motorway demolition

[jon81]

Found this article on how a section of the A44 autobahn has been demolished and moved, as well as several villages, due to the rolling Garzweiler open-cast mine near Cologne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine. The A61 is due a similar fate. Any other examples of motorway demolition?

[WHBM]

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[WHBM]

Boston Big Dig possibly the best known, it replaced a couple of elevated freeways which were demolished, principally Interstate 93. There have been a couple of urban elevated ones around San Francisco that have gone as well, the one along the city waterfront without replacement.

[KeithW]

Found this article on how a section of the A44 autobahn has been demolished and moved, as well as several villages, due to the rolling Garzweiler open-cast mine near Cologne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine. The A61 is due a similar fate. Any other examples of motorway demolition?

Several in the USA

The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco
The Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland
The Niagra Scenic Parkway
Oklahoma City Crosstown Expressway

I actually drove this road when following Route 66, apparently most of the bridges were condemned as unsafe

[RichardA626]

Found this article on how a section of the A44 autobahn has been demolished and moved, as well as several villages, due to the rolling Garzweiler open-cast mine near Cologne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine. The A61 is due a similar fate. Any other examples of motorway demolition?

Several in the USA

The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco
The Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland
The Niagra Scenic Parkway
Oklahoma City Crosstown Expressway

I actually drove this road when following Route 66, apparently most of the bridges were condemned as unsafe

The Embarcadero Freeway was badly damaged in the 1989 earthquake. It's seen & heard in all it's glory in Bullett.

[bothar]

Found this article on how a section of the A44 autobahn has been demolished and moved, as well as several villages, due to the rolling Garzweiler open-cast mine near Cologne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine. The A61 is due a similar fate. Any other examples of motorway demolition?

Several in the USA

The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco
The Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland
The Niagra Scenic Parkway
Oklahoma City Crosstown Expressway

I actually drove this road when following Route 66, apparently most of the bridges were condemned as unsafe

Other urban examples include
the Rochester NY Inner Loop,
part of the Toronto Gardiner expressway
Milwaukee Park East Freeway

[Bryn666]

The majority of demolished freeways in the USA have either been bypassed or were of little value due to being unfinished.

The Rochester example was very similar to Birmingham removing the Masshouse section - it was affecting the growth of the city centre.

[mikehindsonevans]

Boston Big Dig possibly the best known, it replaced a couple of elevated freeways which were demolished, principally Interstate 93. There have been a couple of urban elevated ones around San Francisco that have gone as well, the one along the city waterfront without replacement.

We were in Seattle a year ago; they are burying their harbour-side elevated freeway (well, they will when they recover from the delays due to digging out their TBM which got stuck a while back!). They need to do something - the seafront is a right Trump-hole.

[Chris Bertram]

Boston Big Dig possibly the best known, it replaced a couple of elevated freeways which were demolished, principally Interstate 93. There have been a couple of urban elevated ones around San Francisco that have gone as well, the one along the city waterfront without replacement.

We were in Seattle a year ago; they are burying their harbour-side elevated freeway (well, they will when they recover from the delays due to digging out their TBM which got stuck a while back!). They need to do something - the seafront is a right Trump-hole.

Lots of homeless camping out there too ...

[Bryn666]

Boston Big Dig possibly the best known, it replaced a couple of elevated freeways which were demolished, principally Interstate 93. There have been a couple of urban elevated ones around San Francisco that have gone as well, the one along the city waterfront without replacement.

We were in Seattle a year ago; they are burying their harbour-side elevated freeway (well, they will when they recover from the delays due to digging out their TBM which got stuck a while back!). They need to do something - the seafront is a right Trump-hole.

The main driver for this replacement is avoiding another I-880 style disaster when the next big earthquake happens. The Alaskan Way narrowly avoided catastrophic failure in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

[bothar]

The majority of demolished freeways in the USA have either been bypassed or were of little value due to being unfinished.

The Rochester example was very similar to Birmingham removing the Masshouse section - it was affecting the growth of the city centre.

I was in Rochester in August of last year, my satnav was a bit confused. I visited the house of Eastman, the founder of Kodak. There wasn't much traffic around there, although it was holiday time to some extent.

Interesting in general on that trip around Lake Ontario that Toronto and Ontario generally had lots of traffic and road construction, extra lanes and the like. New York State was often pretty quiet on the road and places like Buffalo and Rochester were dismantling roads.

[wallmeerkat]

In Ireland, the stretch of N/M1 between the M50 pre-port-tunnel, was it N1 or M1? At the very least it was D2 and was mostly demolished for the port tunnel. Beyond the tunnel entrance it reverts to S2+1.

[bothar]

In Ireland, the stretch of N/M1 between the M50 pre-port-tunnel, was it N1 or M1? At the very least it was D2 and was mostly demolished for the port tunnel. Beyond the tunnel entrance it reverts to S2+1.

