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Shreveport Times OpinionEditorial March 18, 2012 The current proposal for Shreveports I49 Connector is a throwback to the highway building heyday of the 50s and 60s, when gaining federal transportation dollars for your city was the central goal. When the Interstate program started in 1956, the federal government paid 90% of cost with states taking responsibility for only 10%. The more roads built by states, the more free money you got from Uncle Sam. This favorable arrangement for states began to change in the 1970s however, as gas tax receipts failed to keep pace with the demands for projects. Now states get flat allocations from the Feds. This basically means that if Louisiana decides to build the I49 Connector, it will be with its own money, and not some special gush of federal cash. So should the Louisiana DOT start spending money on a project with no expectation of funding for it? And should a freeway be built in the middle of a city when many other cities are coming to the realization that gradeseparated highways arent necessarily appropriate in urban neighborhoods? Chattanooga, New York City, Portland, San Francisco and Milwaukee are just a few of the U.S. cities that have recognized how highway infrastructure can damage property values and urban economies. These cities saw that urban highways tore apart neighborhoods, increased congestion, and were costly to maintain. Years after urban highways devalued property and incentivized suburban flight, these cities saw that urban spurs just like the proposed I49 can be liabilities instead of assets. Instead of trying to build their way out of congestion and blight, New York, Portland and others chose a less expensive alternative: replace freeways with streets, boulevards or avenues. In Chattanooga, former freeway traffic distributed more efficiently after a large road structure was removed from its riverfront. Property values have climbed and downtown Chattanooga has become much more of a destination for tourists, workers and even new residents. Chattanoogans realized that the city had a greater purpose than as a route for cars and trucks to drive through. Shreveport has an opportunity to take these lessons to heart, and rather than lobby for infrastructure that many cities already view as past mistakes, reinvest in infrastructure that actually builds its tax base. Instead of building a road that inevitably will hurt Shreveports wetlands and suppress neighborhood revitalization, local officials need to build value through pre existing infrastructure. Focus on surface roadways that demand attention today. Fixing roads, potholes, and bridges do not produce the splashy photo opportunity for its elected officials, but repaired and wellmaintained infrastructure yields smart financial gains for taxpayers. John Norquist is the CEO & president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, served as mayor of Milwaukee from 19882004, and is the author of The Wealth of Cities.