I- 81 Highway Syracuse- Options for Rehabilitation or Replacement - Coursework Example

I- 81 Highway Syracuse- Options for rehabilitation or replacement Introduction 1 The Interstate Highway I-81 is about 850 miles long and runs between Tennessee and northern New York State to the Canadian border. A 14 mile stretch of I-81 runs through Syracuse including a 1.4 mile elevated section called the viaduct through the downtown area of the city as shown in the photograph in Fig 1 below which is reaching the end of its life (Case). Fig 1 – Viaduct structure in Syracuse (Case) 1.2 The New York City Department of Transportation July 2013 report on the options for the rehabilitation of the I-81 makes the following points (NY-DoT): i. The viaduct bridges are “functionally obsolete” with lane widths, load carrying capacity, clearance and approach alignments not meeting current standards. Accident rates are multiple times the national average. The viaduct bridges require replacement, not rehabilitation (NY-DoT, p 12-14). ii. The average annual daily traffic ranges from 43,000 to 99,000 and has remained flat since 2003. Only 12% of this is through traffic. Buses and trucks are only 8-9%. Commute times are below national averages (NY-DoT, p 11). iii. The population of Syracuse has declined 15.7% from 1990 to 2008. The population is 30.8% over 55 years of age and 30% below 19 years (NY-DoT, p 17). iv. The Syracuse University and medical institutions have $ 700 million in projects which are limited by space. The I-81 acts as a physical barrier to expansion at their present location on University Hill (NY-DoT, p 18). v. The City of Syracuse has made a master plan for redevelopment of a new urban center with a town square with businesses and high density housing around it. The I-81 is a significant visual element rising above the surface streets and most downtown buildings (NY-DoT, p 18). The viaduct acts as a barrier and prevents pedestrian and bicycle mobility (NY-DoT, p 14) 2. The Options for rehabilitation or replacement of the Viaduct 2.1 Mark Frechette, the Viaduct Project Director for the NY Department of Transportation summarized the project alternatives evaluated by the NY DoT in the slide shown Fig 2 (Frechette, p10). The “No build” option is the Environmental Protection Agency requirement for all such projects. For the Viaduct project, the evaluation of the “no build” option would serve as the baseline to compare the various “build” options (Frechette, p 12) . Fig 2- Alternatives evaluated by NY-DoT (Frechette) The tunnel option and the depressed highway options have been ruled out by the NY-DoT study. The water table in the area is high and it is saline, requiring special disposal methods. This would require cut-and-cover construction, which would close the Viaduct and the Almond Street for a long duration. The sub-surface utilities would need to be relocated. Ramps for access to the tunnel would cause a number of local streets to be closed or dead-ended. The estimated cost would be $ 1.50 billion - $ 1.75 billion (Frechette, p 28-30). The options that remain possible fall into two broad categories – rebuild the Viaduct with design improvements or develop a street level alternative for traffic flow (Frechette, p 34). Fig 3- Viaduct and Street-level alternatives (Frechette) 2.2 The Viaduct rebuild options The rebuild options for the Viaduct are aimed at bringing the design up to current standards. The width of the new Viaduct would be increased to 82 feet from the present 66 feet with two travel lanes in each direction. The speed limit for vehicles would be 55 mph. The Viaduct height may need to be increased 5 to 10 feet. The space under the Viaduct would be designed for interconnection of surface level streets and with better pedestrian and bike access. The widening of the Viaduct and straightening of the curves would require many buildings alongside the I-81 to be acquired for demolition. The number of buildings to be acquired can be reduced by retaining some of the tight curves. V-2 is the base option which requires 30 to 40 buildings to be demolished, V-3 will reduce the building number by 25% and V-3 by 40%. The estimated cost for rebuilding the Viaduct in any of these options is $ 1.42 to $ 1.43 billion (Frechette, p 15-17). 2.3 Street level options The street level option is to demolish the Viaduct and convert the street below it (Almond) to a six-lane boulevard. The boulevard would be connected to the I-81 and the I-690 through an urban interchange that would have a single signalized intersection. The NY-DoT conceptual drawing is shown in Fig 4 (Frechette, p 21,22). Some variants of this proposal are to make the Almond Street boulevard four lane to shorten the crosswalk and use one of the streets parallel to Almond to share the traffic load. If two streets are used, they can be made one-way with northbound traffic using one road and southbound traffic the other. The estimate for the cost of the boulevard option is $ 1.07 billion (Frechette, p 21-22). Fig 4 – The Boulevard option (Frechette) 3. The recommended option The option that appears the best for the city of Syracuse is to demolish the Viaduct and convert Almond Street into a boulevard. The reasons are as below. 3.1 The I-81 in Syracuse is primarily used by the city traffic. Vehicular traffic on the bridge has been flat since 2003. Whatever may have the original reasons for building the highway through the city, the rebuilding of the road should take into account the present requirements. 