Freeway ruins neighborhood

All over America, this has happened to poor neighborhoods for decades. But now even middle-class neighborhoods aren't safe from freeway mania.

In Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., a new toll freeway is being built, and it's destroyed almost a whole neighborhood. Evidently, this is a middle-class area. But it's also clear that this would have never happened if this was a richer neighborhood, because if it was, the freeway would have been routed away from it at all costs. (I've watched the Interstate building boom, so I know.) Sadly, many poorer neighborhoods all over the country have already been needlessly lost to feed the freeway fetish.

In the meantime, thieves have been raiding some of the now-empty houses - as well as some that they mistakenly thought were empty.

Is this new road really necessary? Many say it's not. Although it's only 19 miles, it has a $2,400,000,000 price tag. The money could have instead been used on more efficient transportation projects that do far less damage to the environment or neighborhoods - and which serve more people.

As this situation is far from unique, one of the key reasons I'm mentioning this story is to clear up a misconception that's raged for far too long. Highway officials say that because the vacant homes are now state property, anyone who tampers with them is guilty of theft and trespassing. Do you see the contradiction here? It's theft maybe, but not trespassing. You know why? If it's state property, it's public. And it's impossible to trespass on your own property. Funny how that works, isn't it?

It's probably too late for me to go Roads Scholaring in that area. But road enthusiasts in southwestern Maryland who are born today are going to be piecing together that neighborhood 30 years from now and looking for traces of what was lost. And they'll be shaking their heads and asking, "Why???"

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302981.html)