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Symposium on Expressway Removal and the Future of the Jones Falls
Hi folks, here are some notes on the excellent symposium organized today (April 25, 2026) in Baltimore by the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Congress of New Urbanism on the possible removal of the JFX. Thank you @Julian for organizing!
Al Barry, chair of the JF strategic planning process, on the JFX coming down: it’s not if, but when, as studies have said it needs to happen by 2050, and feasibility of various options have been considered. The city needs to do more long range planning.
Pavlina Ilieva talked about a 2018 urban design studio at Morgan State University in which students examined various ways of reknitting the fabric of urban transportation, housing, and retail if the lower JFX came down. Some of the highway could be retained for recreational and light transport uses, so that it remains as a movement element, even as land is reclaimed for other uses. Hundreds of acres of developable land. And daylighting has symbolic value.
Gabriel Kroiz talked about the Cheongyecheon highway removal project in Seoul in the early 2000s. The highway had carried close to 200,000 cars each day, through a disinvested area similar to Baltimore.
Mark Wouters shared some highway transformation projects his studio has worked on. A 2 billion dollar highway removal project in Syracuse that will begin this fall, freeing up 20 acres of land for low cost housing, green infrastructure and other purposes, and a high visibility highway project in Brooklyn. These projects take 15 years, start at the grassroots level, often beginning when a highway needs major repairs, preliminary studies by local organizations and eventually a technical study by the DOT. These processes tend to get political support “when a piece falls off and everyone gets scared.”
Some side by side images shared by Al Barry of what is, and what could be:
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