Reconstructing the Inner Loop East - Rochester, New York

Overview

For decades, the Inner Loop East Expressway encircled the City of Rochester's Central Business District (CBD), cutting off the downtown area from adjacent densely-populated neighborhoods. This grade-separated expressway was underutilized by vehicular traffic, stifled downtown redevelopment, and discouraged use of alternative modes of transportation. In order to encourage sustainable economic growth and create a more livable, vibrant downtown, Rochester reconstructed a segment of the Inner Loop from Clinton Avenue to East Main Street into a modern Complete Street flanked by mixed-use redevelopment.

An aerial photograph depicting the poor condition of the Inner Loop East Expressway. — Figure 1. Inner Loop East Expressway conditions before reconstruction (Source: City of Rochester).

The Inner Loop East project removed 1960s-era expressway infrastructure that was underutilized, structurally deficient and on the verge of requiring substantial investment. By eliminating the high-speed expressway facility, which contained numerous nonstandard features (e.g., lack of shoulders) and nonconforming features (e.g., ramp layouts), and reestablishing the original low speed street grid, this project is expected to enhance area traffic safety. Construction of an at-grade street to replace the Expressway will support bicycle and pedestrian travel between two previously divided areas of the city and remove a significant barrier to area redevelopment. Transforming this highway into a high-quality street was seen as important to the area's evolution and the cohesion of the city as a whole.

Background

With the vehicle population explosion in and around the City of Rochester in the 1930s and 1940s, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and the City of Rochester developed plans in the late 1940s for a network of boulevards and expressways designed to reduce traffic congestion on the local city streets and improve access around the Center City area. The idea for a beltway around Rochester was conceived in the 1950s. At that time, the population of Rochester was roughly 332,000, which translated into poor traffic conditions within the city's downtown. Construction of the highway began in the early 1950s. Many structures were razed to make way for the route, which was constructed through densely populated neighborhoods that surrounded downtown. In 1965, the Inner Loop expressway was officially opened to traffic.

The Inner Loop surrounds Rochester Center City, passing over the Genesee River twice. The eastern portion of the Inner Loop is highlighted to signify where the location of the problematic roadway segment. — Figure 2. Aerial of the affected segment of the Inner Loop East (Source: City of Rochester).

By 2016, the City of Rochester's population had dropped by more than a third. During this time, traffic volume remained constant on the roadway in some areas. However, overall use since its completion has declined as jobs and residents migrated away from the inner city. As a result, the southeast section of the Inner Loop between Clinton Avenue and East Main Street was identified as a viable candidate for removal. The southeast section of the Inner Loop was a four- to six-lane divided expressway with parallel two- to three-lane one-way frontage roads. The frontage roads and the Inner Loop were connected with entrance and exit slip ramps located at service points in the system. This resulted in a facility that in some places had as many as twelve travel lanes. This section of expressway served approximately 7,000 vehicles per day - volumes that could be served by a lesser facility such as an urban arterial more in context with the neighborhood.

Although the expressway was under State jurisdiction, the City of Rochester took the lead and championed this initiative to redesign the facility into an urban arterial corridor. The impetus behind this concept grew out of earlier planning efforts that coalesced in the City's Inner Loop Improvement Study (2001) - the product of a technical advisory committee, a citizens advisory committee and a series of informational and public engagement meetings hosted by the City. The Center City Master Plan (2003), A Community Based Vision Plan for Downtown Rochester (2007) and various other planning efforts and design charrettes also informed the vision for the reconstruction of the Inner Loop East.

Because of the growing interest in removing the barrier effect of the existing highway, the City submitted a series of TIGER Grant applications, the first two of which were denied. After these rejections, additional changes and inclusions were made. These measures resulted in the City being awarded a TIGER Grant in 2013 for $17.7 million and the City and State committing $5.9 million in local funds. After securing funding, partnerships grew to include regional and State partners and led to the formation of a project advisory committee that convened representatives of the City, New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), Monroe County Department of Transportation, and the Genesee Transportation Council MPO. It was the City, however, that spearheaded this initiative, and made the case for the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of removing this expressway by documenting estimated cost savings associated with no longer needing to maintain the existing facility and bridges over it. The City was not only willing to be the champion, but was also willing to take on management of the project, and assume the jurisdiction for the resulting facility.

The Community

This project was a restoration project within the confines of a below-grade highway. As such, it did not require any displacements. Impacts to property consisted of seven parcels requiring temporary easements or permanent easements. FHWA classified the project as a Class II (Categorical Exclusion with documentation).

The project area was located in a highly urbanized setting that was composed of a transportation network surrounded primarily by commercial, governmental and institutional properties to the west and smaller businesses interspersed with well-established older single and multi-family residential housing to the east. The majority of the project area and individual land parcels have developed over the last century.

A man is climbing over a guardrail which separates the expressway from a nearby neighborhood, demonstrating how the expressway is a barrier to neighborhood connectivity. — Figure 3. The Expressway created a barrier to neighborhood connectivity (Source: City of Rochester).

