At a panel in Syracuse University’s School of Architecture Thursday night, Syracuse mayor Ben Walsh reaffirmed his support for the option to tear down the Interstate 81 viaduct and replace it with a surface level street.

Walsh’s continued support for the plan, known as the “community grid option,” comes as lawmakers continue to debate I-81’s future even as the north and south overpass reaches the end of its usable life.

The mayor was joined by panelists Joseph Kane, a senior research associate and associate fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program; Alex Krieger, an urban design professor at Harvard University; and Jonnell Robinson, a geography professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Grant Reeher, a political science professor in Maxwell, moderated the panel.  

Maxwell and the School of Architecture co-hosted the panel.

Debates over how to replace the 1.4-mile I-81 viaduct — which divides much of the city’s medical and educational resources from areas of high poverty — has become increasingly contentious.

The three main options to renovate the highway include building a new, larger viaduct, a tunnel in place of the current viaduct or a community grid that would re-route traffic through the city of Syracuse.

Robinson said the original I-81 highway was built in spite of a “great deal of local resistance.” In the 1950s and ’60s, she said, it split neighborhoods that the federal government deemed unfit for federal housing loans from the areas that were given loans.

Today, a neighborhood west of I-81 has some of the most concentrated black and Hispanic poverty in the United States.

SU and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University are east of I-81. It’s hard for people to the west of I-81 to commute to the rest of the city, though, Robinson added.

“We’re talking about the displacement of residents,” Walsh said in opposition to the proposal to rebuild the viaduct through the city. “It’s so important to have that historical context to understand the wrong that was done to the city of Syracuse when I-81 came through.”

Both Robinson and Walsh predicted that, with the community grid option, many residents living in areas of poverty would have better access to economic opportunities in the city. If more traffic is being directed through the city, Walsh said he hopes to see workforce development that would have positive effects on the local economy.

“If the decision was made tomorrow, we as a community would not be able to take advantage of the economic opportunity that we would be presented with,” Walsh said. “We don’t have the workforce right now.”

The mayor said he is currently trying to identify opportunities to build a larger workforce to meet these demands, mainly in neighborhoods that he said are marginalized.

There was little opposition to the community grid option among the panelists and attendees who asked them questions.

Walsh said that substantial opposition to the grid option comes from suburban voices, who say that a community grid will magnify problems that are prevalent to their communities today.

The community grid would re-route some traffic through Interstate 481, which runs through the town of DeWitt, east of the city. Many DeWitt residents have concerns about what the excess traffic would do their neighborhood, Walsh said. The town is already experiencing traffic issues, he added.

Published on March 23, 2018 at 10:53 am

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326