In addition to fixing deteriorating bridges and roads, the $2-billion-plus project to replace the Interstate-81 viaduct in Syracuse, N.Y., must also repair multi-generational economic and health damage caused by the freeway's destruction of the city’s Black community, activists say.

大约1,300名黑人居民流离失所，为I-81腾出空间，于1968年完成，导致“财产和企业所有权，工作机会以及社会和社区联系的不可逆转损失”，纽约公民自由联盟表示。“建立更美好的未来：I-81中内置的结构性种族主义，以及如何拆除”，这是2020年12月的报告，基于两年的采访和与当时和现在受到该项目影响的社区成员的合作。

While the New York Dept. of Transportation draft design for the replacement, released April 2019, makes strides in righting some of those wrongs, residents remain wary, says Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, an assistant director at NYCLU and an author of the report.

“What’s eerily similar” between the current and “original project was, the people did speak out. It was still built despite the outcry,” Chaplin tells ENR.

下一个草稿定于come out in late Julyor early August, with 60 days of public comment and a final draft set for release in January.

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Nationwide Initiatives

当地问题引起了国家关注。6月29日举行的有关I-81替代者的新闻发布会展示了美国运输部长彼得·巴特吉格（Peter Buttigieg），以及该州的美国参议员克里斯汀·吉尔布兰德（Kristen Gillebrand）和查克·舒默（Chuck Schumer）。Buttigieg承认“对黑人社区的持久损害”。吉尔布兰德（Gillebrand）吹捧了“更大的和解法案”的需求，这将支付建筑工作培训和居民低收入住房的费用。

The attendant crowd included many denizens, cheering but also carrying signs reiterating the need for racial justice, Owens Chaplin recalls. The NYCLU had “put out an alert to let people know they would be there,” she says, to ensure the federal and state departments of transportation “know people who care are going to show up” at meetings about the project and its impacts.

这种影响延伸了半个世纪。I-81是1950年代的《联邦公路法》的一部分，该法案旨在通过国家高速公路统一该国。但是，一个较少的目标是消除所谓的贫民窟和贫民窟，欧文斯·查普林（Owens-Chaplin）认为，这实际上是“实际上只是资金不足的黑人和棕色社区”。

根据NYCLU的说法，居民的补偿后，居民的赔偿率少于其房屋的市场利率，并被迫在杂货或医疗保健资源更少的社区中搬迁。该组织说，失去房屋净值，再加上I-81的物理削减工作机会，导致“世代相传的财富积累”。

倡导者说，现在，政府有机会提供更多的福利，同时还可以修复崩溃的公路。当前的报告包括增强的行人和自行车连接，以使社区，商业区和其他目的地更好地联系，维持对现有的本地公交服务的访问以及即兴的公交车站和公共汽车庇护所。

After studying and rejecting options such as a new viaduct or an underground tunnel, the preferred alternative is the “community grid.”

这将拆除现有高架桥之间bridge near Renwick Ave. and the I-81/I-690 interchange. New roadways would disperse traffic through the city grid, include new pedestrian and bicycle amenities, and create a new business loop dubbed "BL 81.”

The preferred alternative isn’t perfect, activists fret. One of the most troubling aspects is the on-off highway ramp that will be situated just 250 feet from STEAM at Dr. King Elementary School.

根据疾病控制中心的说法，坡道应至少距离学童600英尺，因为更接近车辆污染可能会导致健康问题，例如肺功能受损，心力衰竭和童年哮喘，其速度高于高度state average in the Syracuse City School District, the NYCLU’s report said, with “respiratory disease [being] especially prevalent among Black people in the region.”

Considering all that, Owens Chaplin says, “Why wouldn’t you go with the CDC’s recommendation?”

尽管如此，当局似乎仍在听社区。一个大问题是该地区唯一的公共户外空间威尔逊公园（Wilson Park）可能使用该项目的登台区域。但是欧文斯·查普林（Owens-Chaplin）表示，尼多特（Nydot）现在承诺公园不再计划登台，也不会容纳重型设备。周围有20英尺的障碍物将在其周围放置以保护公园。

土地使用，当地人的工作

Dodge Analytics reports that the project, in its database since April, will break ground in August 2022 with a target finish date of July 2028. Dodge, which estimates project cost at $2.2 billion, does not name any outside firms as designers or engineers.

欧文斯·查普林（Owens-Chaplin）说，但是，建筑公司确实参加了NYCLU社区会议。该小组逐渐重新启动户外会议，虚拟讨论和电话树，以使居民了解情况。

One outstanding issue is land usage. After the project is completed, the area will become “prime real estate,” Owens Chaplin says, but the community wants residents to have priority rather than large businesses and market rate-paying tenants moving in from elsewhere. The neighborhoods are slated to be rezoned from residential and light industrial to high density commercial zoning.

“It’s almost like the city of Syracuse is getting ready to commercial this area,” she says, rather than build family-friendly residences and small businesses that cater to lower income denizens. The NYCLU says a land trust with strict parameters on uses that will benefit locals could prevent negative impacts on residents.

Another community hope is for training and hiring of locals to work on the replacement, which would allow people to gain financially from a project that will disrupt their lives with noise, dust and other impacts of construction.

While it’s not clear what the new draft documents will say, politicians at the June press conference addressed the issue optimistically. Schumer proclaimed that construction jobs related to I-81 were “going to lift poor people into the middle class.”