@MichMatters When we're talking caps, just realize that we're most likely talking a few blocks at the eastern end of downtown (Grand, Washington, Capitol); it'd definitely won't be a full tunnel, which requires a complicated ventilation, drainage, emergenecy...systems. There was a mock-up by Dymaxion somewhere on the forum here some years back showing a concept of this.
I'd definitely love to see something like this. But I also understand how expensive it'd be to engineer something beyond open space that tops a cap, so I'm definitely not expecting something like that. Same reason I'm not expecting much more than maybe half-block extensions on either side. Like I said, after that, what you're building is a tunnel, and those are expensive. What I'm sure is being conceived is something like what we already have over parts of I-696 in Metro Detroit:
And a big reminder that even in those cases they did spend a lot of money to correct for a freeway cutting through a central business district, rarely do you have actualy skyscrapers built on the footprint.
WILX story says they are talking about a cap between Walnut and MLK, which...isn't really reconnecting ANY of the actual neighborhoods along this stretch. This is literally just stretching from one end of the GM plant to the other. I'm so confused; this is the only stretch of freeway where it doesn't really make sense to add a cap. lol
It will not surprise me if the mayor thinks it is a good idea to cap a portion of 496 that that would be a square of grass and some trees with a plaque with a picture of what used to be there. As a person whose family was very much affected by the construction of both 496 and creating a boulevard along M-99 a lame project of capping a half of a block in the middle of the industrial complex would be just another F-U to the people and place that was the West Side neighborhoods.
As pictured above many folks in Boston were not in favor of spending so much money for The Big Dig, which was an amazingly complicated project. For instance, they froze solid the ground under the many rail tracks leading to South Station then tunneled under the tracks. All of that work was mainly for improving the traffic flow through Boston leading to the new Zakim Bridge to the north, the Green Way was for people. Even creating a full tunnel here would cost far less than most any one feature of the Big Dig, as you can see the Rose Kenedy Greenway was to me was the best part of the project, it created a lot of investment and reclaiming the old surface route really did reconnect the North End to downtown and people really use and love the beautiful space. Let's do that! Just looking at the before picture gives me the Willys thinking of driving through Boston was always scary back then.
Oh boy. I knew there had to be catch. For every step forward this city takes at least a half step back. Thankfully there will be plenty of time to change minds before any serious funding will be allocated. A cap over that stretch of 496 would be invaluable when the Grand River Plant goes away, but that appears to be decades away.
Sometimes the media gets details wrong; I'm hoping that's what this was. lol The only way this would even make a half-way bit of sense is if GM was goingt to sell the frontage along Malcolm X in places to allow some infill development so that you could turn the areas on both sides of the freeway from what is currently mostly dead space, but that's never going to happen. lol
Comments
This is the concept you might be remembering, halfway down under "Mid Town Concept"
https://www.lansingoz.com/theproject
I'd definitely love to see something like this. But I also understand how expensive it'd be to engineer something beyond open space that tops a cap, so I'm definitely not expecting something like that. Same reason I'm not expecting much more than maybe half-block extensions on either side. Like I said, after that, what you're building is a tunnel, and those are expensive. What I'm sure is being conceived is something like what we already have over parts of I-696 in Metro Detroit:
And a big reminder that even in those cases they did spend a lot of money to correct for a freeway cutting through a central business district, rarely do you have actualy skyscrapers built on the footprint.
As pictured above many folks in Boston were not in favor of spending so much money for The Big Dig, which was an amazingly complicated project. For instance, they froze solid the ground under the many rail tracks leading to South Station then tunneled under the tracks. All of that work was mainly for improving the traffic flow through Boston leading to the new Zakim Bridge to the north, the Green Way was for people. Even creating a full tunnel here would cost far less than most any one feature of the Big Dig, as you can see the Rose Kenedy Greenway was to me was the best part of the project, it created a lot of investment and reclaiming the old surface route really did reconnect the North End to downtown and people really use and love the beautiful space. Let's do that! Just looking at the before picture gives me the Willys thinking of driving through Boston was always scary back then.