The I-10 Freeway Closure in DTLA Is a Crisis that Should Not Go to Waste

The fire that closed a portion of the I-10 freeway in Downtown LA has Caltrans, LADOT and local elected leaders scrambling to figure out how to ensure the freeway is repaired quickly while managing the expected crush of traffic in the interim. ?Mayor Karen Bass has stated, “I will not settle for anything other than a rebuilding plan and a timeline that becomes a new model for speed.” ?Not to be outdone, Governor Newsom announced it will only take three to five weeks to repair. But Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass, I ask that you take a breath, and recall Winston Churchill’s admonition, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” I suggest that you take a second and consider alternatives to repairing this piece of infrastructure that, like a knife, cuts Downtown LA off from communities to the south. Yes, I agree with you that the closing of this very busy highway is more than an inconvenience for some. But this is exactly what makes it a crisis and why it is worth considering something else completely, tearing it down and replacing it with a boulevard.

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While seemingly a radical idea, it fits within an emerging set of local and federal “freeway removal” policies to demolish overhead highways and create?mixed use urban areas in their wake. ?Indeed, the Biden Administration has made available $200 million annually over the next four years to tear down highways and reconnect neighborhoods.?In cases such as the Downtown portion of I-10, this could take the form of a freeway-to-boulevard conversion involving the demolition of this portion of the highway with an at-grade multi-way boulevard. The latter differs from typical urban boulevards by including local access lanes separated from center through lanes.? This allows the roadway to simultaneously move vehicles while providing a calm, pedestrian and bicycle friendly living environment for adjacent businesses and residences. When designed correctly, they can, surprisingly, handle the same amount of traffic as the highways they replace, but in a manner more consistent with great city-making.?

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Indeed, such thoroughfares have a long track-record of use and are among the most iconic boulevards in cities such as Paris and Barcelona. Though they have traditionally been far less common in the US, in the last three decades they’ve been rediscovered, most famously in San Francisco where Octavia Boulevard was constructed in the shadow of the Hayes Valley portion of the Central Freeway, which had been severely damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. ?

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Realizing the vision of Octavia Boulevard was not without difficulty. It took three public referendums (yes, then no, no then yes), but when it was completed? Well, the boulevard is the centerpiece of a healed neighborhood with new investment in what had been one of the city’s problematic areas.? New apartment buildings, offices and ground-floor retail sit comfortably on the calmer outer roadways of the boulevard, while inner lanes allow faster, through traffic to connect to and from the rebuilt Central Freeway.? Because access is no longer limited, local traffic is distributed evenly throughout adjacent streets, relieving the burden on a few arterials.

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So, imagine for a second the aging industrial area along the I-10 freeway could be stitched back together, the fabric of the city rewoven? ?Consider the implications for housing and economic development if the blunt instrument of an overhead highway no longer presented a virtual barrier between Downtown and South LA?

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Does this idea work in this portion of Los Angeles?? I honestly don’t know, but at this point neither does anyone else, because the concept has simply never been studied. ?So, before hundreds of millions of dollars are spent repairing the freeway, why not take advantage of this crisis, and consider the alternative?