Transportation Secretary: Interstate Highway System Targeted Black, Low-Income Neighborhoods

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx wants to make the nation’s roadways more “inclusive,” according to articles published by National Public Radio (NPR) and Think Progress, the reporting arm of the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP).

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“I didn’t realize it as a kid,” Foxx said of the interstate highways snaking through that state. “I didn’t think about it as economic barriers, psychological barriers but they were, and the choices of where that infrastructure was placed in my community as it turns out weren’t unique to Charlotte.”

The NPR article titled, “Secretary Foxx Pushes To Make Transportation Projects More Inclusive,” cited the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx, which links two interstate highways in the state.

Reporter Brian Naylor said urban planners back in the 1950s and ‘60s made “deliberate decisions to route [highways] through low-income neighborhoods.”

“The values of the 1950s are still embedded in our built environment,” Foxx said. “And the prejudices and the notions of who’s in and who’s out are still part of the built environment and we can do something about it.”

The state of New York, NPR reported, has approved spending $98 million to transform the 1.2-mile Sheridan Expressway into a “boulevard with crosswalks and bike paths,” Naylor said.

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