No

I live on Clinton Ave, Arbor Hill area. I just bought a house here and it is BEAUTIFUL! The architecture is amazing. This house was built in 1888. Albany needs to hold landlords (which I am) accountable to keep their properties up to code. I agree, they need to make this city more walkable and give more opportunities/grants more available and easier to obtain for small business owners.

I go to college here and honestly the highways is such an eyesore, there should be a way to sit on a bench and enjoy the view

I am from Rochester, and removing the Inner Loop East was one of the best decisions the city has ever made. Now it is Union St, with bikelanes, tree's and medium-sized apartments buildings with much more being finished within the next 3, 4 months along with construction of the "Neighborhood of Play" around the Strong Museum along with a new Hampton Inn. Many of the buildings wll be affordable aswell. I really see a resurgence in Rochester over the next 10 years and I'm excited to see it grow.

I don't live in Albany but I have visited it and I really love the charm of it. NYS capitol, cool local stores, brownstone apartments and turn of the century architecture is really cool. But I never like the highway that took me there. Standing by the USS Slater next to this highway was saddening and I'm glad you along with many locals want this replaced with a park. I would definitely come up here more often!

Been going to UA since 2018, moved into Albs earlier this year and been invested in this issue for a while now. Really excited to see a lot more talk around removing this eyesore and reconnecting the city, hopefully we’ll get there some day. Awesome video!

Incredible drone shots. Truly content rich and professional quality videography. I recently visited Albany and was shocked by this eyesore of a highway. Great video!

No matter what, you have to make sure there is a grocery store. Eastern Albany is literally a fresh food desert.

Love the riverfront, love access to the river, love the idea of reconnecting the city to the river, but the discussion in this beautiful video papers over the huge mass of seriously important complexities and complications -- if you think the poverty of the South End comes from the tngled web of highway below the Plaza, you must not be familiar with the north end, or Clinton Ave, or most of Albany. The city -- and the region overall -- suffers from too much division in too many ways, whether economic, political or social, and I don't see any firm relationship between improving the optics by making pretty roadways and actually overcoming these divisions and the ills that come from them. And don't even think about how nasty traffic will be without the capacity of a functional highway without enormous improvements in how people who live elsewhere get to work... things that are positive, attractive alternatives to how people get around now... and that don't result in the gentry displacing the urban poor so you can pretend the neighborhoods are benefitting. Not simple, not easy, and certainly not feasible without serious involvement of folks outside the choir. All that said, though, nothing will get better without someone making some noise and stirring things up by pitching ideas -- many thanks, good luck, and keep pitching!!

This video was wonderful, I really hope it comes to fruition. I think a pier or something along the waterfront for people to enjoy the river, get food, and enjoy nature would be a nice addition too : )

Very good video, have loved seeing your production quality increase over the past year

Dan the production quality of this is great. I only wish this vid were longer. Keep it up 💯

Great video! Very informative, possibly your best work yet. Awesome to see more people talking about and getting involved in the riverfront reclamation project.

This is such a necessary discussion the community needs to have and you killed it on the video. Awesome work!

Great video. Thank you very much!!

Lived in Albany all my 41 years in the village of Colonie about a 10-15 minute ride to downtown its definitely declined recently especially the crime has skyrocketed in the last few years but still love my hometown. Sweet video!

I’m a proud Albany resident, I’m 100000000% for this. I moved here from WI 5 years ago and it immediately struck me what an eyesore those ramps are. Then after speaking to Albany lifetime residents, no one loves them either. It’s sad that all the historic waterfront buildings are gone but this project can certainly bring renewal to this great city im proud to call my home. Let’s do this!!!!

As someone who grew up in Albany I assure you the vibe is literally just get paid and get high the drug problem is staggering at least that what I’ve seen in the inner city were I lived unless you live outside the city and come to work in the office/government buildings but then you don’t know the real goings on in the streets with the people and the culture the city try’s to play like it’s got big stuff going on but it’s the crime and drugs that make Albany move. nobody wants to live in Albany if you can afford to get out but most can’t and get stuck. Changing 787 won’t change anything this city will still be the dump it’s always been but hey good luck 👍. And hey at least it’s not troy 🤣.

