How to Take a Freeway Fight to the Next Level (Alex Burns and José Antonio Zayas Cabán)
Aug 15, 2023
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Advocates Alex Burns and José Antonio Zayas Cabán discuss transforming highways into boulevards for community benefit, rejecting band-aid solutions. They share insights on encouraging communities to dream bigger and tackle racial harm inflicted by highways.
Advocating for highway removal and converting highways into boulevards addresses racial inequities and seeks reparative justice.
Community partnerships and grassroots organizing are essential for promoting transformative transportation solutions and challenging the status quo.
Deep dives
R Streets' Advocacy Campaigns: Bring Back Six & Twin Cities Boulevard
R Streets Minneapolis has spearheaded the Bring Back Six campaign, aiming to convert highways like Memorial Highway into avenues to address community safety needs and preserve the historical significance of diverse neighborhoods. Their Twin Cities Boulevard campaign advocates for transforming I-94 into a human-scaled boulevard to advance reparative justice by creating housing and commercial developments. Community partnerships and ground organizing are pivotal in raising awareness and garnering support for these transformative initiatives.
Challenging Status Quo for Highway Reconstruction
R Streets challenges the status quo in highway reconstruction, emphasizing the need for bold solutions that go beyond superficial fixes like pedestrian bridges. By advocating for highway removal and promoting surface-level boulevards, they address racial inequities and strive for quality of life parity across communities historically impacted by discriminatory infrastructure decisions. Through grassroots organizing and community engagement, R Streets reshapes narratives and envisions transportation projects embedded in reparative justice.
Empowering Communities Towards Comprehensive Solutions
R Streets encourages other communities facing highway reconstruction dilemmas to consider broader, impactful solutions beyond basic infrastructure modifications. They advocate for replacing highways with boulevards to revitalize communities, stimulate economic growth, and address systemic inequities. Community engagement, envisioning diverse land use, and prioritizing impacted residents' voices are vital components in advocating for transportation projects that align with reparative justice and promote sustainable social change.
Federal transportation leaders are doling out billions of dollars to reconnect communities torn apart by highways. How exactly they should do it, though, is a matter of fierce debate — and some advocates say that even the most radical solutions aren't radical at all when seen through the lens of the radical harm that racialized and low-income communities are still enduring. On today's epsiode of "The Brake," we sit down with Alex Burns and José Antonio Zayas Cabán of the nonprofit Our Street Minneapolis to talk about why they're fighting to turn two highways in their region into boulevards, and why they don't accept "band-aid" compromises like pedestrian bridges and cap-and-cover projects. And along the way, they share some wisdom on how other advocates can encourage their own communities to dream bigger.
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