The freeway removal movement is being boosted by $1bn in federal funding. Will it be enough to reverse decades of damage? The Guardian by Edwin Rios July 29, 2022 Amy Stelly can see the on-ramp for the Claiborne Expressway from the second-floor porch of her childhood home, a block and a half away from the highway. She lives in Treme, a historic Black neighborhood in New Orleans. For decades, the highway has devastated her neighborhood. Stelly is an urban designer and co-founder of the Claiborne Avenue Alliance, which is advocating for its removal. “Claiborne has not been maintained at all,” she says of the highway on the brink of disrepair. “Not only do we have the dire economics, we have the actual physical atrocity. It’s dirty. It’s loud. It’s polluted.” So, when the US transportation department recently announced a $1bn five-year pilot program to aid communities racially segregated by US government-sponsored highway projects, Stelly responded with a mix of optimism and tempered expectations. Joe Biden singled out the Claiborne Expressway when the program, known as Reconnecting Communities, was first announced.
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