I often work at Cornell Park, out of my truck on my laptop, because I think that Hudson area is so special. I often look at the river, and think about how most Albany residents don't even get to appreciate it. I am all for this. My only suggestion is to highlights the negatives too. If your idea is strong enough, the positives will outweigh the negatives.

The Empire Plaza is hideous. Albany could be such a beautiful city but its been ruined. Great location. Such a shame. Upstate NY should be so much better than what it is.

I live here I’m excited. We don’t need these out of towners opinions on whether they are inconvenienced with 5 minutes of traffic on the way to work, I live here, screw you and your work commute. Sincerely, a daily public transportation passenger. I’m equally excited for this Albany waterway project with the harbor and canal. But to be fair, the completion date was June 2023, aka NOW and hasn’t even STARTED yet……..

Love this! Will share the petition with my friends & family. Albany is in need of some better design!

Yes Wonderful Video ! Please make a "Part II" with solutions, Ideas, positive thoughts to get this off the Ground. Let's not make Gov't more IMportant than Us, the People.

Bring back trolley cars.

It would be nice as in Plymouth MA. The original Fort at Albany was recreated along the River in unused land. It would be a excellent tourist attraction and historical learning site.

I live and work in Albany, you need 787 there. the traffic volume during rush hour is already ridiculous. And the placement is not that bad it runs along the river so it stays out of everybody's way. There are parks and boat launches that go into the river underneath many of the ramps. But most of the river is fenced off, for multiple reasons. Safety reasons, illegal dumping of waste, and they're can be quite a bit of boat traffic. Very large boats, so it's not exactly safe to go out and fish in that part of the river either. If that's what you're looking for you might as well travel up to Saratoga. My point being is you need 787 there to handle of the traffic volume, and it's not that bad having it run along the river.

The Empire State Plaza is one of the best looking strucutres i have ever seen - pimped out!!!!

I am a resident of Albany and I am neither here nor there with the demolishing of 787. My main concern is what was only briefly discussed the poverty levels. How will it benefit those who are living by the area? because gentrification of the underprivileged areas have been a thing for the last few years. So, this access to the river will increase property value make it more desirable; but at what cost? What programs will be implemented so that the land can be affordable for the people who live there and have lived there for many years so they can remain there? Not just remain there but actually own some of that land? What programs will be placed so undeserved communities will not be driven from their homes and pushed further out because rent is too high? It will create a more desirable location but who benefits from it? You stated about the poverty level, besides temporary jobs what benefit does it serve the predominantly black communities that are currently there? Albany has been being built up but only white people are profiting from it. This will be yet another thing that white people will benefit from. Frankly as a resident of Albany unless I see programs for the new available land to be purchased by the residents in the communities (and I mean a significant amount of land at least 65%) and good portion of the tax revenue going into local programs reforms and schools that serve the black and underprivileged communities with in that area you can keep your gentrification in the making.

Yes! Yes! And can we talk about reparations to those families displaced for the building of Empire Plaza!!!

Sounds great, what happens in Menands and Watervliet?

I saw the title and said out loud "What waterfront?"

This video stirred much thought in me. I grew up in the South End and still remember what a remember a vibrant , bustling community which was lost to the Empire PlazA. The absence of community benefits is glaring. The South End is highlighted and North Albany and the Warehouse district along the River is grossly neglected. The highway has damaged and contributed to the deterioration of housing in North Albany. The neglect by the State to maintain the trash and noise pollution from 787 is

People are beginning to live under those bridges...Clinton ave exit. Albany should address that. Maybe turn those abandoned buildings into homeless shelters?

A great video on this subject with excellent points by everyone interviewed. Wonderful cinematography, good information, all I'd add is that some of the audio points felt a little rushed when switching between your voice and one of your interviewees, but even with that it was great and a helpful video on this subject! I work in Albany so this is definitely something I'm interested in looking into and seeing what I can do to help!

