line.  Wayfinding signage could be better, and local station area maps would be very helpful.

Station locations are typically close to, but not actually at, the node they are serving.  (This is a major drawback of the use-an-existing-right-of-way-and hope-it-passes-near-major-activity-centers approach prevalent in US transit projects.)  Magoun Square station, for instance, is about a 10-minute walk down a residential street from the actual square.  One of the better placements is at Ball Square, where a well designed station layout, with a bike locker area, is right next to the Broadway commercial district.  

I didn’t see a lot of new development along the line, but more may be on the way.  Hopefully we will see more mixed use development, with an emphasis on residential, both at neighborhood centers and along pedestrian corridors connecting them to the stations.  The development process may be boosted by Massachusetts’ MBTA Communities Act, which requires residential upzoning in at least some rapid transit station locations.

Why did it take so long and cost so much money to build a surface light rail line along an existing railroad corridor?  If you want to get into the weeds on this project, you can take a look at a study done by the New York University Transit Costs Project team exploring these issues (here).  The team analyzed a wide array of problems, which they sorted into three categories: project management and delivery, expensive design, and politics.

Sadly, the cost overruns and time delays in the Green Line Extension project are not exceptions.  They are all too common with transportation infrastructure projects in this country.  

Still, we will count the completion of the Green Line Extension as a definite win for the future of transit in the Boston area and a clear benefit for the people of Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, and Boston.