City Center interstate lowering

2010 rendering of the interstate lowering proposal with a decked plaza

The City Center interstate lowering is a proposal to lower I-20/59 through Birmingham's City Center in order to improve surface-level connections between the municipal complex surrounding Linn Park and the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex to the north.

Although the need for an improved connection has been expressed before (notably as part of the design competition for the BJCC), the current proposal was first presented in 2004 as part of the City Center Master Plan prepared by Urban Design Associates. That plan envisions creating a below-grade corridor for the interstate, paralleled by surface boulevards with simplified access and egress in the downtown area. Wide plaza-like pedestrian bridges could then span the highway, providing more pleasant public urban spaces, as well as opening up new sites for commercial development. The idea has been vocally supported by Operation New Birmingham, the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, and adjacent institutions such as the Birmingham Museum of Art and BJCC.

Some critics have referred to the project as a "Big Dig", alluding to the $15 billion project to route Interstate 93 through a 3.5 mile tunnel in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. That project, which was many times larger and more complex than the Birmingham proposal, saw costs swell greatly from early estimates and was marred by construction errors which endangered the public, resulting in numerous lawsuits.

The City Center Master Plan was formally accepted by the city at the October 20 presentation, but not adopted in any legal sense. Proposed zoning changes that would formalize some of the planning intentions and lift barriers toward implementation were drafted in 2006.

The Civic Center interstate-lowering project was the subject of a preliminary traffic study performed by Parsons Brinckerhoff of New York. That study determined that the project could take four years to construct, at a cost greater than $600 million. It also predicted that the city would gain substantial benefits from the undertaking, which is similar to a completed project to lower Fort Washington Way in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) reviewed the preliminary engineering work and, with a few changes, accepted the basic design as feasible.

A request for $2 million for additional studies was made to the state's legislative delegation, to be included in the state's application for federal funding in the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham granted the project $20,000, which helped secure another $80,000 in federal grant money to continue preliminary studies. Parsons Brinckerhoff worked with graduate students in traffic engineering at UAB to create more detailed traffic models.

In 2012 ALDOT announced they would proceed with replacement of the existing bridge decks in early 2013. The $700 million estimated cost of lowering the interstate had been deemed "too expensive to pursue".

References

• Urban Land Institute (May 5-10, 2002) Downtown Birmingham, Alabama: A Master-Planning Process for Downtown. (5.2 MB PDF)
• Bryant, Joseph D. (August 21, 2007) "Study looks at rerouting 7 one-way streets." Birmingham News
• MacDonald, Ginny (February 28, 2009) "Birmingham, Alabama seeks funds to rebuild downtown I-20/59 section below ground level." Birmingham News
• McMillan, Aneesa (March 26, 2009) "I-20/59 plan could cost $700M." Birmingham Business Journal
• Tomberlin, Michael (September 12, 2010) "Plans to put I-20/59 under downtown Birmingham to take next step." Birmingham News
• Gray, Jeremy (May 8, 2012) "Major projects set for I-20/59 in Birmingham." Birmingham News