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Abstract
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The collapse of the Los Angeles freeways could be a symbol of the end of this technology as the basis of city transport. Some of the 13 LA freeways which lie in ruins from the recent earthquake are being rebuilt, but the most damaged could be removed forever. The two in San Francisco which collapsed five years ago have not been rebuilt. The community has demanded something different.
Since Hitler built the first autobahn in the 1930s, the freeway has been controversial. The gigantism of the architecture appeals to macho empire builders - only the high-rise building has similar massive proportions. Nature has tended to level such gigantism throughout history. It has now revealed the limits of the highway engineer and in doing so makes us look again at how we should build cities.
Even before the earthquake in Los Angeles, the freeway was receiving substantial criticism. 1993 saw the opening of the last new freeway in Los Angeles. The Century Freeway, costing some US$200 million per km to build, revealed that such structures had exhausted the political and financial will of citizens. Only 18 per cent of people in a Californian survey believe that freeways solve the traffic congestion problem (Franz, 1989). Robert Reinhold concluded a story on the Century Freeway in the New York Times by saying: "...few cities will soon try again to build highways through their urban cores". Some of the LA freeways will no doubt be rebuilt and reopened, but the back of the urban freeway is now broken figuratively as well as literally.
This article will examine some of the trends in providing alternatives to the urban freeway in the UK, USA and Australia where there appears to be the acceptance (perhaps a little reluctantly) that a new paradigm is emerging on how to build cities. These countries are significant as they are probably the ones which in the past, have shown the greatest commitment to the freeway. |