The Twin Unbuild: Healing New Orleans' Highway Wounds

The live oaks that once arched over Claiborne had stood for over a century, their canopies so dense they created a tunnel of green through the neighborhood. Families gathered beneath them on Sunday afternoons. Musicians played. Children climbed their roots while elders watched from benches weathered smooth by generations of use.

"You could walk the entire length of Claiborne in the shade," Smith recalls. "Even in August, when the heat pressed down everywhere else, Claiborne stayed cool. The trees took care of us."

Then the highway came, and the trees fell. With them fell something harder to quantify but no less real: the social fabric of a neighborhood that had been a cultural heartbeat of Black New Orleans since before the Civil War.

Sixty years later, New Orleans is considering an act of urban surgery as radical as the original wound: removing not just the Claiborne Expressway, but the Pontchartrain Expressway as well. The "Twin Unbuild," as planners call it, would erase two of the concrete scars that have divided the city for half a century.

The question isn't whether the highways should come down. It's whether the city that removed them will serve the communities that endured them—or simply create new wounds in concrete's place.

The Wounds We Inflicted

In the mid-1960s, New Orleans joined cities nationwide in a frenzy of highway construction that treated urban neighborhoods as obstacles to be overcome rather than communities to be preserved. The logic was brutally simple: downtown was dying, suburbs were growing, and highways would connect them.

The Claiborne Expressway, opened in 1968 as part of Interstate 10, carved through Tremé along what had been the neighborhood's central gathering space. Engineers chose the route precisely because the neutral ground—the broad median between the avenue's lanes—seemed like "wasted space." The fact that this space hosted second-line parades, Sunday gatherings, and the daily rhythms of neighborhood life didn't register in their calculations.

"They looked at our community and saw empty land," says Leona Tate, whose family home stood three blocks from Claiborne. "They didn't see what the empty land was full of."

The construction displaced over 500 families directly, with hundreds more leaving as the neighborhood transformed from a place people gathered to a place cars passed through. Property values plummeted. Businesses closed. The musicians who had played beneath the oaks found work elsewhere, and the sound that had defined Tremé's streets grew quieter.

Two miles away, the Pontchartrain Expressway followed a similar logic, severing the Warehouse District and Lower Garden neighborhoods from downtown with a trench and viaduct designed to funnel 180,000 vehicles daily across the Mississippi River. The elevated section blocked nine cross-streets, creating an automotive moat around the central business district.

For highway engineers, these projects represented triumph: New Orleans had joined the modern age, accessible by car from suburbs sprawling in every direction. For residents like Smith and Tate, they represented theft—the taking of public space for purposes that served everyone except the people who had lived there.

Living Under Concrete

Veronica Freeman was born the year the Claiborne viaduct opened. She has never known the oak trees, never experienced the boulevard as anything but a highway overhead. "People talk about what was here before," she says, "but for my generation, this is just what the neighborhood looks like. The shadow is normal."

That shadow is more than metaphor. The concrete deck blocks sunlight for blocks on either side, creating a corridor of perpetual shade. In summer, it traps exhaust and heat. In winter, it channels cold wind. During storms, it amplifies the sound of rain into a drumbeat that drowns out conversation.

The health impacts are measurable. Residents living within three blocks of the elevated highway experience asthma rates 40% higher than the city average. Particulate matter from vehicle exhaust exceeds EPA standards during peak traffic hours. Children in Tremé elementary schools miss more days due to respiratory illness than students in neighborhoods without highway proximity.

"You get used to it," Freeman says. "The noise, the smell, the feeling that you're living in a basement even though you're above ground. But you shouldn't have to get used to it."

The social impacts are harder to quantify but equally real. The viaduct creates dead zones—spaces beneath the highway that are neither street nor park, claimed by neither the city nor residents. They accumulate trash, host crime, and serve as visual reminders that the neighborhood was considered expendable.

"Every day I walk under that highway, I'm reminded that someone decided this space wasn't worth protecting," Smith says. "That we weren't worth protecting."

The Vision of Removal

The idea of removing New Orleans' urban highways has circulated for decades, dismissed as too expensive, too complicated, too disruptive. But by the early 2020s, several factors converged to make the impossible seem merely difficult.

First, the highways were aging. The Claiborne viaduct, built in the 1960s, requires hundreds of millions in maintenance just to remain functional. The Pontchartrain Expressway faces similar deterioration. The choice isn't between keeping the highways or removing them—it's between expensive rebuilding or strategic removal.

Second, traffic patterns have changed. The I-610 bypass, built in the 1970s, now carries just 68,000 vehicles daily despite capacity for twice that. Rerouting through-traffic from I-10 to I-610 would reduce urban highway traffic while actually improving freight efficiency—trucks spend less time idling in downtown bottlenecks.

