Highway revolt
While anti-freeway/anti-road activism in Australia has not been as vocal as in North America, small-scale revolts against freeway construction have occurred in Sydney and Melbourne, with many protesting toll collection.
One of the largest protests occurred in 2008 in Kensington, one of the areas most impacted by the proposed East-West road connection; it drew wider support due to opposition to the Eddington Transport Report.
[4] In 1969, plans called for Alberta Highway 2 to continue into Edmonton, akin to the Deerfoot Trail in Calgary, using 91 Street then descending into the Mill Creek Ravine.
However, residents along Mill Creek as well as many others who did not wish to have portions of the river valley destroyed at the expense of a freeway opposed the plans and, as such, they were never completed.
This explains the bizarre look of the James MacDonald Bridge's nearby interchange, which was only meant to be temporary, however serves in its original state today.
[5] In Halifax, Nova Scotia the construction of an elevated waterfront freeway, Harbour Drive, was halted in the 1970s after local opposition to the proposed destruction of many historic buildings.
All that remains of the project today is the Cogswell Interchange, a massive concrete structure widely considered a barrier between sections of the city.
At that time, a historical preservation movement involving figures such as Sandy van Ginkel and Phyllis Lambert prevented a project to run the Ville-Marie Expressway along the waterfront of the Old Port, which would have demolished much of the then-unloved Old Montreal and cut the city off from the river.
Since then, Old Montreal has undergone significant rehabilitation and is now a desirable residential and commercial district and the city's leading tourist area.
In recent years, protests took place regarding a proposal to extend the Ville-Marie in the axis of Rue Notre-Dame Est, as an 8-lane entrenched highway that would separate the residential neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve from the St. Lawrence River.
The highway was also supposed to run right through the Saint Lawrence River, until pressure from Beauport residents forced its rerouting to the shore.
Suburbs grew along existing highway corridors, stretching the city east and west, and then northward along the various provincial superhighways.
By the mid-1960s, there was a growing awareness that the growth of the suburbs led to a flight of capital from the city cores, resulting in the urban decay being seen throughout the US.
While the opposition was growing, Jane Jacobs moved to Toronto after having successfully rallied groups to cancel the construction of the Lower Manhattan Expressway in New York City.
Applying the same formula in Toronto, Jacobs rallied local groups to oppose development of the Spadina Expressway project, while twice being arrested in the process.
[13] On June 3, 1971, Premier Bill Davis rose in the Provincial Legislature and stated, "Cities were built for people and not cars.
By the time the prototype was ready for service in the early 1980s, changes in the provincial government ended support for the entire GO-Urban project.
An attempt was made in 1995 to revive part of the project, adding three lanes of traffic to the north shore; it was also killed by public protest.
The conflicting opinions of the City of Vancouver's residents, as represented by their successive councils, and the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation continue in 2013.
By 1965, the MTO had completed construction of Highway 401 from the south end of Windsor to the Thousand Islands Parkway and onward to the Quebec border.
Expropriation of nearby properties began in the late 2000s for Highway 401's extension to a new border crossing, the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting with I-75 in Detroit.
In Utrecht, plans to build the A27 led to years of protests and juridical procedures, with a big demonstration occurring in October 1978.
