NY Times: All the news that fits the storyline

Embarcadero Freeway, 1965

From Sunday's New York Times (Once So Chic and Swooshy, Freeways Are Falling Out of Favor):

...If it sounds counterintuitive, if not crazy, to tear down a highway that still carries thousands of cars and trucks each day, there are a number of case studies to point to. One of the earliest and, to advocates, most successful, was San Francisco’s double-decker Embarcadero Freeway. It skirted the city’s waterfront and was demolished instead of rebuilt after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

“The Embarcadero came out of the waterfront, and now the waterfront real estate is seeing tremendous value,” said Peter Park, a city planner in favor of removing highways in cities where neighborhoods have been “significantly disconnected.”

Not only in San Francisco but also in every case where a highway has been removed, Mr. Park argues, “the city has improved.”

Rob's comment:

"Swooshy"? And "in every case"? Nope. Interesting that tearing down the Central Freeway overpass in Hayes Valley isn't mentioned, probably because that clearly hasn't "improved" San Francisco at all; it's made the city worse, since much of the traffic that used to go over Hayes Valley is now coming through the middle of that neighborhood on Octavia Boulevard.

See Octavia Boulevard: A "progressive" fiasco and Tearing down the Embarcadero freeway.