I left after living there for 61 years. I was there when they built the existing roadways. The problem Albany and New York face is that they have absolutely no interest in maintaining the existing infrastructure. Bridges and roadway supports crumble right before your eyes and are only dealt with when a crisis occurs. If they want longevity, they need to actually build the structures with careful attention to detail on the materials, contracts and contractors. Of course, the theft at the mall when it was complete was breath taking so they will need some oversight there as well.

Just look at Portland Oregon. The riverfront highway was removed and turned into a park. No traffic lock up and downtown has a lovely area for residents to visit.

Subscribed !

I'm very interested in this concept. I've been following along and not sure where I stand yet. What would happen to all the waste that will come from destruction of the roads/arterial and what kind of ecological impact would disposing of that waste cause?

Loved it

If there was a national high speed rail network you'd be able to travel swifter, safer, and cheaper than the highway system we built. This is also the reason Albany is half vacant because with a national railway network it would be able to build a vast urban rail mass transit system and it would be an hour or less from Boston/NYC/Cleveland/Buffalo so it would be more intregrated in teh regional economy!!

Took the train there once and it doesn’t even stop in town..the station is on the other side of the river..across that web of highways..the plaza was weird too.

The problem is there is absolutely no public transit in this city besides the useless bus so removing this highway won't get people out of their cars they will just go clog up 87 and 90 instead. The reason this idea works in large cities like NYC and San Francisco is because they have good transit options people can use that we don't have

While I think removing I-787 is a novel idea, it is not bringing people to downtown. There are already parks down there that have access either via parking lots that are next to the park or within walking distance. Unfortunately Albany is a city that goes to sleep after 6:00 PM most week nights unless the weather is good. During good weather there is opportunities to enjoy riverside events, or events on some of the lawns of the local buildings with movie screenings. Removing i-787 isn't going to revitalize a sleepy city, it is just going to cause even more traffic when the people who commute from the surrounding areas into and out of the city at peek travel times. Then, if they get tired of the traffic issues, they will seek employment elsewhere, and Albany starts to loose funds from the daily commuters. If you want to revitalize downtown Albany, improve the streets themselves, improve mass transit, work on making neighborhoods a place someone wants to visit. If those things were to improve first, there might be a reason to consider bringing Albany closer to a very busy waterway that offers no recreational purposes.

Why don't we start by getting the brick out from underneath some of the road ways and redoing the streets in general first.

The interstats highways were a mistake. We should've stuck with US numbered highways.

You know they can have the Albany section of I 787 become a Tunnel just like how they did with I 93 in Boston

iLived In Albany All my life n iNever knew that people were put out there house for the plaza that’s crazy 😮 🤯

I live in the mansion area. This neighborhood and the pastures are completely cut off from the rest of the city, and you can tell it's hurt the community over the years. I think this is a great idea BUT ONLY if they inact rent control to these neighborhoods. A program to help those who who have historically lived here buy homes here would help too. Otherwise this will just lead to overwhelming gentrification, where rent prices will increase by hundreds of dollars. Thinking about just the economic impact to a poor area won't help if everyone just gets priced out

Just give me the monorail dammit!

-please take advantage. we promise it will work hahah

I'm an Albany native & I never lived anywhere else. Making the river more accessible may sound good in an imaginary world, but I think spending tens of millions of dollars to revamp 787 would be a waste of that money. Waterfront usage would not be used in a widely eventful way to justify using all the monies it would take to make that happen. Waterfront use would span roughly 4 months out of the year & the population of the city is not nearly large enough to proceed with a project that large. It would take years & years to recoup any, even small, level of financial benefit. I remember hearing what the south mall (empire state plaza) would do for the city and what major benefits did it provide? It is tax exempt & not providing any tax income benefit to the city of Albany

I really enjoyed my time in Albany, but yeah. That river-side highway was garbage. Gut that & replace it with people, business, parks & life.

