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Knock down I-95

As Democrats in Washington plot billions in federal transportation aid and work projects, ex-Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has a proposal for Philadelphia's I-95 Delaware Expressway:

Knock it down.

"New York's West Side Highway is gone," he said. "San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway — gone." Milwaukee, Seoul — Interstate kablooie.

"I-95 should never have been built through the city," Norquist told me on a swing through Philly to pick up a city planners' award from the Ed Bacon Foundation for his work promoting city-revivalist "New Urbanism."

Sounds crazy. How would the caravans of commuters, produce trailers and airport shuttles, and Phillies, Eagles and concert fans pass crowded South Philly, Society Hill and Port Richmond without the elevated freeway?

Trucks and buses can use I-295 in Jersey, or a better Blue Route. Meanwhile, "local traffic vanishes into the [street] grid," Norquist said. Of course, you'll want to widen some of those streets.