07 Jul What could the Cogswell Interchange be?

Before and after Seoul, South Korea, removed an ugly 1970s-era highway

The Infrastructurist website offers four examples of the transformative possibilities when a city decides to remove a monstrous piece of highway infrastructure, like, say, the Cogswell Interchange, and replace it with something useful, beautiful, and urban life-affirming.

In 2002, Mayor Lee Myung Bak pledged to renew South Korea’s capital Seoul by eliminating a 1970s-era highway that literally represented a paving over of the Cheonggyecheon River. His radical plan replacing it not with another road, but with a restored stream along the old riverbed. The immediate result of the intervention was a beautiful new 1000-acre park in the center of the city, lower pollution, cooler temperatures city-wide. What wasn’t expected, however, was the city’s reduced traffic volumes. After all, the road carried 160,000 cars a day before it was closed. But the highway’s closing was enough to convince thousands of people to drive less, or change their habits, as the city offered better public transportation options.

Hat tip:  Crest Halifax.