We are seeing today a global trend toward repurposing urban expressways and highways that are no longer in sync with their social and economic environments. For example, Paris is spending €250 million to transform by 2025 the Champs-Elysees — currently an eight-lane highway partly blemished by traffic and vehicle pollution — into more of a public park by cutting by half the number of lanes for cars and converting the road space into wide bike lanes and walkways with “tunnels of trees.”
In Seoul, two busy and unsightly expressways — one elevated; the other, at ground level — once buried the Cheonggyecheon Stream. After these were removed in 2003, the Seoul metropolitan government created a breathtaking promenade along the stream that runs 11 kilometers through the center of the city. Today, it is arguably the top tourist attraction in Seoul.
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