RochesterSubway.com : Nature abhors a vacuum – as illustrated by the Inner Loop

Nature abhors a vacuum – as illustrated by the Inner Loop

June 30th, 2015

The following is a guest post submitted by Matthew Ehlers.
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I noticed grass growing on the piles of dirt in the Inner Loop construction project today. It’s as if nature can’t wait for the filling in of the Inner Loop to complete before reclaiming the land…

The dirt is filling in the holes Rochester created for itself in 1947 when it decided to build a giant concrete race track around the center of the city, no matter who was uprooted in the process. The future was booming and the city fathers at the time felt they needed to prepare for the mega-city Rochester would become by bowing down to the power of the mighty automobile . Much like the fabled streetcar destruction in Los Angeles in the 1930’s to 1950’s the Inner Loop confirmed Rochester’s commitment to the car over the subway.

Here’s an aerial view from the film, Rochester: A City of Quality (1963).

Cut to today, where they are filling in the Inner Loop in a bold initiative to free the land from a useless strip of road. Perhaps Rochester is proving Mark Twain wrong when he said, “Buy land, they are not making it anymore.”

I took a quick bike ride down into the Inner Loop today to see what I could see.

So long Inner Loop.

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Tags: automobile, biking, infrastructure, Inner Loop, Inner Loop fill webcam, Mark Twain, Matthew Ehlers, Rochester, Rochester NY, transportation, urban development, urban highway, video

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2015 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Opinion, Reader Submitted Stories, Rochester Images, Transit + Infrastructure, Urban Development, Urban Exploration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “Nature abhors a vacuum – as illustrated by the Inner Loop”

Ivan says:

July 1, 2015 at 11:30 am

there won’t be much in the way of nature reclamation, according to what i hear… instead of a cement road it’s gonna be buildings & houses.
Ben says:

July 1, 2015 at 11:37 am

Can find a link to a PDF of the city’s latest presentation on redevelopment ideas here: http://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589965452

I find it interested they are apparently still thinking about underground parking since the inner loop is being filled as we speak. Are they going to fill it in just to dig some of it back up again? Seems the other alternative is more surface parking, which would be horrible in my opinion.
Nathanael says:

July 1, 2015 at 2:18 pm

Now they just need to get rid of the *rest* of the Inner Loop.

…and build a subway.
Tom Morrisey says:

July 1, 2015 at 5:17 pm

Walking around a couple of times in the area, including for the Memorial Day parade and going to Jazz Fest, the partially filled loop is ALREADY making it so much easier to get around the East End (hey, there were no signs that told me not to walk on it.) Can park outside the loop for events downtown without having to dogleg to the nearest bridge. Can’t wait to see the finished product.

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Nature abhors a vacuum – as illustrated by the Inner Loop

4 Responses to “Nature abhors a vacuum – as illustrated by the Inner Loop”

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