The folks at Vox.com put up a post yesterday calling for the removal of urban freeways. 

The argument was pegged to the "boondoggle" that is Big Bertha in Seattle, where city leaders are desperately trying to replace an elevated freeway with a tunnel.The tunnel boring machine - known as Bertha - is currently stuck in muck and Seattle is sinking. It's not going so well, to say the least.

There are no plans to tunnel under Spokane (just to reiterate: No. Plans.). But, there is the long-running dream to build the North Spokane Corridor, which would connect those traffic-jammed citizens of the north to the free-flowing lanes of Interstate 90. Calls for its completion have only seemed to grow, even though it was first envisioned in the 1940s. In fact, city leaders have it near the top of their legislative priorities and Gov. Jay Inslee's proposal for an ambitious carbon cap-and-trade program would pay for a significant portion of the unfinished freeway.

Vox, probably, wouldn't be pleased with Spokane's plans for the freeway:

"Meanwhile, demolishing freeways and replacing them with surface streets have large benefits for people who live nearby. In Seattle, it would make the city's waterfront more attractive to people downtown, raising property values and increasing economic activity there.

Philadelphia has a similarly damaging freeway cutting Old City Philadelphia off from the Delaware River. Planners are currently discussing building a park over the freeway, but removing the freeway altogether might be a better option. A tangle of freeways cuts downtown St. Louis off from not only its waterfront on the Mississippi but also its famous arch.

Removing freeways has worked in the past. San Francisco's Embarcadero neighborhood blossomed after an elevated freeway there was torn down in the wake of the 1989 earthquake. Portland removed a waterfront freeway in the 1970s. Milwaukee did the same a decade ago.

If Seattle had followed this advice, it wouldn't be literally sinking millions of dollars into a big hole in the ground."

What do you think? Should we press ahead with the North Spokane Corridor? Tunnel underneath the Spokane River? Tear down I-90?