Interstate Highways

The city of Cleveland, the surrounding suburbs, the county, and the state were all required to work together to decide where interstate highway concrete was to be poured. Although its members possessed little highway planning experience, Cleveland’s public works panel took on the task of designing an interstate highway system. It was after the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that gave Cleveland city planners the chance to kill two birds with one stone by manipulating a federally funded system to solve a municipal problem. In an urban renewal effort, Cleveland highway planners used highway construction as a tool for “clearing slums.”[1] Highways constructed through Cleveland simultaneously destroyed some neighborhoods and quarantined others.

It was obvious that the new highway plan was catering to suburban commuters at the expense of city dwellers. Highway plans placed Cleveland at “the hub of [a] wheel.” The highways radiated out from the center with one or two highways connecting the spokes like a rings.[2] The plan created an interstate system that rerouted traffic around downtown, to reduce the traffic for commuters and provide to easier driving into the city’s business district. Suburbanites were expected to work and spend their money in the city of Cleveland. The suburbs were only intended to house these commuters.