Third, federal funding became available. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included a "Reconnecting Communities" program specifically designed to support highway removal projects in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods. New Orleans received a $2 million planning grant in 2022.

But the real catalyst was community organizing. Groups like Claiborne Avenue Alliance and Bring Back the Neutral Ground mounted sustained campaigns demonstrating that highway removal wasn't just possible—it was necessary for the neighborhood's survival.

"We're not asking for a favor," says Maya Williams, a third-generation Tremé resident and Alliance organizer. "We're asking for restoration. They took our street. We want it back."

The Engineering of Erasure

The Twin Unbuild would proceed in carefully sequenced phases, each building political momentum for the next while minimizing disruption.

Phase one would redesignate I-610 as the new mainline I-10. This isn't unprecedented—Memphis and Milwaukee have made similar changes, recognizing that routing long-distance traffic around urban cores serves both freight efficiency and community health. The existing I-610 would require widening from four to six lanes, designed within the existing trench to minimize additional land consumption.

"The beauty of this approach is that you build the alternative before you remove the original," explains Robert Chen, a transportation engineer who has studied the project. "You're not asking people to take it on faith that traffic will work. You prove it will work, then proceed."

Phase two would remove the Claiborne viaduct, returning 2 miles and 23 city blocks to ground level. Demolition would proceed block by block over three years, with each cleared section immediately converted to boulevard space—preventing the creation of vacant lots that could become sites of displacement rather than restoration.

The new Claiborne Avenue would reestablish the neutral ground, planting live oaks that would, in fifty years, create a canopy approaching what was destroyed. A center-running bus rapid transit line would provide transit connectivity, with protected bike lanes and widened sidewalks prioritizing pedestrians over cars.

"The goal isn't to go back to 1965," says landscape architect Sarah Martinez, who worked on boulevard designs. "It's to create something that honors what was lost while meeting today's needs. That means transit, that means bike infrastructure, that means space for second lines and Sunday gatherings."

Phase three tackles the more politically complex Pontchartrain Expressway. Rather than immediate removal, the plan proposes a two-stage approach: first converting the highway to managed lanes with priced access for freight and high-occupancy vehicles, while adding pedestrian "shelf parks" that reconnect the nine severed cross-streets.

This interim step demonstrates benefits—reduced traffic, restored connectivity—while maintaining the viaduct structure. Only after proving success would full removal proceed, replacing the elevated highway with an at-grade urban boulevard that maintains freight access while eliminating the barrier between neighborhoods and downtown.

The Economics of Healing

The price tag is substantial: $3 to $4 billion over fifteen years, depending on final design choices. But the calculation changes when compared to alternatives.

Rebuilding the Claiborne viaduct to modern standards would cost $800 million to $1.2 billion—and still leave the neighborhood under concrete. The Pontchartrain Expressway faces similar renovation costs. The choice isn't between spending money or not spending money; it's between spending money to maintain damage or spending money to heal it.

The federal government would cover 50% of costs through existing infrastructure programs. Louisiana's ten-year transportation budget totals $7 billion; the Twin Unbuild would consume less than 25% of that if phased appropriately.

More importantly, removal creates assets rather than maintaining liabilities. Fifty-three city blocks returned to street level represent over $2 billion in potential development value. Even if half that land becomes affordable housing and parkland—as community groups demand—the remaining parcels generate property tax revenue sufficient to fund maintenance indefinitely.

"The financial case is actually pretty straightforward," says economist Jennifer Torres, who has studied highway removal projects nationwide. "You're trading maintenance costs for development potential while improving public health. The only way it doesn't pay off is if you let developers capture all the value instead of sharing it with communities."

That caveat carries the weight of history. Urban renewal and highway construction in the 1960s destroyed Black wealth in Tremé; highway removal in the 2020s could easily accelerate gentrification that destroys what remains.

The Gentrification Question

Maya Williams has thought about this problem every day since the Twin Unbuild gained momentum. Her great-grandmother bought their family home in 1947, raised seven children there, hosted musicians who became legends, and survived both the highway's construction and the slow economic decline that followed.

"If they tear down that highway and suddenly Tremé becomes valuable again, where does that leave us?" Williams asks. "Do we get pushed out by the very project that's supposed to heal our neighborhood?"

The fear is grounded in reality. Portland's waterfront park sparked gentrification that displaced long-time residents. Boston's Big Dig created assets that drove property values beyond reach of communities that had endured the original highway. Rochester's Inner Loop removal brought new development that longtime residents couldn't afford.

"Every city says they'll do it differently this time," Williams says. "We need more than promises."

