Highways have cut through city after city. Can the US undo the damage?

Anthony Roberts walked one afternoon to a convenience store on the other side of a busy highway in Kansas City, Mo. It was not an easy journey.

First he had to make a detour to get to an intersection. Then he had to wait for the light to change. When the walk signal finally came on, he had little time to cross several lanes and reach the highway’s wide median. In the end, he had to cross the other set of lanes to complete his journey.

“It’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t have a car, especially in the winter,” Mr Roberts said. “No one wants to take a risk with their life by crossing the highway.”

Mr. Roberts’ journey is a small example of the lasting effects of the construction of highways cutting through urban neighborhoods in cities across the country. The Kansas City US 71 freeway, completed in 2001 after decades in the making, has displaced thousands of residents and cut off predominantly black neighborhoods from grocery stores, health care and jobs.

Kansas City officials are now trying to repair some of the damage caused by the highway and reconnect the neighborhoods around it. To date, the city has received $5 million in funding from the Biden administration to help develop plans for potential changes, such as building overpasses that could improve pedestrian safety and better connect people to public transportation.

The funding is an example of the government’s efforts to address racial disparities that have resulted from the way the United States has built physical infrastructure in recent decades. The Department of Transportation has awarded funding to dozens of projects aimed at reconnecting communities, including $185 million in grants as part of a pilot program established by the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

But the Kansas City project also shows how difficult and costly it can be to reverse decisions made long ago to build highways that cut through communities of color and divide neighborhoods. Many of the projects funded by the Biden administration would leave the highways intact but seek to mitigate the damage they have done to surrounding areas. And even breaking out a roadway is only a first step in reviving a neighborhood.

“Once you destroy a community, putting it back together is a lot more work than just removing a highway,” says Beth Osborne, who served as acting assistant secretary in the transportation department during the Obama administration and is now the director of Transportation for America. , an interest group.

The United States has a long history of highway projects separating urban communities, dating back to the construction of the federal highway system in the mid-20th century. In recent years, the idea of ​​removing some of those roads has gained popularity in cities across the country, including DetroitNew Orleans and Syracuse, New York

In his first year in office, as part of his infrastructure plan, President Biden proposed a $15 billion federal program to make improvements to communities damaged by transportation infrastructure construction. His original proposal was reduced to a much smaller programwith $1 billion in funding, in the bipartisan infrastructure package that Congress later approved.

The Transportation Department announced the first round of grants under the program in February, which awarded $185 million to 45 projects. The grants include about $56 million to help build a deck over a highway in Buffalo and $30 million to go redesign of an urban highway in Long Beach, California.

On a visit to Buffalo after the subsidies were announced, Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, said planners of some highways “built them directly through the heart of vibrant communities — sometimes to reinforce segregation, sometimes because it was the path of least resistance.” used to be. , almost always because black and low-income neighborhoods lacked the power to resist or transform those projects.”

“Most of the people who made these decisions are gone today,” Mr. Buttigieg continued. “No one here today is responsible for creating that situation in the first place. But we are all responsible for what we do in our time to fix it, which is why we are here today.”

Kansas City officials received just over $1 million of that program to study how to reconnect another part of the city, the Westside neighborhood, which is separated from other areas by another highway, Interstate 35.

The Transportation Department also uses other grant money to support projects designed to reconnect communities. The $5 million award that Kansas City received to address the impact of US 71 came from a program called Rebuilding American infrastructure with sustainability and equityor INCREASE.

The grant is intended to help the city come up with plans for improvements along a stretch of the highway. City officials don’t plan to remove the roadway altogether, but they want to make it safer for pedestrians to move from one side to the other. Building overpasses can save residents the dangerous highway journey on foot and make it easier to get to a nearby bus route.

The idea for what is now US 71 dates back to the 1950s when it was envisioned as a way to connect downtown Kansas City to areas to the south. A legal battle in the 1970s and 1980s delayed construction for more than a decade, and part of the route was eventually turned into more of a parkway. Thousands of people, many of them black families, were displaced to make way for the 10-mile road, also known as Bruce R. Watkins Drive.

The construction left a lasting impression in Kansas City. The city’s Country Club District, a group of historic neighborhoods west of the highway where homes usually fetch more than $1 million, was unaffected by the roadway. The area east of the highway is distinctly different, with lower property values ​​and more abandoned and foreclosed homes.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said it was impossible to live in his city without knowing the scar the highway has left on the black community. Churches, schools and businesses disappeared after it was built, he said.

Mr Lucas said fighting to reverse the damage caused by the roadway – and righting the wrongs that had affected the city’s black residents – was a top priority for him.

“It’s how we can make sure we connect businesses on both sides, how we make it easier for people who can cross without a car, and how we can engage a neighborhood without being known as just another highway,” he said.

Ron Hunt, who has lived in the Blue Hills neighborhood west of US 71 for decades, said he had seen the highway cripple the area economically, drive up crime and restrict access to grocery stores. Mr Hunt said while other parts of the city continued to grow and prosper, it pained him to see his community wither after the highway was built.

Residents like Lisa Ray try to preserve the remnants of neighborhoods they loved. Mrs. Ray grew up in Town Fork Creek, just east of US 71, which was once a pleasant middle-class neighborhood filled with black businesses. But the highway destroyed it, she said.

“It sounded good 40 years ago when they first started this project,” she said. “It didn’t turn out the way any of us thought it would.”

Now she and other members of the Town Fork Creek Neighborhood Association are volunteering to provide food and other supplies to elderly residents cut off from grocery stores by the highway. They also buy garbage bags and organize cleanups to prevent bottles, car parts and papers from ending up on the street. The neighborhood association has spent money on purchasing door security bars to help prevent burglaries in the neighborhood.

“All we’re doing is trying,” Ms. Ray said. “I try it every day, block by block. I can’t help everyone, but I’ll try.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.