![]() ![]() But this convenience came at a cost, including air and noise pollution, safety risks from vehicle collisions, and even increases in traffic congestion.Ĭommunities of color bore the brunt of the devastation that came with highway construction. The Federal Highway Act of 1956 initiated construction of 41,000 miles (66,000km) of the interstate highway system and reshaped travel and trade in the US. Thousands were displaced in the historic Black neighborhood when the highway was built in the 1950s. A similar plan is under way in Richmond, Virginia, where the city has secured $1.3m to plan the capping of parts of I-95 that cut through Jackson Ward. It follows other plans to reconnect communities like those in New York’s South Bronx, through capping portions of the Cross Bronx Expressway. “On top of noise pollution and air pollution, as pedestrians cross back and forth, the fast traffic they encounter is dangerous.” “This is something that the community has been organizing around for three decades now,” said Christopher Puchalsky, who oversees policy and planning for Philadelphia’s office of transportation, infrastructure and sustainability. Construction on the project – known as the “Chinatown stitch” – is estimated to start in 2028.Ī video of the Vine Street Expressway, a sunken highway that cuts through Philadelphia’s Chinatown It has also secured $4m to design it, including $1.8m in federal funds from President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law. The city has allocated $400,000 to explore what local residents want the cap to look like. Last month, the city announced plans to explore a “cap”, a structure built on top of a highway that acts as a lid, and would make way for new green areas, recreational space and even buildings. “It’s not the sort of place where residents think: ‘Oh, I think I’ll take a walk here.’”īut all that could change thanks to an audacious plan to physically cover the expressway and reconnect the two severed parts of Chinatown. “It’s a pretty broad space to have to cross over.” Several times a week she crosses the sunken highway via one of six street-level lanes. “This is the busiest for Chinatown,” said Debbie Wei, who founded the grassroots activist group Asian Americans United. ![]() This freeway is known as the Vine Street Expressway. Yet landmarks like the Holy Redeemer church and the Crane community center are separated from others – like the famous dim sum spot Bai Wei or the Chinatown firehouse – by six lanes of busy traffic. It is one of the oldest and largest Chinatowns in the US.
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