The response, still taking shape, involves several mechanisms designed to ensure that healing doesn't become another form of displacement:

A community land trust would acquire properties along the reclaimed boulevard, removing land from the speculative market while allowing long-term residents to remain. Deed restrictions would maintain affordability in perpetuity, preventing the wealth transfer to developers that typically follows infrastructure improvement.

A portion of development revenue would fund a restoration fund providing grants to homeowners for repairs and energy efficiency improvements, preventing the forced sales that occur when rising property taxes make staying unaffordable.

Local hiring requirements would direct construction jobs to neighborhood residents, creating economic opportunity rather than just observing it pass by. Small business support would prioritize existing Tremé establishments over incoming chains.

"These mechanisms aren't perfect," admits James Mitchell, a housing policy advocate working on the plan. "But they're better than nothing, which is what most cities offer."

The deeper question is whether highway removal can heal neighborhoods without transforming them beyond recognition. Can Tremé get its boulevard back and still be Tremé? Can infrastructure subtraction create space for the communities that endured infrastructure violence?

Climate and Concrete

Hurricane season shapes everything in New Orleans, including conversations about highway removal. Critics argue that elevated highways provide emergency evacuation routes; removing them risks lives during the next major storm.

Climate scientists offer a more complex picture. The I-610 bypass sits three feet higher than the current I-10 alignment through Tremé—meaning it remains passable longer during flood events. Evacuation modeling shows equivalent clearance times using the higher route, with the added benefit of keeping evacuees on safer ground.

More significant is the stormwater equation. The Claiborne viaduct and Pontchartrain Expressway create 40 hectares of impervious surface that channels rainfall into already-overwhelmed drainage systems. Removing that concrete and replacing it with permeable medians, bioswales, and planted ground could capture 25 acre-feet of stormwater per major storm event.

"Every gallon absorbed by soil is a gallon that doesn't overwhelm pumps or flood homes," explains hydrologist Carmen Lopez from Tulane's Water Institute. "In a city where flooding is an existential threat, removing impervious surface isn't just about aesthetics—it's about survival."

The climate argument extends beyond flooding. Urban heat island effects in New Orleans are intensifying as summers grow hotter. The concrete deck over Claiborne absorbs and radiates heat, creating temperature differentials of up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit compared to tree-lined streets just blocks away.

Replanting live oaks wouldn't just restore aesthetic beauty—it would provide literal life support for vulnerable residents during increasingly frequent heat waves. Shade isn't sentiment; it's public health infrastructure.

Learning from Other Cities

New Orleans planners have studied every major highway removal project in America, searching for lessons that might prevent repeating mistakes.

From Portland, they learned that success requires sustained community programming—parks need farmers markets, festivals, and daily activation to prevent them from becoming empty green spaces that invite neither use nor care.

From Boston, they learned that cost overruns destroy political will; the Big Dig's budget catastrophe made highway removal politically toxic for a generation. New Orleans can't afford similar financial disaster.

From Rochester, they learned that small-scale success builds momentum for larger ambitions; removing one section proves concepts before tackling more complex challenges.

From San Francisco, they learned that earthquake damage—or in New Orleans' case, age-related deterioration—creates political windows for projects that seem impossible during normal conditions.

"Every city that's done this successfully had a moment when the political, financial, and technical factors aligned," says urban planner David Kim, who has advised on multiple removal projects. "New Orleans has that moment now. The question is whether they'll seize it."

The lessons also carry warnings. Highway removal doesn't automatically benefit existing communities. Without aggressive anti-displacement measures, healing becomes a prelude to removal by market forces rather than bulldozers.

"The highway hurt us, and its removal could hurt us too," Jerome Smith reflects. "Unless we're intentional about who benefits from healing."

The Long Arc of Restoration

If the Twin Unbuild proceeds on its proposed timeline, demolition of the first Claiborne viaduct section would begin in 2027. By 2030, the first live oaks would be planted in reclaimed neutral ground. By 2035, the Pontchartrain Expressway would transition to managed lanes. By 2040, both expressways would exist only in photographs and memory.

That's the optimistic timeline. The realistic one acknowledges that every phase will face opposition from drivers who fear congestion, businesses that worry about disruption, and suburbanites who see highways as birthright rather than burden.

"This will take longer than anyone wants and cost more than anyone hopes," admits City Councilmember Lisa Moreau, who has championed the project. "But the alternative is watching our neighborhoods continue to die under concrete while we spend billions maintaining infrastructure that serves everyone except the people it destroyed."

For Jerome Smith, now approaching eighty, the timeline feels both urgent and impossibly distant. He has lived longer under the highway than he lived beneath the oaks. His children know only the viaduct. His grandchildren will be adults before trees planted today create shade comparable to what was destroyed.

"I won't see it finished," he says, standing in the shadow of the concrete that replaced his childhood gathering place. "But my grandchildren might sit under those oaks and hear stories about what was lost and what was found again. That's worth fighting for."

