Residents Weigh in on 10-Block Downtown Attraction
The open space under I-20/59 in downtown Birmingham will cover 10 blocks once the massive bridge replacement project is completed. Designers and Alabama Department of Transportation officials are getting public input today at the Boutwell Auditorium. Other feedback sessions are set for July 24.
Ben Donsky, who works with the New York-based planning and programming group for CityWalk Birmingham, says there’s an opportunity to do things not tried elsewhere. “We’re open to all types of innovative ideas. I was just discussing with a gentleman new technology that would even allow us to grow plants underneath the highway.”
Some people at the morning session said they want to see more parking to accommodate the BJCC and the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Peggy Balliet is a museum supporter. She says she welcomes more green space and amenities, but she wants more museum parking.
Balliet says the parking underneath the interstate in the back of the museum has been blocked off for quite some time. She says it creates a problem because too often the museum’s lot cannot accommodate all of the visitors.
Wendy Chou of Fultondale is a skater and wants a skate park underneath the bridge.
“There’s no space around here for us,” she says. “They can take this and do several things, not just one big thing, and it will bring in businesses and people.”
Paul Godbey of Southside doesn’t want a park built under the bridge. He says the space should be used for parking to accommodate the new stadium and expansion at the BJCC.
“The people who live in Fountain Heights and Druid Hills have parks they want to see repaired,” Godbey says.
DeJarvis Leonard of ALDOT says federal and state funds are available for CityWalk. He says it will be completed by Spring 2021 before the start of the World Games in Birmingham.
Alabama coal mine keeps digging after hundreds of fines and a fatal explosion
Following the death of a grandfather, Crimson Oak Grove Resources has left a community afraid for their homes and lives. An expert warns one resident may need to evacuate her home while she still can.
Florida’s 6-week abortion ban will have a ‘snowball effect’ on residents across the South
Abortion rights advocates say the ban will likely force many to travel farther for abortion care and endure pregnancy and childbirth against their will.
Attitudes among Alabama lawmakers softening on Medicaid expansion
Alabama is one of ten states which has not expanded Medicaid. Republican leaders have pushed back against the idea for years.
Birmingham is 3rd worst in the Southeast for ozone pollution, new report says
The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report shows some metro areas in the Gulf States continue to have poor air quality.
Why haven’t Kansas and Alabama — among other holdouts — expanded access to Medicaid?
Only 10 states have not joined the federal program that expands Medicaid to people who are still in the "coverage gap" for health care
Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing
Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected.
