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Talking Headways Podcast: The Freeway That Never Was

This week we’re talking with Brendan Wittstruck about St. Louis's never built freeway, I-755, which he recently wrote about at Streetsblog member NextSTL.

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Meal delivery is one service of Project Roomkey. Photo: LAHSA

Brendan discusses the history of the project and how drawing lines on maps can be seductive to planners, who always have to be careful about trying to “fix” cities. He also talks about the racial politics of freeway construction in St. Louis, and how that legacy still shapes the city today. Finally, we chat about what the I-755 story means for freeway teardown movements today in terms of data collection and why this freeway never saw the light of day.

Join us and hear about the teardown that never had to happen, and the freeway that was never built.

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