Federal Highway Removal Program Raises Hopes in California

But transit advocates and local leaders in communities of color worry that new infrastructure plans could repeat the harms of the past.

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In California, where road projects have displaced more than 10,000 families over the past three decades, there’s growing enthusiasm for projects that mitigate the worst effects of the mid-century highway boom. A five-year, $1 billion federal pilot program designed to reconnect communities is breathing life into long-standing local plans to reckon with the country’s racist highway construction history. The initiative, which was folded into the federal infrastructure law that passed last year, will award grants to municipalities aiming to rectify harmful effects of freeway construction.

But many elected officials and community organizers are dismayed that the pilot program budget is significantly slimmer than the original (and more realistic) $20 billion that the Biden administration requested. Some community leaders also argue that projects such as freeway “capping” (replacing roadways with affordable housing or parks), highway sound barriers, or home air filtration systems don’t go far enough to address chronic issues like air pollution, traffic accidents, and the more serious problem, especially in Southern California, of a perverse car culture that continues to promote highway expansions that plow right through communities of color.

Proximity to freeways exposes residents to particulate pollution that increases the risk of respiratory illnesses and heart disease. A 2018 analysis from the University of Southern California found that Chinatown suffers from the highest risk of unhealthy air among all Los Angeles neighborhoods. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg specifically noted the legacy of infrastructural racism in Asian American enclaves in a tweet promoting the initiative: “Our work to protect AAPIs must include infrastructure that keeps communities safe—and whole.”

Ben Crowther, a program manager at the Congress for the New Urbanism, told the Prospect that the federal initiative paves the way for radical infrastructural change at a local level, even if the allocated funding is “not up to the task of fixing every highway in America.” A quarter million dollars will be distributed as planning grants for cities to study the costs and feasibility of retrofitting or removing freeways. (Up to 125 grants will be given, for a maximum of $2 million per recipient.) The remaining $750 million will be set aside for capital construction grants supporting the actual work of transforming aging structures into boulevards and city blocks. (Between 38 and 50 grants will be given, each in the $15–$20 million range.)

“We’re looking at a couple hundred, if not more, planning grants that will go out to different cities to explore what they can do with highways that cause environmental, social, and economic damage around them,” Crowther said. “That’s a really big deal.”

The 1956 Interstate Highway Act fueled several decades of highway expansion that separated and destroyed many low-income communities of color across the country. Between 1993 and 2017, highway planners built 30,000 miles of freeway lanes in the country’s 100 largest urban areas, according to Transportation for America, a national advocacy group. A Los Angeles Times investigation last year found that 200,000 people lost their homes over that time period—nearly two-thirds of whom lived in Black and Latino neighborhoods. Cities from Seattle to Milwaukee have voluntarily dismantled freeways, improving the surrounding area with parks, pedestrian walkways, and mixed-use developments.

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California’s freeway-to-boulevard movement gained momentum more than three decades ago after a natural disaster. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco damaged the elevated double-decker Embarcadero Freeway, forcing officials to turn the area into the Embarcadero, a water-facing, pedestrian-friendly boulevard that’s become one of the most popular attractions in the city.

After the success of the Embarcadero, Oakland residents began calling for the removal of a section of the controversial Interstate 980, which divides the historically Black and working-class enclave of West Oakland from downtown. Completed in 1985, the depressed two-mile stretch of concrete is one of California’s most underused freeways, accommodating only 92,000 cars per day, or just over half of its projected total capacity. The transportation advocacy group ConnectOakland has been spearheading removal of the structure: In 2019, Mayor Libby Schaaf endorsed the group’s plan to turn the freeway into a tree-lined boulevard and convert the 17 acres of prime land it currently occupies into new parks, housing, small businesses, and other amenities.

Jonathan Fearn, a founding member of ConnectOakland, told the Prospect that a grant from the federal pilot program could fund a future feasibility study. But no organization has yet undertaken a study, and some community leaders say even a partial highway-to-boulevard conversion may take at least a decade. Without a federal funding boost, Fearn says, “for folks on the ground it’s still a pie-in-the-sky idea.” “Our vision is to do a realistic infrastructure project that actually benefits a historically marginalized community.”

At the same time, some Oakland residents have expressed fears that removing the freeway will attract developers intent on building expensive new homes and other amenities that increase gentrification and exacerbate the housing crisis. Crowther, of Congress for the New Urbanism, says cities should consider applying for federal grants to implement mitigation strategies, such as providing first-time ownership programs for residents living in highway corridors. After freeway removals, excavated lands could also be folded into land trusts and resold to residents and invested in chronically underfunded social programs.

In Southern California, however, the focus isn’t so much on freeway removals as it is on fighting new highway expansions. California State Assemblymember Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) told the Prospect that the federal pilot’s $1 billion, though a step in the right direction, is “nowhere adequate” to meet the needs of communities in her district, whether it’s for reparations for destructive highway projects, health care, or repurposing interstates. That sum, she points out, is equal to the cost of removing a single one-mile stretch of freeway in any one community. “So are we really committed to this?” she asked. “A lot of the work we’re doing is just the status quo to perpetuate the same type of institutional and environmental racism out there.”

Bell Gardens, about ten miles southeast of Los Angeles, is one of the most polluted cities in the country. After years of fierce community opposition, transportation officials last year suspended a proposed multibillion-dollar widening of Interstate 710 through Los Angeles County, which would have uprooted hundreds of Black and Latino families. I-710, which carries trucks from the port of Long Beach to the rail yard in the city of Commerce, generates tons of diesel particulate pollution. Neighborhoods in the corridor, frequently referred to as “cancer alley,” recorded 36 percent more particulate matter concentrations than the Los Angeles County average, as well as high rates of asthma and other health disparities, according to 2017 data from the CalEnviroScreen 3.0 mapping tool. The fear of displacement, too, is constant.

“Homeowners worry about whether it’s a wise investment to stay there or expand their businesses,” Garcia says, “when there might be eminent domain for the freeway.” It’s a well-founded fear. Metro, the county’s transportation agency, has not entirely given up plans to widen the freeway. A recently formed task force has been meeting with the community to figure out a way forward on the project, and is expected to deliver a recommendation to the Metro board by the end of the year.

Garcia is also pushing to accelerate construction of a new light-rail transit line to ease congestion, and doesn’t think Metro has the community’s interest at heart. “It doesn’t feel like they actually want to listen to our input,” Garcia says. “They’re just trying to jam their ideas down our throat. A lot of the work [elected officials] have been doing is just the status quo to perpetuate the same type of institutional and environmental racism out there.” Metro did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

So even as the federal government launches a program to reverse the damaging effects of past highway decisions in communities of color, local officials perpetuate the same harms by expanding existing highways through similar neighborhoods. In response to the I-710 controversy, Garcia introduced legislation late last year to ban freeway expansion in construction-ravaged communities with high rates of pollution and poverty.

This article is part of our ongoing series on sustainable mobility, transportation, and climate.

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