Environmental Law and the Urban Freeway: Changing Lanes (Diritto Ambientale E Superstrade Urbane: Cambio Di Direzione)

Abstract

One of the public policy decisions in American history with the largest impact on the quality of the urban environment was to site freeways in urban areas. In this article, after a short section on the history that brought urban freeways into existence, I briefly describe efforts now being made in some cities to come to grips with the effects of placing high speed, limited access, multi-lane roads through city centers. Imminent actions are required since many of these roads have reached their engineered life expectancies -- a half century after they were built.

Note: Downloadable document is in Italian.