Free Republic

The most popular place to put a city park is, increasingly, on a highway. Cities looking to boost their downtowns, or to improve downtrodden neighborhoods, are creating “highway cap parks” on decks constructed over freeways that cut through the urban center. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Denver and Dallas have deck parks underway. Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis and Santa Monica, California, are among the cities considering similar projects. In crowded cities, highway deck parks are a way to create new acreage and provide green space that can spur downtown development. Capping a highway to create a park also can reconnect urban neighborhoods sliced apart...

The planners, residents and developers hunched over maps Thursday had plenty of ideas for the daunting task of untangling and improving the massive web of aging highways in and around downtown Dallas. About 50 of them were gathered at the Dallas Regional Chamber for the second of three public input workshops on TxDOT’s CityMAP project. The goal? To provide a blueprint and menu of options for city officials on potential costs, traffic impacts, timeline and designs for Interstate 30, I-345, I-35E and Woodall Rodgers. It would be wonderful if the city could eat the whole apple — all the worthy...