SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — The State Department of Transportation will hold a virtual public meeting on Thursday Aug. 17 to regarding the proposed renovation plans for the I-81 throughway in Syracuse. The meeting will be open to the public and will feature discussions on the currently community grid proposal.
The community grid plan aims to demolish the current I-81 viaduct and replace it with traditional urban streets rather than a highway overpass. The grid’s main goal is to reunite the portions of Syracuse that were divided by the highway’s construction in 1958. However, both city councilmembers and community activist groups believe the current plan alone will not adequately account for the traffic flow issues that the current interstate mitigates and for potential economic losses to business in the I-81 corridor.
“You can go ahead and have, as many cities do, a fabulous suspension bridge with LED lights and develop your grid underneath,” said Audrey Fletcher, a member of the local activist group Save 81. “[Then] start the repair of the neighborhoods that so many people are justifiably concerned about.”
Many of the surrounding suburban areas of Syracuse, such as Salina, share the same opinion. Their concern is that with all of the traffic that previously flowed through I-81 no rerouted business in the area will suffer. Salina was left out of the New York State Department of Transportation’s Economic Impact Study. So, they ran their own which they say will negatively impact restaurants, hotels, and gas stations. They were unable to share the full study.
“I think the community grid is what’s going to happen at this point,” said Salina city councilmember Daniel Ciciarelli. “Unless there is a huge outcry from constituents, from residents, from people in the area.”
Even if the hybrid plan supported by Fletcher and Ciciarelli were to gain traction that would be just a single, infrastructural element in the broader goal of unifying the parts of Syracuse that were previously divided by the I-81 viaduct.
“People from the old ward 15 neighborhoods who understand that tearing a bridge down all by itself does not reunite a neighborhood,” said Fletcher.
