Reimagining U.S. 35: Dayton to study how to ‘repair the harm’ of past projects

Dayton is applying for a $2 million planning grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program.

The discretionary grant program seeks to “repair the harm” caused by infrastructure choices and projects of the past, like highway construction that divided communities and damaged connectivity.

Dayton is seeking funding from the pilot program to study the U.S. 35 corridor between Steve Whalen Boulevard in East Dayton to South Gettysburg Avenue in West Dayton. This stretch of highway is about 5.2 miles long.

This comes just as ODOT celebrated completing the section of U.S. 35 further east, from Steve Whalen Boulevard to Interstate 675, after 12 years of work to expand and improve the highway.

‘Spaghetti mess’ of ramps

The Reconnecting Communities federal grant program is highly competitive, but the city has put together a strong application, said David Escobar, Dayton’s city engineer

“Right now it’s dream stuff, but I feel like we’ve put together a good grant (application) so I’m optimistic,” he said. “If we don’t dream, we don’t achieve.”

He said if the city is awarded funding, the planning study could take 18 months to two years to complete.

Escobar said U.S. 35 right now is a barrier that carves up neighborhoods and creates desolate spaces along and underneath the highway.

For instance, he said, U.S. 35 at and near South Main Street at the southern edge of downtown is a tangled, “spaghetti mess” of on- and off-ramps and confusing infrastructure.

The street grid and the connections to the highway have a lot of room for improvement, Escobar said, like the U.S. 35 ramps at Keowee Street that encircle Dayton SMART Elementary, leaving the public charter school basically on an island.

Near there, by Steve Whalen Boulevard, there is an off-ramp for Keowee Street that is more than a mile long. The five-mile section of U.S. 35 that would be studied has about 18 on- and -off ramps and touches about 13 city neighborhoods.

Escobar said there are opportunities along and beneath the highway to reactivate underutilized and unused spaces. He said the city wants to reimagine the streetscapes.

Studying other cities’ creativity

Escobar said a good example of what might be possible is City Walk BHAM, which is a multi-phase project in Birmingham, Alabama, that transformed highway underpass areas in the city’s central business district.

Spaces beneath highway bridges have been turned into a skate park, dog park, roller rink, amphitheater, playground, pickleball courts, art and food truck spaces and a beer garden with adult activities.

Colorful lights and eye-catching landscaping and streetscapes contribute to the street-level vibrancy and activity.

Miami, Florida, recently won a $60 million grant from the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program to create a park under a highway that divided what used to be a flourishing Black community.

Highway removals or reconfigurations are being considered or pursued in communities like Syracuse, New York, where an elevated section of highway is being replaced with a boulevard.

Albany, the New York state capital, is looking at removing a highway and replacing it with a boulevard to reconnect the city to the riverfront.

A funding challenge

Escobar said the proposed planning study would identify potential improvement projects, construction phases, timelines and costs.

Reimagining and remaking U.S. 35 would be very expensive, but there are a number of possible funding sources, including the Reconnecting Communities program if it is renewed, he said.

Escobar said this would be a collaboration between the city and the Ohio Department of Transportation, and there would be a lot of public engagement involved.

Brian Martin, executive director of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, recently said he expects there will be a significant push to continue to modernize U.S. 35 in the future.

“I think improvements will continue on to the west in the future, and I look forward to being a part of that,” Martin said this week while speaking at a ribbon-cutting for the new U.S. 35-Woodman Drive interchange.

Martin sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation in support of Dayton’s grant request that says, “While the roadway certainly provides critical connections to our region and beyond, the roadway has also been a barrier and detriment to surrounding neighborhoods as a result of a design approach that combined both limited access freeway in sections while also serving as a major arterial with traffic signals and at-grade pedestrian crossings in other areas.”

His letter also reads, “MVRPC fully supports Dayton’s focus to better connect the neighborhoods that have been negatively impacted by the four- to eight-lane corridor.”

History of U.S. 35 impact

Matt Sauer, a local architect and a member of the Dayton Plan Board, has written and talked about how different Dayton would be if U.S. 35 was removed and replaced with a boulevard that’s connected to the street grid.

Sauer recently told the Dayton Daily News that the construction of U.S. 35 got rid of a lively street that was home to corner stores, bars, businesses and families of multiple generations.

Sauer said the construction and completion of U.S. 35 created hard neighborhood boundaries, like between St. Anne’s Hill on the north side of the highway and Twin Towers to the south.

St. Anne’s Hill is thriving, with a very hot real estate market, and Sauer said some of that investment would be naturally spilling over to Twin Towers if the highway was not a huge divider.

Sauer also said the U.S. 35 underpasses make walking and biking unpleasant and sometimes dangerous.

“If the study engages the community with potential instead of limitations, understands Dayton’s history and prioritizes the growth of the city, I think it will make good recommendations,” Sauer said.

Unfortunately, the city has come up empty on some of its recent federal transportation funding requests.

Last year, Dayton unsuccessfully applied for $8.5 million in funding from the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program to construct a pedestrian bridge over U.S. 35 at Abbey Avenue.

The city wants to make it easier for residents south of U.S. 35 to get to the West Branch Dayton Library and the Wright brothers airplane factory property, which may be redeveloped into a mixed-use site.

Dayton earlier this year also applied for more than $16 million in federal funds to remake some of its heavily traveled roads and corridors, including in downtown. But the city did not win an award.