Growth is always good for a city. It seems like a nice idea to replace the interstate with a boulevard. The problem is the same number of workers need to get to and from their jobs. Slowing the traffic down and installing traffic lights will make them all take longer to commute every day and contribute to pollution. Every solution breeds new problems. If we are going to do this, it is vitally important that people are given a choice to leave their cars at home and use another mode of transportation, especially during the harsh winters we have. As it is, over the last bunch of decades we paved paradise to put up more and more parking garages. Albany is not just one city. It is at least three, and if you want to think regionally we could have up to eight or nine if you want to include Pittsfield and Bennington. It is sprawled out. Our bus system is nice, but we could do more. We should have a metro linking and bringing all of our communities together. Too expensive? Such a system can serve two purposes. One is public transportation, of course. The other is that we have so many colleges here and the "Tech Valley" business environment that such a metro system could serve as a living laboratory for developing mass transit technology for the world. So many aspects of those two purposes could result in exponential increase in the growth and investment of this region. People, businesses, and investors will be attracted to this area and will want to stay here. If we do this, then there will be no pain, no hardship, and no negative consequences for turning 787 into walkable streets.

I've spent 18 years of my life in NY, never have been to Albany. Holy fuck that's a bad highway. If it was more like the west side highway or SF Great Hwy people could live much better lives in a city and not a suburb. It would attract more people and money to the region. Good luck!

18 yards of topsoil to Corning Preserve --->

I would put a Tunnel for I 787 under the Park and Boulevard so I 787 can still exist and people can have the option of bypassing the boulevard

Hey Shawn Hamlin 👏

There would be a conversation to be had here if it weren't for the hyperbolic language.

Give us back our city!

There should be a rapid bus line and lane, or a even light rail line implemented in this plan too that connects with Troy and Saratoga Springs.

And, subscribed

Im from Cap District and whenever I visit another city I definitely feel like we are stagnant affff like we aren’t experiencing anything new. As a matter of fact they keep cutting or removing the og stuff. We need to act like a capital for pete’s sake.

I mean it would be nice if they removed that ugly highway that goes under the plaza like it dosent look good for albany.

Blatant Pro-Albany/anti-Troy/Rensselaer-ism. Never once does it occur to these people that the interests of the peoples of surrounding communities who depend upon 787 every day. Imagine living in Troy and watching this. Why do Albanian interests matter and those of Rensselaer and so on with our own nice places to walk down to the river please come visit if that's what you want but Albany's job is to run the state and be a hub and there is plenty of riverside property on the Mohawk and Hudson if that's what you want more here.

Just gotta figure out a way to keep it nice. Your leaving out the fact that South Pearl St is nasty.....

Just imagine the tourism and recreation businesses that can succeed here. If done carefully.

9:21 looks so much better, it’s amazing how destructive that highway is on the city all to save a couple minutes on commute

Who s gonna foot the bill

They really should remove it I go up there a lot and would probably go there more if it just looked more alive

Sounds great if the Hudson wasn't a toxic waste field. No need to show off such a scum filled river. 787 is vital for transportation in upstate NY. We aren't in NYC.

yeah don't think this will ever happen

Automobiles have ruined our country. Not just Albany, but everywhere. I feel sorry for the children who grow up downwind of freeways

Research Altro-Park...Menands.

there are pros and cons to every utopian vision. i'm guessing there were plenty of abandoned warehouses and lots from the time that the waterfront shipping activity declined and people weren't thinking about the waterfront as a beautiful natural playground when they built 787. one potential downside of putting more cars trying to get from A to B at street level with redlight intersections bringing more people to the waterfront for pleasure will be pedestrian and biker injuries/fatalities. there's certainly a lot that can be improved but where is the discussion about making albany a more financially equitable and crime free environment so that more people aren't displaced and further destabilized by these glorious plans? and why are we still complaining about what rockefeller did for downtown albany? he created something unique and architecturally signficant that makes albany stand out. i think it will take a couple more years of rigorous planning and avaluation to avoid making serious and costly mistakes.

Pleasseee get rid of 787, it's absolutely the worst.

Too little too late.... years ago albany had a chance to build crossgates mall along the waterside... it declined

787 is the WORST in NYS. The potholes, the constant construction everywhere. Ughhh

Ummmm has anyone ever walked around in down town Albany ? It’s disgusting. The area they want to “re-due “ is in the middle of the worst crime area in most of upstate NY and surrounded by public housing. Down town is dead after 5 and on the weekends. You can’t walk around without being asked for money. Starbucks left, CVS left... there is not s grocery store within walking distance. How about stop all the shootings and lower taxes and maybe people would like to live in Albany. As of right now there is no reason to live in Albany.

