These Cities Swapped Out Freeways for Gardens and It Worked Out Fantastically

Editor’s Note: We are going to acknowledge right off the bat that this post is based on Gizmodo’s fantastic piece, “6 Freeway Removals That Changed Their Cities Forever”

Once upon a time, the automobile was born. Wheat-chewing farmers and cigar-chomping industrialists regarded the new machine with wonder and avarice, respectively. Baseball-loving boys and gradually-liberated girls clambered over the new horseless wagons as the newest plaything. And city councilmen cracked open cases of cigarettes, pouring burnt coffee into environmentally-unsound paper cup after environmentally-unsound paper cup as they stayed late at the office, trying to figure out how their city was going to handle the inevitable coming of the gasoline traveler.

Many of these freeways—like I-440 around Raleigh—handled the new wave of traffic just fine, and have even had to be widened. But some freeways never received the traffic they were built to handle. Other freeways received too much traffic with nearby viable roads receiving very little. In either case, inefficiency was happening. When city freeways are overloaded, it can create smog, pollution, a decrease in health, increase of crime and even a raising of cities’ internal temperatures.

Instead of expanding over strained roadways, some cities have chosen a different route altogether: they've demolished them.

Despite arguments that this would only make matters worse, traffic flowed to other areas of town and created an explosion of nature, good health and a shift in the cities’ cultures. Streams, rivers, bicyclists, joggers, street vendors and pedestrians have all laid claim to these miles of new space. We've included a few photos here, but you should check out the examples in San Francisco, Seoul, Portland, Milwaukee, Madrid, Seattle, and plans for the same in Dallas, Texas and Rochester, New York.

What do you think about this concept? Are there areas in our city that you think could benefit from it? If nothing else, we hope this prompts new thinking about roadways and city development.

Here’s Seoul before…

And here it is after!

These Self-Smacking Wipers Knock Ice Off Your Windshield!

Great clouds almighty: is winter over yet? Snow, sleet, |freezing rain, hail—come on now! It’s been a season of much precipitation and through it Raleigh has received a hard lesson: we’re not quite as equipped for winter as we thought we were.

As we drove through neighborhoods frozen by winter weather, however, we did notice that many residents had one trick down pat: keeping windshield wipers off the front window overnight so that they wouldn’t be frozen to the glass. As commendable as that is, many of us know that ice can still form on the wipers themselves, not to mention the glass, and trying to break up a half-inch layer of ice in the morning cold is no picnic.

One company has come up with a rather innovative—and automatic—way to circumvent this seasonal annoyance. Motor City Wiper is a company based out of Rochester Hills, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. They’re so far north that they’re nearly into—gasp!—Canadian levels of latitude, and at that area of the U.S., they encounter serious amounts of snow and ice for not just days, but months.

MCW’s solution is a special, wiper-banging arm mechanism that installs right in place of your normal wiper arms, only looking a bit more muscular. Do you sometimes tap your toothbrush against the sink to knock the water off the bristles? Same principle. The wipers themselves are nothing special, just whatever you happen to know. The muscly arm, however, smacks them against the glass with enough force to dislodge any ice on the blades themselves or your windshield. Observer:

You’ll notice that it’s a very confident, assertive rapping that isn’t overly violent or overbearing. As you can see at the end, the smacking isn’t automatic, but rather, triggered by the driver instead pushing a small, custom installed red button. That way you never have to worry about rogue wipers smacking you around the parking lot—unless you’re being chased by someone with a sense of humor behind the wheel.

As of yet this system isn’t for sale to people. Its inventors are shopping it around the major automakers in hopes that it will be either invested in or implemented across a brand’s lineup. In either case, we wish them well as this is one more device intended to keep us in the car where we belong while technology does the outside work for us.

Electric B-Class Readies for June Arrival

Mercedes-Benz B-class

Ah, first looks. That first time you see a new model in its not-quite-finished prototype form and realize what a new and interesting thing it is.

With the Mercedes-Benz B-class, you’ll have no need to worry about tensions between the lower and upper echelons of the Mercedes-Benz lineup as this is the automaker’s sole electric vehicle unless you count the Smart Fortwo. Thankfully we won’t have to wait long to see it—the new Mercedes EV will arrive in dealerships this June.

So let’s get acquainted! A recent first look article by Autoweek praised the B-Class for the exceptionally well-constructed nature and quality of its interior materials and finishing. Even though Autoweek was only evaluating a prototype version, it was clear that the top brass in Stuttgart wanted the press to have the most impressive model possible.

The B-Class is specified as seating five adults with 17.1 cubic feet of storage space in the rear. Up front is the Tesla electric motor, no small coup since Tesla—founded by genius billionaire Elon Musk—has gone through 11 years of trial and error in producing electric vehicles. Mercedes-Benz has been a supplier to Tesla of internal parts, so it makes sense that Mercedes-Benz would have close ties with the California-based company.

Tesla’s experience pays off with a motor that produces 174 horsepower and 251 lb-ft of torque. Those numbers mean the B-class won’t rattle at high speeds, nor lack the power to be aggressive when necessary. The car has a 100 mph top speed and a 90 mile range before it needs recharging.

Ninety miles should be plenty for commuters in the triangle since only 25 miles separates Raleigh from Durham. There are dozens of electric charging stations all over the area including 14 in downtown Raleigh alone. With a three-hour charge time, you could easily recharge over night or even before lunch if you have a station near your workplace.

Stay tuned for updates as we draw nearer to its June launch.