Jayne Humbert hoped to find out how the community grid would impact the university area. Sherika Malcolm wanted to know if the grid would gentrify surrounding neighborhoods. William Simmons was concerned about the mitigation plan.

Syracuse and Onondaga County residents came armed with questions to a Tuesday open house focused on the community grid replacement option for the aging Interstate 81 viaduct. Officials from the New York State Department of Transportation were present to answer questions, with about 800 people in attendance.

Humbert, a resident of the university area, said she wants to make sure I-81’s replacement will not destroy her neighborhood, its surrounding properties and Syracuse University. She’s concerned about possible congestion at intersections and wanted to know if traffic circles could be used instead.

The grid will not bisect Syracuse, as I-81 does, and will make the city appear more open, Humbert said. Beauty, she said, is something to consider.

“I’m just tired of ugliness quite frankly, and I think that this would make something more beautiful and would certainly be an advantage to our city,” Humbert said.

Malcolm said the viaduct should be taken down because of its negative environmental impacts, but she isn’t sure she favors the community grid option yet. She’s seen a lot of development downtown, and thinks such development might spread into the city’s Southside and Westside, she said.

I-81’s construction demolished Syracuse’s 15th Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood, leading to racial and financial segregation within the city, experts said in interviews with The Daily Orange.

The construction period for the grid is the shortest of the I-81 replacement options, which is one of the reasons the Syracuse Housing Authority supports the grid, said Simmons, the executive director of the SHA. The agency attended the open house to show its support for the replacement option.

Many residents are concerned with living through the noise and street closures associated with replacing the viaduct, with people living in Pioneer Homes and Toomey Abbott Towers landlocked in the event of street closures, he said. There are also health concerns surrounding inhaling possible dust and debris particles generated from tearing down the aging viaduct, Simmons said

“We really have to look at what happens to those residents going forward,” he said.

NYSDOT selected the community grid as the “preferred option” for replacing the I-81 viaduct in April, concluding the department’s six-year review of the environmental consequences of three options. NYSDOT also examined, but did not endorse, a complete rebuild of the viaduct and a tunnel.

Tuesday’s open house was the first large-scale forum with NYSDOT since October 2016, said Mark Frechette, the NYSDOT project director for the I-81 replacement project, during a presentation of the department’s report.  

Maps and flowcharts for various Interstate 81 replacement options were on display at the open house. Emma Folts | Asst. News Editor

“The release of this preliminary (report) affords us the opportunity to start discussing with you the potential impacts of each of these three build options,” Frechette said to the large audience in front of him.

The community grid would level the existing viaduct and redirect traffic onto city streets. A portion of I-81 would be rerouted to Interstate 481, which would be redesignated as the new I-81. I-81’s current route would become the street-level Business Loop 81, an expressway on which motorists heading toward University Hill, in part, would travel.

Frechette said the business loop was one of the more significant changes that NYSDOT recommended be made. The department would own the entire loop, including the portion that passed through downtown Syracuse, and would be responsible for its operation and maintenance, he said.  

Mayor Ben Walsh said he appreciated NYSDOT’s community engagement and education efforts in an interview after Frechette’s presentation. One of the focuses of Walsh’s mayoral campaign was supporting the grid, and he has advocated for it ever since.

“It could be transformative, not just for the neighborhoods directly around the elevated viaduct, but for the entire region,” Walsh said.

Though Walsh has kept up with the discussion since NYSDOT began reviewing the issue in 2009, he said he continues to learn new information. He said it’s important for the community to educate themselves on the topic — something he aims to do as well.

“I want to continue to engage with the community, continue to educate myself so I can not only articulate the information to my constituents but also that I can articulate their concerns to the state,” Walsh said.

Frechette said in his presentation that NYSDOT studied 17 potential tunnel solutions and five potential viaduct rebuild solutions in its review of possible I-81 replacements. A tunnel — projected to cost $4.9 billion with 11 years of construction — would have no exits in downtown Syracuse. Openings would instead be positioned at Martin Luther King, Jr. East and James Street.

The viaduct rebuild is estimated to take 6 years to construct and cost $2.2 billion.

Construction of the grid is estimated to take five years to complete and cost $1.9 billion. The federal government would fund 80% of the cost, with New York state funding the remaining amount.

Walsh said he’s encouraged by the DEIS’s apparent support of the community grid, an option he described as a “game-changer.” The fate of I-81’s aging viaduct has not yet been decided, though.

NYSDOT is not expected to release a final statement on an I-81 replacement option until 2020. Once a final statement is released, the state and federal government will make a final decision regarding the viaduct’s replacement.

It’s rare to come across a public policy that is “a clear winner,” said Dana Balter, a former Syracuse University visiting teaching professor who just announced her second campaign for New York’s 24th District. She said she believes that the community grid is one of those rare instances. There is potential for it to be “the most transformative project that the central New York region has seen in decades,” Balter said.

She added that the grid could create economic growth and a healthier city environment, as well as reunite divided sides of the city. With the release of the NYSDOT report, people can collaborate and discuss the best way to implement the community grid, Balter said.

“That way we can make sure that all the concerns that various communities and stakeholders have are addressed in the process,” she said.

NYSDOT will hold a series of neighborhood meetings in the upcoming weeks for community members to continue to learn about, question and comment on the I-81 project. Frechette said during his presentation that the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting was threefold: to engage the public, to start sharing more information about the viaduct replacement and to listen to what the local community has to say.

“From the beginning this has been a give and take process that has really helped to shape the solutions that you see here today.” Frechette said. “I would be the first to say that the Department of Transportation does not have all the answers.”

Published on June 19, 2019 at 12:06 pm

Contact India: irmiragl@syr.edu