Rick Green's CTConfidential

Rick Green of The Courant pays close attention to the future of the city, and has written about our Hartford conversations at Real Art Ways in the past. He was good enough to write on his blog about our upcoming show this Wednesday night, and it actually sparked a pretty interesting discussion about tearing down I-84. Will K. Wilkins, in his last blog post, suggested this, and it prompted response on Rick's blog from transportation expert Toni Gold:

It's unfortunate that the upcoming RAW-NPR event is occurring at exactly the same time on Thursday as the Hub of Hartford workshop about rethinking I-84.

As Will Wilkins correctly points out, we should think about tearing down I-84 (the so-called Aetna Viaduct) where it cuts Hartford in two -- one of the dramatically bad development decisions of the last 40 years. We should be replacing it with new, re-thought and redesigned development based on lively street life, a less auto-centric transportation system, and a fine-grained and arts-based urban economy that capitalizes on Hartford's compact and historic character and attracts and keeps young people and the jobs that follow them.

I hope that both RAW and Where We Live will send some folks to the I-84 workshop (open house 3:30 to 5:00; workshop 6:00 to 8:30 at the Lyceum on Lawrence Street). The combination of us transportation-focused advocates with the arts-focused advocates would be a powerful one.

Luckily, our event is Wednesday night...not Thursday, so I hope people will be able to attend both events.