You've just read some ideas of what these goals mean. Here is what we other people have told us:

Improve public safety

• less vehicle accidents. Easier access for individuals using non-vehicle modes of transport
• Fix pot holes. Use sand, not salt, on roads.
• Should focus on protecting speedy access for emergency vehicles (examppl, ambulance going to the hospital
• Improve 690E to 81S interchange, route away from Adams Street exit.
• Immediate -- not 5 years! Add working street lights and crosswalks on Almond Street.
• Mechanism needs to be in place to force landowners to plow/shovel sidewalks so people can walk from bus stop at Salina to offices (Erie Blvd. Fayette for example).
• Fewer accidents
• reduce the number of on and off ramps
• Make bike lanes, wide sidewalks and safe crossings
• Ban cars!
• Driver awareness of pedestrians and cyclists. Training of cyclists in urban cycling. Lower the speed limit
• Be able to walk and bike without worry of being killed
• How about pedestrian bridges near hospital?
• Crossing underneath the overpasses of I81 and I690 are scary, and uninviting, not to mention dangerous from just the traffic, and the garbage and broken glass that piles up underneath them. People (who do walk) would rather drive then walk through that mess.
• This is a huge concern, as I must walk underneath the highway every day. With the highway gone or buried, the area around the viaduct will be much safer to walk.

Enhance the transportation network

• More connectivity. Access, not speed
• We need much better bus service. How about routes that start and end without going downtown?
• This should be used as an opportunity to consider a workable regional commuter transit system. Centro is stigmatized, justly or not. But we all know our continued reliance on automobiles is unsustainable.
• Easier to use bus routes, possible train solutions between locations. Easier parking
• Repair pot holes.
• We need 50--55 MPH thru the City.
• Use this opportunity to develop a regional workable commuter transport system to get cars off the road, reduce gas consumption, and save the world!
• We need a light rail system.
• Western bypass highway.
• This is not important if this means fix the viaduct.
• Total transportation planning (not just 81): -Use less salt. -Fix potholes. -Synchronize lights. -Light rail.
• Substantial public "rental" program for bikes, scooters, small cars, etc.
• More transit options
• make it possible to connect from the airport or the train to the Eds and Meds downtown via public transport
• Be able to navigate easily between N, S, W, E
• Improve Centro service to level of 1950s. The cost of adding service should be paid for with public money. When and if the public responds, the added ridership would be self sustaining
• Must easily address how to go on 81 N from west (Rt. 5)
• Enhance the local transportation network - use this project as an opportunity to reclaim & enhance the city street systems, the city pedestrian environment, and alternative modes of travel
• Maintain it!
• Reduce susceptibility to flooding and effects of power loss
• Mass transit!
• promote alternative transportation modes (bike, walk) within downtown
• We really need to step up our public transportation and ways around the city and the hill. Bike paths, pleasant safe places to walk, that are maintained in the winter would be great. Open to all kinds of ideas here.

Enhance region-wide mobility

• Inter-urban train service
• Interconnected system of transportation allowing individuals that use services in the city alternatives to their auto
• Incorporate a Mag-Lev along Route 90 corridor.
• Improve Centro -- It needs to transport people from Cortland and Madison County into Syracuse. Commuters aren't all from Onondaga County.
• Bikes, bikes, bikes!!!
• Pass state legislation allowing/forcing NYSDOT to fund bus systems to operate across county lines. Now DOT is very reluctant to fund such.
• This project should be a showcase to highlight the City (it needs it) by balancing green space and improving quality of life with maintenance of traffic.
• Intermodal connections with transit and rail.
• Protect current (speedy) access to hospitals.
• Faster speed limit. More cops patrolling.
• Easy, quick access to key destinations. Make transportation through city easy.
• Keep Syracuse a "20 minute" city
• use 481 to go around city or pay to use tunnel
• Could walkable options based on travel time to CBD or University Hill/hospitals from various points in metro area
• Improve access from western areas of metropolitan area
• Keep I-81 flowing non-stop north to south
• I81 shouldn't be a route to go through the city. People are so upset when they have to go an extra 3 miles. When I go to Cicero I take 481, because it's about the same time, I can travel fast, and yeah, it's extra miles, but so what.

Maintain or improve economic opportunities

• Whatever you decide, employ more minorities
• More traffic on city streets = more customers for businesses
• I'll second this: more traffic on city streets = more customers for businesses. Design for that to happen when you tear down I-81
• More small business downtown. More medium size businesses downtown. More green businesses downtown
• easier access for companies to invest and develop their business ideas and expand within the area
• If Route 81 is removed in Syracuse and the existing grid system is improved, more real estate will be avaialble. The "newly released" real estate can be used for stores, hotels, houses, etc. Possibly some parks. Transportation will be a little slower to the benefit of Central New York.
• Keep transportation costs in and around the region as low as possible.
• Use transportation to promote development downtown
• New openness with 81 barrier removed will encourage new development
• Use any land made available downtown through diversion to I-481 to promote economic development downtown (i.e. Class A office space).
• Consider economic development possibilities that strengthen the city core, which is also the regional core
• Bring suburban population back to the city
• Bring people through the city at a reasonable speed
• Downtown and the hill don't mix because of the daunting, scary, travel underneath. If it were gone, and replaced with walkable space, retail places, such as restaurants, and stores would develop.
• The removal or burying of the highway will spur economic development around downtown.

