Social Justice, Equity, and Infrastructure

Like many highways built in the 1950s and 1960s, the Inner Loop in Rochester, New York, was designed to provide vehicular access and boost growth. But also like many highways, it divided the very communities it was meant to serve, in this case via a six-lane sunken highway with six lanes of adjacent street connectors. In the mid-2010s, Stantec led a project to fill in more than half a mile of the underused eastern section of the loop, creating a multiuse boulevard and opening up the land for development. The roadway today is an easily accessible boulevard with on-street parking, wide sidewalks, green spaces, and a two-way cycle lane that is safely separated from vehicular traffic. The reconstruction project, completed in 2018, is sparking economic growth and redevelopment, including the construction of housing and businesses and the expansion of the nearby Strong National Museum of Play.