Posted on 03/12/2017 7:14:00 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
DENVER — Each morning Yadira Sanchez and her three children awaken to the roar of traffic and the plumes of exhaust that spill from the highway that cuts through their neighborhood.
Now, Ms. Sanchez and her family are confronting a plan to triple the width of this state’s main east-west artery, sending tens of thousands more cars by their door.
Denver was the fastest-growing large city in America in 2015, with a population of nearly 700,000, and the scene of a tech and marijuana boom that has drawn 1,000 new households a month. But as in other cities, its highways have not kept up with development. Many roads are crumbling, leaving officials with decisions that will have lasting effects on the families living nearby, including residents of Elyria-Swansea, a low-income and overwhelmingly Latino community still reeling from the road’s construction back in 1964.
Colorado is one of many states continuing to grapple with the legacy of the 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act, which laid the map for thousands of miles of interstates. It also sent many highways rolling through black, immigrant and low-income urban communities, saddling people from the Bronx to Los Angeles with pollution, disease and blight.
With growing support for infrastructure overhauls across America — President Trump has vowed to “streamline and expedite” road and bridge projects — the expansion here could serve as a harbinger for communities facing similar choices in the months ahead.
The $1.17 billion plan for Colorado’s Interstate 70, which links the airport, downtown and ski resorts to the west, calls for the demolition of 56 homes and 17 businesses. In their place, engineers will lay tolled express lanes available to those who can pay for a faster commute.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
We’re MORE LATIN than the folks from South America!!
I dont know who the hell invented the words latina/latino.
Seems a lot of words have been invented the past 50 years.
Should be obvious.
Hysterical drama-queen snowflakes, from some wannabe school of higher learning with not enough safe places...
He liked building roads and fooling around with Big Water.
Let them pave their new freeways with Hash Oil...
what about by passes or loops? there has to be other possible ideas.
Eastern I70 was bad for rush hour traffic in the middle 70’s.
I saw that :)
We need a TWO LEVEL BQE.
Finish the abandoned highway on Staten Island that the liberal rag here destroyed as it was only a few miles from being finished (enviro whackos). This was in the 70s.
FDR needs expanding.
But NO TRAIN from Staten Island to Manhattan!!
Though the commute would be much easier, obama’s drunken sons might start showing up.
How about just telling the suburbanites to live closer to their jobs?
Better stick to buses...
You're not even close to having even a scintilla of highway engineering design and maintenance experience in snow country, do you.
"Ugly as sin" sort of gives the agenda away.
The liberals in Austin tried that. It created traffic jams that run for miles. Of course, the limousine liberals can bypass it at 85 miles an hour on a tollway too expensive for the proles to use.
“Colorado is one of many states continuing to grapple with the legacy of the 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act, which laid the map for thousands of miles of interstates. It also sent many highways rolling through black, immigrant and low-income urban communities, saddling people from the Bronx to Los Angeles with pollution, disease and blight.”
I thought smallpox blankets was coming for a second there.
The people moved to those homes well after the highway was built and the future plans were in place. The air tests much cleaner in that area today than it did 40 years ago and it will test better with twenty thousand more cars.
Exactly. Denver is a nightmare to get around in.
Highways have been attacked for some time.
I think they should just build smaller cars so more cars fit on the roadway. (Sarc)
Better yet close all the roads and make everyone walk.
Black neighborhood looking for even more freebies beyond what the project already has earmarked for them.
I don’t live in Austin, but have, oh, maybe 100 hours driving experience there: Even when traffic is moving quickly, or perhaps especially when traffic is heavy but moving quickly, is a quite, uh, an “interesting” experience. Miami or Chicago (and I have many hundreds if not more hours driving in the latter area, over my life) is much easier.
By the time the third lane is done commuters will be switching to personal flying vehicles.
I would've included this link in my earlier response if I'd seen it earlier. This recent article isn't about exactly the same thing as this thread, but it's about transportation in Denver. (I wasn't searching for a recent link but found this from someone else's site.)
But editor David Sachs’ story about Hancock’s remarks to a bicycling conference this month carried a hopeful headline: “It Sounds Like Hancock Is Serious About Prioritizing People Over Cars.”Last week, as part of a Downtown Denver Partnership breakfast panel on increasing mobility options, Sachs laid out one challenge for city leaders — while framing it in a way Hancock likely wouldn’t.
“It’s too easy to drive,” Sachs said. “It’s not enough to make transit better and biking better, which the city is very, very slowly doing. But they get it. We have to make driving harder — and that’s really hard to say, politically — but are we going to just do that after the traffic gets really, really bad?
Bikes first, not people!
Elevated roadways just far enough from the foothills to catch ice and snow will create a traffic and maintenance mess.
Hate it when a ground level lane closes for maintenance? Try that with an elevated span, when maintenance is controlled by a cowardly, political mayor and his henchmen.
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