New Haven

[czsz]

I searched for a New Haven thread as I thought there was one...but guess not.

Anyway, this is sad. NH was planning to tear down its downtown highway (not sure why a city of its size ever thought it needed this) in a sort of Little Dig scheme, sensibly sans tunnel. Unfortunately, the idea got kind of half-baked, and now the city will wind up rebuilding essentially the same highway in the space where the old one was - albeit trenched, and lined with fewer parking lots.

More info: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/03/26/new-haven-on-the-grave-of-a-despised-highway-planning-a-close-replica/

[vanshnookenraggen]

Yeah I've heard the up-roar over this. Basically to get TIGER funding they went with a bad option that was quickest to build.

Looking closer, though, it appears that it will basically be an air rights development so you won't even see the highway. Not that this will make the area more urban which I guess is the big issue (that and more cars).

[BarbaricManchurian]

I live in New Haven. You'll find a few square blocks of urbanity in the city but the area around Route 34 has been permanently destroyed. New development is hardly "urban", mostly insular Yale/medical buildings. The whole city including downtown is car dependent, there's large parking lots including some free ones, bus service is atrocious, and very few places are actually dense. New Haven has a great street grid and bones and would be a perfect city for 300-500k people, the thing is is that it's severely underpopulated at 100k. 95% of the city is houses that are less dense than you'll find in Dot, mostly you'll find Victorian or similar single-family houses.

[BostonUrbEx]

Hartford next [and better].