That would be this bit https://www.rte.ie/archives/2018/0611/9 ... ss-opened/

I've never been sure why it isn't S4 or D2 now.

[Mark Hewitt]

Boston Big Dig possibly the best known, it replaced a couple of elevated freeways which were demolished, principally Interstate 93. There have been a couple of urban elevated ones around San Francisco that have gone as well, the one along the city waterfront without replacement.

We were in Seattle a year ago; they are burying their harbour-side elevated freeway (well, they will when they recover from the delays due to digging out their TBM which got stuck a while back!). They need to do something - the seafront is a right Trump-hole.

It's ages since I was in Seattle, 2003! But the city centre is nice, the water front is nice, but you have the freeway and grot undernearth it inbetween. It would end up being really nice overall if they got rid of it.

[WHBM]

Interesting in general on that trip around Lake Ontario that Toronto and Ontario generally had lots of traffic and road construction, extra lanes and the like. New York State was often pretty quiet on the road and places like Buffalo and Rochester were dismantling roads.

Toronto is the economic centre of Canada (having gradually taken over from Montreal in the last 50 years) and has many modern-era economies like IT. Upper New York state, in contrast, has lost a considerable amount of both heavy industry employment and population south/westward across the USA. Further along, Cleveland, Ohio, is another place notable for a dense inner area freeway layout where the surrounding economic activity no longer justifies it.

Things change. Montreal has a vast former international airport built in the 1970s that is now, along with its roads infrastructure, abandoned.

[Motorman]

Interesting in general on that trip around Lake Ontario that Toronto and Ontario generally had lots of traffic and road construction, extra lanes and the like. New York State was often pretty quiet on the road and places like Buffalo and Rochester were dismantling roads.

Toronto is the economic centre of Canada (having gradually taken over from Montreal in the last 50 years) and has many modern-era economies like IT. Upper New York state, in contrast, has lost a considerable amount of both heavy industry employment and population south/westward across the USA. Further along, Cleveland, Ohio, is another place notable for a dense inner area freeway layout where the surrounding economic activity no longer justifies it.

Things change. Montreal has a vast former international airport built in the 1970s that is now, along with its roads infrastructure, abandoned.

Montreal Mirabel airport is not abandoned. It is a Bombardier manufacturing centre (C-Series/now Airbus A220) and has some cargo flights.

[mikehindsonevans]

Interesting in general on that trip around Lake Ontario that Toronto and Ontario generally had lots of traffic and road construction, extra lanes and the like. New York State was often pretty quiet on the road and places like Buffalo and Rochester were dismantling roads.

Toronto is the economic centre of Canada (having gradually taken over from Montreal in the last 50 years) and has many modern-era economies like IT. Upper New York state, in contrast, has lost a considerable amount of both heavy industry employment and population south/westward across the USA. Further along, Cleveland, Ohio, is another place notable for a dense inner area freeway layout where the surrounding economic activity no longer justifies it.

Things change. Montreal has a vast former international airport built in the 1970s that is now, along with its roads infrastructure, abandoned.

Montreal Mirabel airport is not abandoned. It is a Bombardier manufacturing centre (C-Series/now Airbus A220) and has some cargo flights.

As I recall, Montreal city struggled hard to promote Mirabel when it opened (directing all the international flights there for a time), but it was sunk by …. inadequate surface transportation links. Then, the increasing range of passenger jets led many airlines to bypass Montreal completely. Lack of rail links sank the idea of using it for traffic aiming for Ottawa.

As a footnote in history: The Tom Hanks film "The Terminal" was filmed in the abandoned passenger terminal before the bulldozers mover in.

We had a lovely holiday in Montreal in 2016 - the 747 bus travels in from P.E. Trudeau Airport (f.k.a. Dorval) at around ten-minute intervals, into the city centre or linking up with the Montreal underground Metro lines (which use some quaint 1960s-vintage trains). It was a fascinating couple of weeks alongside the St Lawrence.

Note to potential tourists: Montreal has two seasons on its roads (1)"Winter" and (2)"construction". This meant that the bus, every day during our vacation, took a different route from Airport to city because another section of road was being dug up; it was, inadvertently, a great way to start sight-seeing in Montreal! We used the airport terminal Marriott as our base - very conveniently within staggering distance when you fall off the inbound transatlantic flight after BA's excellent service at the front of a 787.

[Octaviadriver]

The A4 around Eisenach in Germany has been moved northwards to a new three lane section and some of the old two lane section to the east of Eisenach has been demolished, the section to the west now being used as a link road between the autobahn and the town. The original autobahn that's been demolished was narrow and twisty through a gorge and up a hill to the east of Eisenach and it remained virtually unchanged since its construction was completed during WWII until it was replaced by the new section in 2010. The old section of autobahn that has been demolished and is being returned to nature or farming.

In the link below, you can see the line of the old autobahn where it leaves the new route over what is now a ploughed field and on through the edge of a forest.

https://goo.gl/maps/S5ABBWYdcYw