3.2 The Viaduct through the downtown area of Syracuse has clearly become a hindrance to the growth of the city. The University of Syracuse is unable to execute its expansion plans due to the Viaduct acting as a physical barrier to its present campus on University Hill. The city’s land use plan cannot be implemented if the Viaduct remains in its present form. 3.3 The rebuilding of the Viaduct would cause up to 30 to 40 buildings to be acquired for demolition. This would cause a major disruption in the economic and civic life of the city. 3.4 The costs for rebuilding the Viaduct at $ 1.42 - $ 1.43 billion are significantly higher than the $ 1.07 billion needed for the boulevard. 3.5 The rebuilding of the Viaduct is estimated to take 2 to 8 years and during this time, the traffic would be diverted to the city streets. The boulevard option essentially makes this temporary arrangement the final solution. 3.6 The Central NY Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIACNY) has published a report titled “Urban Design Study of the I-81 Project Area” that strongly supports the boulevard option over rebuilding the Viaduct. The report says that repairing the Viaduct would perpetuate a “bad intrusion” on the city (AIACNY White Paper, p 3). The White Paper also says that the goal of mid-century city planning was to separate high-speed traffic from city streets and this concept is a failure. Many of the city streets in Syracuse below the highway are as broad as the highway and have very little traffic on them. The White Paper recommends that the I-81 can be properly integrated into the underutilized street grid of Syracuse (AIACNY White Paper, p 20). The AIACNY White Paper proposes a boulevard design as shown in Fig 5. The design is for a 140 foot right of way with an 8 foot wide sidewalk, a 6 foot wide bike lane and a 4 foot tree planting zone on each side. The proposal recommends a 11 foot bus loading, parking and commercial loading lane on each side and three 11 foot drive lanes. The center lane is reserved for emergency vehicles. The driving speed is limited to 30 mph. The median is planted as a rain garden with dedicated areas for beautification/ sculptures (AIACNY White Paper, p 20). Fig 5 – The AIACNY proposal for the boulevard (AIACNY White Paper) The areas marked in red on the photograph are suggested being reserved for commercial development after the boulevard is commissioned. The areas marked in green are available for new commercial buildings (AIACNY White Paper, p 20). The design suggested by the AIA covers the requirements identified by the I-81 Corridor Study and should be well accepted by people in the city of Syracuse. 3.7 The construction of a boulevard to replace the elevated highway also appears to meet the requirements of what Professor Christopher Leinberger of the Brookings Institution, Washington DC describes as “walkable urbanism” in US cities. Prof. Leinberger has pointed out in various books and articles that America since the Second World War became a car-centric suburban society. People moved out of cities to live in the suburbs and used cars for work, shopping and entertainment. This was a clear departure from the concept of European cities. The government supported this trend by building highways and encouraging low density housing. Prof. Leinberger suggests that this trend leveled off in the 1970s with rising oil prices and awareness about climate change. The young people of the knowledge economy of the 1990s do not want to live in the suburbs or use the motor car as much as the previous generation. He says that recent experience in the US has shown that “as restaurants, housing and offices are built in a walkable urban manner, the quality of life improves”. More people on the street means demand for more things to do, property values go up and there is a virtuous upward spiral of value creation” (Leinberger). Syracuse is an emerging hub of the knowledge economy with its university and medical facilities. The NY-DoT corridor study quotes the City of Syracuse Land-use Plan 2025 document to show that downtown Syracuse is undergoing an urban renaissance with office buildings being converted to a mix of housing and retail (NY-DoT, p 18). Doing away with the Viaduct would remove a visual barrier between neighborhoods. 4. Conclusion The extensive public consultation and debate on the reconstruction of the I-81 represents a welcome mind shift from considering transportation infrastructure as a simple engineering problem. As the NY-DoT has said in the I-81 Corridor Study document “the infrastructure needs have to be considered in the larger context of the community it serves and the environment in which it operates”. The Viaduct was clearly built without such community participation and has resulted in Syracuse city having to live with its problems for over 50 years. References: 1) AIACNY White Paper. “Urban Design Study of the I-81 Project Area”, The Cenrtral NY Chapter of the American Institute of Architects”, September 3, 2014. Web. November 24, 2014. 2) Case,Dick. “What should be done with I-81 in Syracuse? The State wants your help”, The Syracuse Post-Standard,Jan 27 , 2011. Web. November 23, 2014. 3) Frechette, Mark. “I-81 Viaduct Final Scoping Meeting”, New York State Department of Transportation, June, 26, 2014. Web. November 23, 2014. >. 4) Leinberger, Christopher, B. “The Marriage of Economic Growth and Sustainable Development”, Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond, 2012. Web. November 24, 2014. . 5) NY- DoT. “The I-81 Corridor Study”, New York State Department of Transportation, July 2013. Web. November 23, 2014. >. Read More