Omg, it's like y'all read my mind the highway needs to go. It's a redundant highway and it lowers property values.

This is just more state funded gentrification. What's next you build housing that nobody that lives here can afford. Further raising rents from the slum lords and pushing more people out. Guarantee that all further housing will be affordable and rent controlled maybe then it would be okay. But this is going to be just like the issue around albany med more development of overpriced apartments that push working class people out and raise our taxes for some ill thought out city planning. This will just be another central ave. If you have lived in albany for any period of time you would know this is a bad idea. To be honest I am only scratching the surface. So many problems with this idea. Removing 787 is not going to solve the socioeconomic issues albany has.

I like highways. I hate rivers. I say we need more highways. Screw waterways that people claim to bring life.

I’m with the plan but the editing of this video pandered too a certain toe of point of view. From the sound effects to the dictation of the narrator. They put a harrowing tone over it.

I live outside of Albany and drive 787 frequently. There are really only two good things about 787: great views of the fireworks on the 4th and the revenue when studios come in to film it. Other than that, it's pointlessly overdone. I'd love to be able to show my kids a beautiful waterfront some day. Hopefully this take off.

one great thing about roads entering down town is they are rarely congested for long throughout the day and I for one love the design as is this video selling point that of aesthetic is a weak attempt. Are the good people of Albany in an uproar over the limited access to the waterfront which is in disarray and for the most part foliage block the view of the river again who on either side of the river is concern for lack of visibility or accessibility no one.

I dont care what we do with the highway. But if you reduce the price of a parking ticket from $50(!!!!) to something like $25 I'll vote for it guaranteed.

albany is a river town. 787 needs to go. it is a blight on my hometown. as is the south mall.

I was born and raised in Albany. My parents told me how 787 ruined their neighborhood they grew up in. They lived by the DMV. They were forced to move north in north Albany. Hopefully they tear down 787 and put it on the ground.

Nice idea. So let me guess with this move if it were to happen . I'd have to leave my house if I live north of the twin bridges at 1 am . Because the traffic will be backed up to Lake placid on the Northway.

All my homies HATE 787😤💯🤬

Sounds like a terrible idea in reality... sounds cool on paper. We're going to regret this even more.

Very informative. Was this music necessary? I was waiting for a "jump scare".

I don't live in Albany or have business in Albany and unfortunately this would make me avoid Albany altogether if I was not able to get through it quickly.

better let state workers telecommute 100% if this happens or else your pretty boulevard is going to be a parking lot

The Hudson River is toxic bro

The highways are overpowering. I think what is missing from this documentary is the volume of traffic that uses the highway daily. It’s far more than shaving “three minutes” off travel time. For many people using the highway they are likely saving more than three minutes of travel time. Reimagining 787 will not automatically decrease the volume of traffic. It reminds me of when businesses want to open in a community in the first thing residents complain about is the volume of traffic. While I can see some benefits, a documentary should be open and explore what increased traffic congestion would mean to the city and it’s residents .

And how do you control against displacing existing people and against raising costs of living?

If you want to fix Albany move the capitol back to NYC . Then you can tear it all down and start from scratch. building roads under the traffic to the waterfront is a great idea! putting traffic at ground level and making a bumper to bumper nightmare are you kidding? are you talking about traffic lights and walking across traffic to get to the river? Oh I can see it now mom and two kids run down by tractor trailer truck trying to make the light crossing 787. That would probably happen at least twice a year. So a ten year average of 60 lives lost crossing 787 yeah I guess that would work after all it is for the greater good of us all. At this time there is two panhandlers at the corner when I get off 787. I think this idea should support at least 300 panhandlers but on the brite side we might be able to get our wlndshields washed while we wait in traffic!

All the sewage plants dump into the Hudson stinks

🤣

I think if they destroyed 787 and those horrible looking towers that Rockerfeller built it could look beautiful.