The Future of Urban Freeways Is Playing Out Right Now in Syracuse

AMY CRAWFORD
FEB 18, 2014

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—When Van Robinson moved from New York to Syracuse in 1968, one of the first things he noticed was Interstate 81, which runs along a 1.4-mile viaduct straight through the city's downtown. "I thought, 'This is ridiculous. Who in the world would put an interstate through the middle of a city?'" says Robinson. "I-81 is 855 miles from Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Canadian border. This is the only place where it goes through a city. It always bugged me."

Forty-six years later, Robinson now serves as president of Syracuse's Common Council and may finally be in a position to do something about the elevated highway that he has described as a "Berlin Wall" dividing the city's neighborhoods. The I-81 viaduct will reach the end of its functional life in 2017, and the New York State Department of Transportation has decided that it is not worth the cost of rehabilitation. One way or another, the viaduct is coming down.

How getting from here to there is changing forever.

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Facebook Video

Facebook takes your photo posts and makes a short video about your Facebook page. All automatic. Don't how they chooses the photos.

Kind of interesting. Ours below:

Silicon Valley if Employees Lived There

What Silicon Valley Might Look Like If All of Its Employees Actually Lived There

JENNY XIE

The Bay Area’s housing shortage seems to be getting worse by the minute. But what if the tech companies could, in one sweeping move, take care of the whole problem?

In a series of new 3D visualizations, Berkeley designer Alfred Twu imagined what Silicon Valley would look like if tech giants replaced the parking around their headquarters with on-site housing. In order to accommodate all of the workers, Twu filled the campuses of Apple, Google, and Facebook with 20 to 50-floor towers, all filled with 800-square foot apartments.