Preserve or enhance environmental health

• Find and implement sustainable sources of energy. Let's go green
• Use the redesign of 81 as a catalyst for sustainable development and design
• Create energy efficient (LEED) and water conserving low-income housing
• Seek out more partners - SU? SUNY Env? Habitat for Humanity? C.O.E Housing visions?
• create construction in a non-poluting design
• Be green! Offer light transit to outliying areas!
• Build it with green in mind.
• New environmental law: Plant 2 trees for every registered car in Onondaga county
• Improve air quality along I-81
• Enhanced green-space and air quality
• Reduce noise pollution! The subconscious stress caused by noise pollution has serious health impacts on urban residents
• Rethinking urban canopy, green space, whole landscape in overall challenge
• Consider reducing asthma impacts, currently high in the central city and south side
• Reduce urban heat island effect
• This could be redesigned to be a unique model of environmental health. With the use of green strategies for air and water filtering. i.e green swales on a large scale?
• See above.

Support community quality of life

• Regenerating loop: small businesses - sidewalks - walkable communities - more people to shop and an attractive street level
• Integrate I-81 and housing issues
• Create sustainable urban agro-friendly, bike/pedestrian friendly housing
• Re-envision, recreate those awful projects
• Enhance current area - repave streets (Almond Street). Put in street trees to beautify areas under I-81. Create parks and put in lighting
• Make this place walkable and a place I actually want to walk around
• don't just build a basic design. Use out of the box methods of making it look more appealing to the area - instead of just a big concrete wall.
• Redevelop the "bricks" into a park -- so poor people don't have to live so cloase to an asthma causing main highway!
• Improve connectivity within city. Better environment for walking and biking.
• Make it easier to cross Almond St. while walking to the Hospital District.
• Develop a dynamic/green/fresh region.
• Positively impact city environment and schools.
• Make sure that public housing is not negatively affected -- avoid another 15th Ward issue.
• Need to reduce barrier between "the Hill" and downtown.
• Make the highway more attractive and less of a barrier
• if bridges are built, can they be made more attractive, like the ones in Maryland?
• Must make sure that surrounding communities DO NOT deteriorate
• Equally important to structural change is integration. If we do not include the impoverished and uneducated into this entire process it will inevitably fail.
• Promote walking, bicycling, urban mass transit and green space (parks in I-81 area)
• sidewalks, benches, bike lanes, maybe winter skating lane?
• Not have I-81 as a divider
• Promote infill of downtown vacant spaces. Promote urban village (residential development and supporting services)
• This should not be all about the University and nonsense about being cut off from downtown. There's no barbed wire across sidewalks!
• The project could improve regional quality of life by reclaiming a lost portion of urban land, creating an iconic component to the physical and mental image of our community
• Providing an attractive pedestrian zone to the city is extremely vital for making Syracuse a competitive, vibrant city in the 21st Century
• People oriented spaces - not designing without considering pedestrians and landscape design
• It will be a nicer place, instead of an industrial wasteland.

Exercise fiscal responsibility

• This does not come from any additional taxpayer fees
• My main concern is the lasck of institutional capacity to achieve a solution (i.e., archaic local governments).
• Solutions with lower long-term maintenance (no viaducts or tunnels).
• Use highly trained construction inspectors and hold contractors firmly accountable.
• Minimize operating costs
• stop wasting money on unused infrastructure, like the 2 Mattydale bridges over the thruway.
• Do not raise property taxes
• Cost effective: 1) Designate 481 as new I-81 - improve 481/81 interchanges north of the city. 2) Terminate existing 81 into City (I-81 south and I-81 north) like Octavia boulevard case study option
• Share costs - Use EZPass to pay for state of the art tunnel and green-space that can adequately sustain our climate conditions. If we want this kind of easy high-speed access, we should share the cost.
• How does water get pumped out of a tunnel or depressed roadway in a reliable manner during severe weather events? Air quality in a tunnel? Trash in a depressed cut?
• Well, we have to do that. However, with the amount of money we have given to that mall, I can hardly say that we are fiscally responsible.

Share burden and benefits

• Government cuts their spending and does NOT keep increasing taxes on individuals.
• Solution needs to connect poor to city and resources, not isolate as they are now.
• Whatever is done should not be done on back of poor and minority communities again.
• Don't repeat what happened with the 15th Ward
• How about a commuter tax on all who work in Syracuse?
• Use EZPass to pay for state of the art tunnel and green-space that can adequately sustain our climate conditions. If we want this kind of easy high-speed access, we should share the cost.
• Make this an asset to the community. Move the highway out, bring pedestrians and businesses in.
• Deep historical costs that need to be addressed
• Lets become a national model of how to do this right
• I don't know what you mean by this. No matter what we do, it's all shared, except for the people at the top. There really are nothing but benefits for the city. The people in the suburbs might complain, but they develop their own properties, like tearing down the Fayetteville mall and putting up a parking lot. Funny, when I hear "plaza" I think of something like in Italy where people walk on the plaza, not where people park their car walk to one store, get back in their car, and drive to another spot in the "plaza" and go to another store.