2002-09-26_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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3-B Urbanists wouldraze freeways . NEW URBANISTS, FROM 18 endorsed by Miami Mayor Manl!ypiaz al!d Commis- sionerJol)l!ny Winton, whose district encompasses. tl1~ area. In the .. next two weeks, a detailed plan prepared by the activist group Urban Watch in cOlljunctiol! with the Univer- sity of Miami Will be formally unveiled. The pr()posalhas already run into ()pp()~ition from state transpo.rttiMon officials, who contend it would be costly and impractical. But Winton and other crit- ics say the 1-395 overpass, which slices (lvertown inllalf, isasigl!ific~nt impediment to redevel()pment of theimpov- erished neighborhood and the adjacent Omni alldPark West districts, now. undergoing a still-fragile resurgence. "For us, the biggest issue here is urban revitalization, to said Jorge Espinel, an architect and co-founder of Urban Watch who attended Friday's panel. By burying the expressway, t.h.edtyhopt:H tUWt:1I.VC together anew, pedestrian~ friendly. cultural . district around the PerforIllil!gArts Center, which is under con- structipn north of the over- pass.Two museum buildings are planned for Bicentennial Park just tp the south. Downtown expressways, built largely with federal fund- ingbetween the 1950s and 1970s, and under intensive lob- bying by special interests such as the U.S. steel and automo- tive industries, were supposed to save U.S. cities in the era of the automobile. What the cities experienced instead, said San Francisco architect Daniel Solomon, was .jthe trauma of freeway rape" ~ a disfigured citysca~,~, deci- mated neighborhoods, depressed 'lal!d values and wrecked businesses. During a well-attended ses- sion, the panelists warned that tearing down the expressw~ys often requires years of battles with state and federal trans- portation officials, aswl'll as overcoming citizens' fears at ensuing traffic snarls - which they say have proven unfounded. In San Francisco, it took an act of God: thec:ollapse of the Embarcadero freeway in the, 1989 I,.oma Prieta earthquake. Voters had previpuslyrejected dismantling the elevated roa~~, way, which had blocked pffa~ prime ,chunk of the, city's waterfront for decades. Persuaded it would cost vastly more to rebuild it, San Franciscans then narrowly voted to replace it with a palm~ lined boulevard, with the city's famed streetcars running down the middle. The boulevard spurred furi- ousredevelopment in the sur- rounding )>loc1~s, utterly trans- forming the once-forlorn dlst1'lctlnto~n urh.'n.~howCaKft' and tripling propertYYlllues virtu~lly overnight, Solomon said. The toughest task in selling expressway deIll()lltion, the panelists said, ispersuadinl>i people that they're simply np~ necessary. And the best way tpdo that, they said, is to hammer home, the advantages: increased laIld, values and taxrevenu~~,and the chance to remake,large urban tr~cts at a time when city living is againahotcom~ modity. "Develop a constituency for what you want to do," said Norquist, who has engineered a remarkable downtown renaissance in Milwaukee. "You r~t1Iy need to, do th~.r:~;: