I finally figured out how to embed a Google Map in a post so now I will be updating the site with all sorts of cool maps.

The first is the Unbuilt Highways of New York City which is one I posted a link to last month and one I have been getting a lot of traffic from ever since Google added it to their “Custom Maps” content.

The second is the Unbuilt Highways of Boston which is newly expanded.

The third is the Unbuilt Highways of Albany, NY which is tiny but dear to my heart as I grew up in the area.

The last is the Unbuilt Highways of Providence, RI.

All of these maps are works in progress as Google is always adding new stuff and I just can’t leave my work “finished”.

I-30, I-35E, I-40 - Dallas, TX. I have always been fascinated by so called traffic machines. Traffic engineers apparently though it was a good idea to loop downtowns with giant highways, funneling traffic in and out of downtown every morning and night. These are the moats of the 20th century, keeping downtowns safe from undesirables that live just past the edge but allowing the people wealthy enough to afford a house in the suburbs and a car to drive into town. But like any wall that protects, it also strangles what it surrounds. When the cars leave there is no life here. Lights turn on but no one is home. Subways help but only go so far when an area is cut off from foot traffic. What amazes me is the willingness to destroy a city just for convenience.

US Route 101, I-5, I-10 - Los Angeles, CA. There is nothing that says L.A. like a freeway. As someone who has grown up on the East Coast the highway mentality is something quite strange to me. 12 lanes of concrete and assault and it isn’t enough? But I do have to give it to L.A., they do highways right. They looked at New York and said let’s do the complete opposite of that. Jane Jacobs didn’t think much of L.A. but that was because she was a creature of New York. L.A. is decentralized while New York is highly centralized, but at the same time L.A. is one of the densest cities in America. Thankfully they realize that ever expanding highways will only lead to more congestion, but we should sit back and marvel at the web they have constructed.

MI Route 5, I-275, I-96, I-696 - Detroit, MI. When I see this all I can think of is some traffic engineer saying, “We got all this space, lets stretch our legs.” This resembles a creature pulled from the deep or some strange amoebic creature. The other two interchanges made me think about what we have done to cities, this one just makes me smile.

This weeks theme, keeping with the last post, is of interchanges that didn’t make it. The powers that be were going to build a highway but funding problems or community opposition killed it. What remains are once mighty traffic machines that never were.

I-95, I-495 - Washington, DC. This is the physical remnants of the infamous Freeway Revolt. Several highways were to bisect and trisect central Washington, DC, many slicing up poor, black neighborhoods so the wealthy, white politicians could get to their homes far out in the suburbs. I-95 was supposed to enter DC from the north here and make its way down to the I-395 spur where it would turn west and form an inner belt highway.

Korean War Veterans Parkway - Staten Island, NY. One of the many roads that Robert Moses never got to build, the Korean War Veterans Parkway was only partially built, the southern section which ends in a swamp. The beginning and end points were constructed but due to intense community opposition against running the highway through La Tourette park, the project was stopped. There was a second proposal 10 years later which recommended connecting the parkway to I-278 further west at this interchange which had been designed to accommodate the parkway had it been rerouted. Thus there are two unfinished interchanges next to each other on I-278 on Staten Island.

US Route 44 - Providence, RI. This is all that was constructed of US 44 in Providence, RI. Originally this highway was to start at an interchange just south of there with I-195. There you can see the off ramps which lead into a park. These were to connect to US 44, which would have run along the river. At the other end you can see where land was cleared for the highway that was never built. This stretch was designed to bypass the congested central business area in East Providence, which US 44 runs through today. I am not sure of the exact reason it was never constructed but since the road was so short and doesn’t cut through many residential areas or parks, I can only assume it was stopped due to lack of funds, which is a primary reason behind many of the unbuilt highways in Rhode Island.

Google Maps recently added a new feature where you can create your own maps and needless to say it is pretty awesome. They are great for making a quick map for someone to show them how to get some place but they are also great for the type of stuff I do. After playing around with it I came up with three maps, all unbuilt highways for Albany NY, New York City, and Boston. Whats even better is that you can download these maps and view them in Google Earth by clicking on the KLM button on the top right.

The first map I made was the unbuilt highways in Albany, NY. These were based on information from Capital Highways, a web site about highways in upstate New York. There are a number of large interchanges with ramps to no-where in Albany and this explains what happened to them. The blue line represents the Mid-Crosstown Arterial which would have cut straight through the heart of Albany and Washington Park. I-678 which would have bypassed the interchange of I-87 and I-90 in Colonie and gone directly to Albany International Airport. This off ramp is all that was ever built of the highway, which now serves as a connection to an office park. Finally the red line represents what would have been a spur off of I-90 through Rensselaer and connected with the Dunn Memorial Bridge. You can see where the bridge stops in mid-air here, where it would have continued east to connect with I-90.

The next map was for Boston, MA. In the Future MBTA section for the Orange Line I talk about how the current Orange Line was built in land cleared for the extension of I-95 into Boston. Here you can see what I was talking about along with the other highways that were to plow through the city. This map was based on information from Boston’s Canceled Highways. The red line represents I-95, both the northern section that would have run through Lynn Woods and the southern section which would have run through Hyde Park and Roxbury. The green line represents I-695, or the Inner Belt which would have ripped through Cambridge and Roxbury, almost completely leveling Cambridgeport for a gigantic interchange at the Mass Pike. You can see the remnants of the highway here where there are dead off ramps off of I-93 (and there is also a road called Innerbelt Road) and here, which was turned into Melnea Cass Boulevard. The yellow line represents Route 2, which today ends abruptly at Alewife but was supposed to carry on further into Cambridge. The blue and purple line represent Route 3 and an elevated relocation of the Mystic Valley Parkway, respectively. You can see the unbuilt portion of Route 3 at the interchange at Route 128. Each would have destroyed the picturesque, tree lined parkway that exists today.

The last map I made was for New York, NY. These are based off of the unbuilt highways section of NYCRoads.com, which is a fantastic resource. Not all of these were Robert Moses highways but many, such as the bridges across Long Island Sound, were. Some were merely ideas for expanding roads rather than actually building new highways, of which Queens Boulevard is a good example. There are far too many for me to talk about here but if you click on the road you will see information about it and a link the it’s page on NYCRoads.com.

Edit: I have now added these maps to this site, check out the Unbuilt Highways section for these and more.

CT Route 2, US Route 6, US Route 44, I-84 - Hartford, CT. Two things blow my mind about this clusterfuck: 1) It is larger than downtown Hartford, and 2) there was supposed to be another highway that wasn’t connected to this interchange. You can see on one of the ramps there is a small unused nub sticking out and if you look at the section of road going north it just ends there.

I-64, I-95, I-295 - Richmond, VA. I don’t know what is more impressive, the interchange or the gigantic freight yard next to it.

I-95, I-395 - Baltimore, MD. This is a favorite of mine. Some brilliant highway planner must have been sitting around one night trying to figure out where to build an interchange in downtown Baltimore without taking too much land and BANG he pulled this one out: lets build it over the water! And not just build a ramp out over the water, lets go far out into the harbor and use all the space we can. It is brilliant and environmentally frightening all at the same time.

I know that posting crazy looking interchanges isn’t a new idea but it is still a fun idea. I knew of a few web sites that had a similar feature but stopped after a while. I am going to try to keep this going as long as possible and once I get enough interchanges I plan on making an Interchange Quilt (like a music quilt of your favorite albums or whatever).

Here are the first few:

I-95, Route 1, Route 128 - Lynnfield, MA. You have Route 1 on the left and I-95 on the right. The Route 1 interchange is this crazy trumpet thing that juts southward and ends at a gigantic rotary. The I-95 ramps are quite liberal with their use of space. I don’t know if these were built before or after the moratorium on highway construction within Route 128 or not. If they were built before then this interchange would have been a four sided stack with I-95 continuing south through Lynn rather than stopping and hopping onto Route 128 around Boston.

I-787, Route 9/Route 20 - Albany, NY. This one is close to my heart. Growing up in Troy whenever we needed to go down state we would pass through this mighty traffic machine. I would love to walk along the Empire State Plaza and gave out as the access roads from the plaza snaked their way into the whirlpool of ramps. It was designed to handle much more traffic than it actually does. If you notice on the far side of the bridge there is a section that dead ends. This was supposed to cut through the town of Rensselaer and connect with I-90 to the east. If you look at the roads leading into the Empire State Plaza to the west you can see there are sections of road that were never built. Whenever you drive through the plaza you will notice there are 4 arches, two through which you drive but 2 where there is nothing. These were to handle the extra traffic.

I-95, I-295, I-278, I-678 - Bronx, NY. That’s right, 4 interstate highways converge at one point. Thank you Robert Moses. This behemoth connects Bruckner Boulevard (I-278), the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95), the Hutchinson River Parkway (I-678), the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (I-678), and the Throngs Neck Bridge (I-295).