Community Consequences of Highway Improvement

Community Consequences of Highway Improvement
Author: Edgar M. Horwood
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 1965
Genre: Transportation
ISBN:

A state-of-the-art appraisal was made of studies conducted throughout the United States concerning the economic impact of various types of freeway facilities. The largest volume of literature occurs in the analysis of the effects of bypasses, particularly upon small communities. Next in significance to the bypass studies are the urban freeway studies, which have dealt mainly with land value changes in various distance bands from an urban radial freeway and at different distances from the central focus of the urban region. The few studies dealing with circumferential roads in urban areas are too diverse in their nature to lead to any integrated results. Some general guidelines for conducting future impact studies are discussed and areas for future research are proposed.

Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads

Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2006-01-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309100887

All phases of road developmentâ€"from construction and use by vehicles to maintenanceâ€"affect physical and chemical soil conditions, water flow, and air and water quality, as well as plants and animals. Roads and traffic can alter wildlife habitat, cause vehicle-related mortality, impede animal migration, and disperse nonnative pest species of plants and animals. Integrating environmental considerations into all phases of transportation is an important, evolving process. The increasing awareness of environmental issues has made road development more complex and controversial. Over the past two decades, the Federal Highway Administration and state transportation agencies have increasingly recognized the importance of the effects of transportation on the natural environment. This report provides guidance on ways to reconcile the different goals of road development and environmental conservation. It identifies the ecological effects of roads that can be evaluated in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of roads and offers several recommendations to help better understand and manage ecological impacts of paved roads.

Interstate

Interstate
Author: Mark H. Rose
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2012-03-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1572337834

This new, expanded edition brings the story of the Interstates into the twenty-first century. It includes an account of the destruction of homes, businesses, and communities as the urban expressways of the highway network destroyed large portions of the nation’s central cities. Mohl and Rose analyze the subsequent urban freeway revolts, when citizen protest groups battled highway builders in San Francisco, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, Washington, DC, and other cities. Their detailed research in the archival records of the Bureau of Public Roads, the Federal Highway Administration, and the U.S. Department of Transportation brings to light significant evidence of federal action to tame the spreading freeway revolts, curb the authority of state highway engineers, and promote the devolution of transportation decision making to the state and regional level. They analyze the passage of congressional legislation in the 1990s, especially the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), that initiated a major shift of Highway Trust Fund dollars to mass transit and light rail, as well as to hiking trails and bike lanes. Mohl and Rose conclude with the surprising popularity of the recent freeway teardown movement, an effort to replace deteriorating, environmentally damaging, and sometimes dangerous elevated expressway segments through the inner cities. Sometimes led by former anti-highway activists of the 1960s and 1970s, teardown movements aim to restore the urban street grid, provide space for new streetcar lines, and promote urban revitalization efforts. This revised edition continues to be marked by accessible writing and solid research by two well-known scholars.