The Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway story

Abstract

In the mid-1990s, the city of Des Moines, Iowa was planning a major transport project. The Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway was intended to divert anticipated auto traffic from downtown streets to an elevated freeway encircling the western and southern borders of downtown. Local business leaders became concerned, however, that the highway would cut off development in an industrial area just south of the central business district. This paper describes the circumstances that precipitated a rethinking and eventual redesign of the highway, the process that created a more appropriate design, and the results that ensued from the redesign. Key aspects of the paper are: the trust that had been built between city officials and business leaders; the concept of elevated freeways and their impact on urban development; the question of citizen participation in the planning and redesign process; the introduction of value engineering as a method for redesign; the presence and intervention of intermediary organisations; and the driving force of residential development in and around downtowns.