Cities around the world seek to emulate NYC’s elevated park
ALBANY, N.Y. The success of New York City's elevated park, the High Line, has inspired a slew of projects across the United States and internationally that repurpose rusting ribbons of steel and concrete as green space in hopes of rejuvenating neighbourhoods or reclaiming overbuilt riverfronts.
Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, London and New York's capital of Albany are among the cities with High Line-style projects completed or in the planning stages. All seek to capture at least some of the popularity of the 23block-long railroad viaduct in lower Manhattan planted with trees, shrubs and flowers that attracts more than five million visitors a year and has spurred $4 billion in surrounding development since it opened in 2009.
“Communities all over the country are recycling all kinds of abandoned or unneeded infrastructure,” said Ed McMahon, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. “We’re recycling abandoned rail lines, canals, utility corridors, parking lots, roofs of buildings, airports — even decking over freeways.”
The first section of a park on the old Reading Viaduct in Philadelphia opens next month. Chicago’s elevated Bloomingdale Trail on an abandoned rail line opened in 2015. In Miami, the Underline will transform land beneath the Metrorail into a 10-milelong linear park designed by James Cormer Field Operations, which developed Manhattan’s High Line. London has the Camden Highline, a planned park on a half-mile strip of disused railway. In Washington, D.C., an old freeway bridge is being transformed into a park connecting Capitol Hill with communities east of the Anacostia River.
And in Albany, the proposed Skyway seeks to transform a half-mile-long unneeded highway ramp into a landscaped promenade linking downtown to the Hudson River waterfront park.
“We’ll be looking to the High Line for some design ideas, landscaping lessons learned and ways to fundraise to support programming,” said Sarah Reginelli, president of Capitalize Albany, a non-profit economic development organization. “But it’s a very different project, not only in size and scope, but also because it serves the critical function of connecting downtown with the riverfront.”
Albany residents and officials have long lamented the inaccessibility of the Hudson River waterfront to the city’s downtown. Standing as a major barrier is multi-laned Interstate 787, which borders the river and carries 80,000 cars and trucks a day.
A recent Albany waterfront corridor study considered several solutions including burying the highway or decking over it. Several cities have done just that. One of the most successful is Dallas’ 5acre Klyde Warren Park built over the Woodall Rogers Freeway, opened in 2012. It connects the flourishing downtown arts district to other neighbourhoods.