A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that climate tipping points are much closer than previously thought, with some perhaps already reached. The IPCC’s Assessment Report 6 calls for an immediate, drastic cut to greenhouse gas emissions to arrest the melting of polar ice caps, thawing of permafrost, and conversion of rainforest to savannah, among innumerable other problems. Though not due for publication until May 2022, AR6 will certainly affect discussions at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow this November, as it is based on existing, published science.
The climate is changing much faster than expected when the 5th Assessment Report was issued in 2014, and yet today’s plans for improving the City of Rochester are rooted far in the past.
It is at this momentous time in history that the six draft plans for transforming the Inner Loop North all show filling a huge trench with countless truckloads of dirt brought from miles away and rammed into compaction. For many years, concept plans have envisioned the Loop removed and the trench filled, but these never imagined that such a seemingly logical, fair and equitable idea would result in considerable ecological harm beyond our city’s borders. Every stage of the proposed transformation project would emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, emitted locally but felt globally. It is hard to justify the environmental impacts, given the breadth and depth of our knowledge today. And for this we would get another roadway, higher up than todays, and acres of empty land that may or may not be filled with something useful.
Master plans, public comments, and concept drawings for development projects to date could perhaps be environmentally justified due to a universal ignorance of climate science. Although the warnings have been clear to many of us for decades, general acceptance of the science is only now reaching its own tipping point to where regular citizens are beginning to take notice, and sometimes action. Now we should all know better. Basing plans today on a series of master plans from decades past shows that the lessons of science are still being ignored. Indeed, Rochester’s current comprehensive plan—Rochester 2034—ignores climate change as a determinant of future living conditions. All the city’s previous plans did, too, but that may be excusable. It is no longer so.
In the sunken portion of the Inner Loop North, leave most of the trench in place. Grind up the roadway and move the debris a short distance to fill the areas flanking East Main Street. Develop those areas to reconnect downtown to the Auditorium Center and Public Market to enhance walking and biking. Convert the trench naturally to ecological parkland, planned but not humanly engineered. Let stormwater from city streets create wetlands, and let nature recreate a natural habitat that cleans water and air. And above all, do not build another roadway just because there is empty space to fill.
Between the river and I-490 the raised portion of the Loop may need to remain. This may never be pretty and may require long-term maintenance, but because it parallels the railroad alongside, removing this barrier accomplishes little that could be justified environmentally.
A huge mistake was made in the 1960s to destroy homes, businesses, and parks to create this sunken roadway but reversing one mistake with another could sink us all.