A demographic analysis showed that the percentage of minority populations within one of the census tracts in which the project was located exceeded the percentage of minority populations city-wide. However, the census tracts covered a larger area than the localized project area, and minority populations were largely located outside of the area of construction. The data indicated that the percentage of low-income populations for all census tracts within the project area exceeded the percentage of low-income populations city-wide. However, properties most directly impacted by the reconstruction were not primarily low-income.

What Happened

In 2012, the City initiated a project website to support communication efforts with the public. After the City received the TIGER grant in August 2013, it immediately went to work on various designs for the project and committed to a significant degree of public engagement. A public open house was conducted in 2013 and a public information meeting was conducted in 2014 during the preliminary design phase.

Construction equipment such as steam rollers and trucks are working to reconstruct the Inner Loop East. — Figure 4. Reconstruction of the Inner Loop East
(Source: City of Rochester).

In addition, City staff met directly with individual business associations and neighborhood associations and also hosted public meetings for the larger downtown workers, the urban office workers, and residents of the affected area. City staff listened to these varying constituencies and reported much success with the public meetings. The City also documented information about meetings with neighborhood groups. The City felt having the project website was key to the outreach success because it allowed staff to more easily disseminate a lot of information quickly, including plans, documents, meeting minutes, and renderings. Having everything available and publicly accessible was very important to the City and helped gain public trust.

Originally, the City envisioned a design for reconstruction that mirrored the Inner Loop, with a curve through the city. Through the public meeting process, the design changed to something that more closely represented the internal street grid that existed before the Expressway was built. Residents believed that this was the best solution to re-knitting neighborhoods and to restoring the historic urban form. A local design center and residents who were passionate about returning the street grid played a key role in the development of this alternative design.

A rendering of a four-story, brick building on the new Inner Loop East. — Figure 5. Renderings of neighborhood redevelopment following reconstruction of the Inner Loop (Source: City of Rochester).

Additionally, visualization played a key role in articulating the proposed changes to stakeholders and the public. The City realized that it was difficult for the public to envision a sunken expressway and up to 12 lanes of traffic becoming a new community-scale street network with adjoining development. Having visualization tools allowed people to understand what it might become. The City felt renderings of the reconstruction played a key role in sharing the look and feel of the redevelopment as well as showing how community members would interact with this space. The project website was an important tool for helping the City share these renderings with the community.

The Final Design Report was completed in March 2014, and the final design plans were completed in July 2014 with construction beginning in November 2014.

Results

A aerial photograph of a reconstructed intersection in the Inner Loop East, including large sidewalks, pedestrian crosswalks, and room for bicyclists. — Figure 6. A segment of the reconstructed Inner Loop East (Source: Stantec).

The City met its three-year timetable by completing construction on December 31, 2017. The project turned what had previously been a significant barrier between downtown and surrounding areas, neighborhoods, and districts into an at-grade boulevard that has improved connectivity and created new land parcels for development. Based on the success of this stakeholder outreach effort, the City feels confident about the value of its public engagement approach.

The City has already issued requests for proposals for developers to bid on parcels of property. The project opened roughly six acres of land to mixed-use redevelopment, which will leverage additional commercial and residential space. Given the public's positive views of the results, the City is currently seeking funding to start the planning for the second phase, or what it is calling Inner Loop North. This phase will connect additional neighborhoods and Rochester's successful Public Market to the CBD.

Lessons Learned

The Inner Loop East project was an ambitious project to redevelop an existing expressway that had created barriers to bicycle/pedestrian access and neighborhood connectivity. The project demonstrated successful practices in community engagement to design a project that supports the City's vision for a more livable and economically vital community. Significant lessons from this effort include:

The City's visioning efforts and planning activities at the City and regional levels created a strong vision for the future to reconnect the CBD and surrounding neighborhoods both physically and economically. These efforts helped to advance the project successfully upon award of the TIGER Grant and into project development. Because community members had earlier exposure to the idea of reconstructing the Inner Loop through these past engagement efforts, this initiative gained acceptance among area residents who may have otherwise expressed opposition.
The City's engineering studies and benefit-cost analyses demonstrated that this ambitious project would be less expensive than maintaining and rehabilitating all of the bridges over the previous expressway.
Visualization tools used during the design phase helped the public to envision the changes associated with reconstruction and how community members would interact with the new roadway.
Ultimately, through the public engagement process, the project design was adapted to community desires for a street grid.

For More Information

Erik Frisch, Transportation Specialist
City of Rochester
Erik.frisch@cityofrochester.com

Jim Hofmann, Project Engineer
Stantec
Jim.hofmann@stantec.com

Jim Stack, Executive Director
Genesee Transportation Council MPO
jstack@gtcmpo.org

References

Stantec. Inner Loop East, Transformation Project, Final Design Report - Volume 1. 2014.
http://www.cityofrochester.gov/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=8589960941&libID=8589960928

City of Rochester. USDOT TIGER: Inner Loop East Reconstruction & Realignment Project. 2013.
https://www.dot.ny.gov/recovery/sponsors/tiger/repository/74CDA1D23A0D90B2E0430A3DFC0390B2