What We Choose to Build

Cities are palimpsests—layers of decisions, compromises, and power written over each other until it becomes difficult to remember what lies beneath. The Claiborne and Pontchartrain expressways are layers written in concrete, recording the moment when New Orleans chose speed over community, efficiency over beauty, suburban convenience over urban survival.

The Twin Unbuild proposes scraping away those layers, revealing what was damaged and attempting restoration. But restoration is never simple return. The oaks that died in 1966 are gone. The families displaced have scattered. The musicians who played second lines beneath green canopy are mostly silent now.

What grows in reclaimed space won't be what was lost—it will be what communities choose to create from the opportunity of loss acknowledged and space returned. That creation depends on who controls the land, who captures the value, and whose voices shape what replaces concrete.

"We're not trying to go back to 1965," Maya Williams insists. "We're trying to go forward to a version of Tremé that our ancestors would recognize and our children will inherit. That means affordable housing. That means businesses owned by people who live here. That means space for second lines and Sunday gatherings and all the things that made this place matter before someone decided it didn't."

The technical details of highway removal—the traffic studies, the engineering specifications, the construction timelines—matter less than the fundamental question: in whose interest will healing occur?

New Orleans has a chance to demonstrate that infrastructure subtraction can serve equity rather than extraction, that removing damage doesn't require repeating it in different forms. The city that survived hurricanes and floods, that maintained its culture through centuries of change, could show other cities how to heal the wounds of mid-century planning without inflicting new ones.

Or it could demonstrate the opposite: that even healing can become another form of violence when communities lack power to shape the spaces they inhabit.

Coda: The Sound of Return

On Sunday afternoons, community groups gather in the shadow of the Claiborne viaduct for second-line parades that follow the route the highway consumed. Brass bands play, dancers move, and for a few hours the concrete recedes into background as the neighborhood's cultural heartbeat returns.

Jerome Smith usually joins them, moving more slowly now but still moving. He remembers the sound of live oaks rustling in evening breeze, the particular quality of light filtered through their leaves, the way the avenue felt like an embrace rather than a corridor.

"The highway took our place," he says, watching dancers weave beneath the concrete that replaced his childhood. "But it couldn't take what we do in place. That's still ours."

The question before New Orleans is whether removing the highway will return the place—or just create new conditions for its taking. The answer will be written not in engineering studies or budget documents, but in who sits beneath the oaks when they finally grow tall enough to shade the street again.

The bulldozers that came in 1966 tore through Tremé in the name of progress, destroying what couldn't be rebuilt. The bulldozers that might come in 2027 would tear through concrete in the name of healing, creating space for what was lost to return.

Whether that return serves the people who never left depends on choices not yet made—about land ownership, about development control, about whose vision shapes the spaces between buildings once concrete is removed.

The Twin Unbuild is radical not because it removes highways, but because it forces New Orleans to answer a question the city has avoided for sixty years: whose city is this, and who decides what grows in its wounds?

The Twin Unbuild concludes Atlas Urbium's series on highway removal and urban healing. Read more about infrastructure transformation in Portland, Rochester, and Boston in our ongoing chronicles of cities choosing subtraction over addition.

References:

• Baumbach, Richard O., and William E. Borah. The Second Battle of New Orleans: A History of the Vieux Carré Riverfront Expressway Controversy. University of Alabama Press, 1981.
• Germany, Kent B. New Orleans After the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, and the Search for the Great Society. University of Georgia Press, 2007.
• Souther, J. Mark. "The Claiborne Corridor: Culture, Community, and the Question of Compensation." Louisiana History, vol. 58, no. 2, 2017.
• Congress for New Urbanism. Freeways Without Futures 2021: Claiborne Expressway. 2021.
• UNO Transportation Institute. I-10/Claiborne Corridor Study. 2019.
• Tulane Water Institute. Green Infrastructure and Storm Resilience in New Orleans. 2020.
• Federal Highway Administration. Freight Analysis Framework: New Orleans Bottleneck Study. 2019.
• Data sources: Louisiana Department of Transportation, New Orleans Regional Planning Commission, Tremé Historical Society, UNO Pontchartrain Institute

Further Reading:

• Claiborne Expressway - Wikipedia - History of the highway's construction and community impact
• Freeways Without Futures: Claiborne Expressway - Congress for New Urbanism - Detailed case study and removal advocacy
• The Lost Creole Landscape of Claiborne Avenue - 64 Parishes - Cultural history of the avenue before highway construction
• Claiborne Avenue Alliance - Community organization working toward highway removal and neighborhood restoration
• Bring New Orleans Back Commission Transportation Plan - Post-Katrina infrastructure planning including highway discussions