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Interstate 81 in Syracuse, near Upstate University Hospital. The national Congress for the New Urbanism argues the highway ought to go.

(Michelle Gabel | mgabel@syracuse.com)

The Congress for New Urbanism, an organization that supports mixed-use neighborhood development and sustainable communities, released earlier this month their biennial top 10 "Freeways Without Futures" report that includes list of urban interstates the congress believes should be taken down.

On the list: Syracuse's Interstate 81, which has made the list before. The organization said in a press release that they believe the freeways on the list are causing significant damage to their cities and are in serious need of replacement with more people-friendly options.

We asked John Norquist, the president and CEO, about I-81's inclusion on the list. Norquist served as mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2004. During his tenure, he championed the removal of a 0.8-mile stretch of elevated freeway in the city. "I can tell you this: there's almost nobody in the city of Milwaukee that would put the freeway back in that was torn down," Norquist said.

Here's what he had to say about Syracuse's I-81.

John Norquist is president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

What's makes the I-81 situation in Syracuse unique compared to highways in other cities?

It's easier to remove I-81 because it doesn't carry as much traffic compared to other freeways, although you can remove freeways that carry large amounts of traffic. The West Side Highway in New York City was removed without any big problems. There were predictions that there would be traffic Armageddon, but actually the traffic, if anything, has improved and the property values have gone through the roof since it's been removed. For I-81, it's an elevated freeway, which also is very hard to maintain. Rebuilding it will cost a lot of money. There's no reason to have through-truck traffic going right through the middle of Syracuse. The most valuable real estate is measured by value-per-acre. Downtown Syracuse and the area near Syracuse University is the most valuable real estate in the metropolitan area. So if there's a truck going to Oshawa, Ontario, from Cincinnati, Ohio, why should it go through the middle of Syracuse?

The "Freeways Without Futures" report states Syracuse Common Councilor Van Robinson and Mayor Stephanie Miner favor tearing down the highway, though they don't have a say in the decision. How much of a voice should locally elected representatives have in the final decision, if at all?

I think they should have the ultimate voice -- it's their city. That's one of the problems with having the federal government and the state government funding all these things. In Canada, there is no interstate highway program or national transit program, and all the cities have pretty good transit -- Toronto has great transit. You really don't need the federal government to be doing this stuff. The federal government did a lot of damage to American cities. All the cities where they built the most freeways are the ones with the least value, like Detroit. The city is bankrupt and the state and federal governments' No. 1 priority for Detroit is widening Interstate 94, and they don't have traffic congestion. Detroit's the perfect example of what happens when a government's obsessed with making traffic go faster.

The report also states that leading figures from Syracuse University and Upstate Medical University have expressed support for removal of the highway. How much of a role should impact on these universities play when the state Department of Transportation considers its options?

I think they should have a lot to say about it. Harvard doesn't have any freeway near it, and it's considered one of the best universities in the country. Will Syracuse University survive without having freeway near it? I think so. Oxford in England has no freeway near it. Cambridge has no freeway near it. University of California in Berkeley has no freeway near it. There are some universities that do have freeways near them. Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma has a freeway running right through it. Maybe that's a model that some people want Syracuse University to look like Oral Roberts.

The report states that supporters of tearing down I-81 have suggested nearby I-481 could act as the main carrier for through-traffic. Will adjustments have to be made to I-481 to handle an increase from the 43,000 to 90,000 vehicles per day that I-81 typically sees?

If you do a boulevard, for example, that will carry a lot of I-81's current traffic that runs through downtown. The question is about the through traffic. You don't want a truck driver going from Canada to Birmingham, Ala., to drive through the middle of Syracuse--there's no value to that, unless you want downtown to be converted into a truck stop. So I don't think you would have to add capacity to I-481--it's not at capacity right now. But if you did have to add a lane in each direction, it'd be cheaper than rebuilding I-81 as a freeway.

Of the options being considered by the state DOT that involve I-81 being torn down--boulevard, tunnel and depressed highway--which do you think would work best for the city of Syracuse?

Well, the tunnel is probably unrealistic -- the cost would be enormous. I don't think New York is going to have the kind of money to tunnel. Rebuilding the highway is probably the easiest thing to do politically because you're not changing anything, but that's expensive. You're talking about going up in the air, tearing down what's there now and rebuilding it. That's not quite as expensive as tunneling, but it wouldn't help Syracuse at all because you're suppressing real estate value.

If you do what's best for the city, you go with a surface street and connect it to the street grid so that people for local trips. And it becomes a handsome boulevard like Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn or one of the Olmsted parkways in Buffalo. It's an opportunity to add to the attractiveness of Syracuse, which is also in the interest of the suburbs of Syracuse. Having Syracuse revive and become the kind of rich city it was 100 years ago, that's in the interest of the suburbs around Syracuse, too. You want infrastructure that adds value to city, not destroys value to the city.

Have any questions for Norquist about I-81 making the list? Ask him during a live chat on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. on syracuse.com.

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