Projects aimed at reconnecting Syracuse once the I-81 viaduct comes down are in limbo after the Trump administration took back some of its approved federal funding. those grants help tie together roadways as part of the new community grid.
The city and state were working with a $180 million pot of money already allocated for the projects. But President Trump clawed back $30 million of what he considered unspent funds.
City of Syracuse I-81 project director Joe Driscoll's job is to seek and secure grants to supplement the much larger $2.2 billion viaduct replacement project. They include everything from improving connectivity and traffic flow to bike and pedestrian features.
“To say it's frustrating would be an understatement," Driscoll said. "For the Trump administration to rollback things that are already congressionally approved makes it very hard to figure out how we're going to move forward with all this work. We're looking at other grants already to fill that hole and trying to figure out how we adapt. But the lack of consistency from the federal administration has presented a lot of obstacles that are hard to overcome.”
Driscoll said the differences in priorities between the Biden and Trump administrations are stark. The viaduct replacement project is an effort to undo the damage done when black neighborhoods were razed to build the highway in the 1960’s.
"The Biden administration was laser focused on the inequity that was created through transportation decisions and how we fix those problems," Driscoll said. "The next administration basically said you're not allowed to say the word equity and address historical wrong.”
Driscoll said long-term projects like this should be allowed to finish successfully without being subject to the changing political whims of multiple local and federal administrations.
STREET ART ENGAGES STUDENTS, TEACHERS
One of the streets near Martin Luther King STEAM school in Syracuse is a lot brighter thanks to the creativity of students and teachers. The street art project is part of an effort to beautify and connect area roadways when the I-81 viaduct comes down.
MLK school sits in the shadow of the I-81 viaduct, which is being removed to become a street level boulevard. Mayor Ben Walsh said adding some color to MLK Boulevard is one way to connect the community.
"Among the most sensitive and critical areas are our schools," Walsh said. "So we engaged with the students here at Doctor King Elementary. And faculty and they assisted us in first identifying a priority and one of their priorities was to slow down traffic around the but also to beautify the area.”
Walsh said it’s also an inexpensive, creative, and simple way to improve safety for children walking or biking to school.
“Tightening the lanes, altering the center stripe, there are things that as drivers make us kind of uncomfortable and some people get annoyed by them," Walsh said. "But what you're doing is you're reacting to it and inherently slowing it's slowing you down. By incorporating some fun designs, by getting the students involved in the project, [it] really creates a sense of ownership.”
The project is funded by a $500,000 federal Reconnecting Communities grant. It has not been targeted for recission by the Trump administration. I-81 project director with the city Joe Driscoll said other work includes more physical connections in and around the future community grid.
“If people have to get from here to the hospital or to the university, what are the ways that we can do that, particularly for people without vehicles?" Driscoll said. "There's a large percentage about 1/3 of the people in this corridor don't have vehicles. So how are they going to get back and forth?”
MLK boulevard will dead-end at the future Business Loop 81, where the new at-grade roadway replaces the viaduct. But Driscoll says they’re working on improving other nearby east-west connections using federal grant money. Those funds, however, are now in jeopardy.
