Even as cities try to heal the damage of the interstate era, we are also continuing to expand our urban highways, continuing to turn parks and neighborhoods into new lanes and new off-ramps. So why is it so hard to stop?
Guests: Inga Saffron, Daniel Pearson, Leslie Richards
Recorded at The Pen & Pencil Club with support from Miles Bryan and Tom Grahsler
Jul 15
42 min
This episode is about a very different kind of teardown – one that came suddenly, tragically, and without warning. But within this utterly unique story there are some universal questions about how we build for the present and the future.
Guests: Johnny Olszewski, Samantha Biddle, Wambui Kamau, Arkia Wade, Klaus Philipsen
Recorded live with WYPR at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.
Jul 8
43 min
In the stories we tell about public works, there is a constant bias towards the projects that actually happened, but it’s the apparently ‘failed’ projects that can often teach us the most.
Guests: Marcus Green, Tyler Allen, Ken Herndon
Recorded live with LPM at the LPM Performance Studio.
Jul 1
31 min
The anti-highway movement, like any movement, has always been a coalition. Different people with different backgrounds and different interests finding a common cause. But sometimes the coalition cracks.
Guests: Lillian Karabaic, Shawn Granton, Sharon Gary-Smith, Chris Smith
Recorded live with Oregon Public Broadcasting at Literary Arts in East Portland.
Jun 24
44 min
There is exactly one other American city crazy enough to attempt anything like what Boston did with The Big Dig. That city is Seattle, and they are not done tearing down highways.
Guests: Joshua McNichols, Greg Nickels, Cayce James, José Manuel Vasquez
Recorded live with KUOW at the Seattle Public Library.
Archival audio courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives
Jun 17
34 min
How did the Austin City Council find themselves locked in a ‘death match’ over what to do about Interstate 35? Two councilors and two journalists talk through the fraught politics of so-called highway caps.
Guests: Megan Kimble, Nathan Bernier, José “Chito” Vela, Mike Siegel
Recorded live at the KUT Festival in Austin, TX.
Jun 10
33 min
Once the highway is gone, can the divisions these structures created actually be healed? Can the people on either side become neighbors again? Rochester, NY is trying to answer that question.
Guests: Erik Frisch, Brian Sharp, Shawn Dunwoody, Suzanne Mayer
Recorded live at the WXXI studios in Rochester, NY.
Jun 3
41 min
Is it possible to re-write the Interstate map and send highways around cities instead of through them? Syracuse, NY is doing just that.
Guests: Marie Therese Dominguez, Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, Joe Driscoll
Recorded live in partnership with WRVO and the Syracuse Museum of Science and Technology.
May 27
47 min
What to do with the BQE? It’s a one of a kind highway in desperate need of repair, but no one can agree how to fix it.
Guests: Polly Trottenberg, Lara Birnback, Stephen Nessen
Recorded live at WNYC’s Greenspace.
Archival audio courtesy of Municipal Archives, City of New York.
May 20
51 min
Every American city is divided by crumbling old highways. Every city is trying to figure out what to do with them. But even if the problems with these structures are obvious, the solutions are not – often they are contentious. Welcome to The Big Dig Highway Teardown Tour.
May 20
7 min
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