This spring Ian Coss, host of GBH News’ “The Big Dig” podcast, embarked on a cross-country tour for a series of live shows covering projects to redress the harmful effects of urban highways. The result was “The Highway Teardown Tour”: a twelve episode-long podcast series of “The Big Dig” featuring local elected officials, activists, journalists,and residents affected by infrastructure (or the lack thereof) in their communities. From Syracuse to Seattle, Austin to Baltimore and beyond, this special series, released weekly throughout the summer, brings the show’s signature intrigue and investigative deep dives from coast to coast and plenty of stops in between.
We sat down with Coss to discuss his experiences of the tour, the shared issues that accompany urban highways in their twilight years (or well beyond them), and the ways people and cities are trying to address the scars these roadways have left on their neighborhoods.
How did the tour come about?
Sort of by accident, sort of by design. After the first season of “The Big Dig” (which covered the infamous infrastructure project in Boston), I was invited to moderate a panel about covering up highways at a conference in Portland, Oregon in 2025. Since I was going all the way out there, I thought it would be nice to do something more public-facing — because this was kind of an industry conference for people in transportation, city-planning, etc.
I reached out to Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland and KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station) and asked if they would have any interest in a live conversation event about highways in their cities. The response from both stations was so strong and positive; they had listened to “The Big Dig” and were thinking about these issues.
Since the original season, I’ve gotten emails from people in other cities saying, “Have you heard about this highway project we have in Baltimore/St. Louis/Austin/Toledo?” Because of these responses, I understood that this issue of what to do with old highways is a truly universal one that every city is grappling with in their own way — and that this could be a series we take on the road.
What do you think the live dynamic added to the show?
One, this story is so place-based; these highways are such a core experience of what it means to live in Louisville, or Rochester, or Philadelphia. As a listener, even though you’re not in the room, these live tapings really help reinforce the sense that you are in that place.
Part of the point of the live taping was to go out and engage with our audience. But I also thought of it as a relationship-building tour with other public media stations. Over the past year, there’s been a lot of anxiety in the public media system, so I found it really heartening to go out and meet reporters, events staff, and producers at other stations. And the response from our partner stations was just amazing everywhere we went. It was such a great experience.
How did you select locations for the tour?
There were a few places where I knew there were really interesting stories — Rochester and Syracuse, for example. In the case of a city like Louisville, it wasn’t on my radar initially, but our executive producer Devin Robins knew a manager at a station there and thought it might be something they’d be excited about. We made the connection, and then of course, it turns out Louisville has this fascinating highway story. Going back to the universality of it — you really could pick any 12 cities and get 12 interesting stories about highways.
We wanted some amount of geographic representation too. We went to red states, blue states, coastal states, and interior states, because we wanted to get different perspectives on the issues.
What did you find compelling about outdated highways as a subject?
For one, we are in this extended moment when a lot of the highways built in the 50s through the 70s are aging out. So it is really a moment in time to rethink how — or if — we build highways in cities.
The other thing is just how divisive the issue is, even in places where the highway is falling apart. Everybody knows something needs to be done — It’s not working well for transportation, it’s not working well for the people living around it — but finding consensus proves really difficult. Reimagining how highways function and exist is very contentious work.
The basic challenge is the same everywhere: we built huge highways through the very centers of our cities. Somebody said to me, “Highways physically divided cities, separating neighborhoods or waterfronts. But they also left behind real political and social divides, rendering it very hard to make decisions about what to do with them.” This is partly because they involve all these interest groups, cities, states, and the federal government. The BQE in New York City is a good example. Everyone agrees it’s a huge problem, but nobody can make a decision on how to address it: the mayor, the governor, everyone’s paralyzed by it.
What in the course of this season surprised you?
I don’t think I fully appreciated how many efforts there were — serious efforts, like in Seattle — to just remove highways altogether, reclaim that space, and find a different purpose for it. When the Big Dig got started in Boston back in the 70s, the idea of removing a highway and not replacing it was unthinkable. It’s interesting to see how the conversation has changed, as has the scope of what’s possible.
One of the big themes is that the first generation of elevated highways built in the 50s, 60s, and 70s — they’re all aging out. We encountered it in Philadelphia, Syracuse, Seattle, and of course Boston.
Part of the challenge is that those original elevated highways were not well-built in terms of transportation function — little to no breakdown or merging lines, tight curves.
That creates a challenge for the city and state because often, in order to rebuild it correctly, you have to make it bigger. That involves taking more housing, land, and expanding the footprint of the city. It stirs up a lot of debate. That’s something I hadn’t anticipated: in a lot of these places, maintaining the status quo is not really an option. You’re either rebuilding it bigger or rethinking it entirely.
Do you have any specific favorite moments from the tour?
Most of the events were held in a library, a studio, or an auditorium, but our stop in Philadelphia was really unique. We were struggling to find the right partner and venue for it, so I talked with somebody at WHYY (Philadelphia’s NPR station) and he said, “We could do it at this place called the Pen and Pencil Club.” I’d never heard of it, but it is the oldest continuously operating press club in the United States. It’s essentially a members-only bar for journalists on a side street in downtown Philadelphia. You would have to know it’s there.
So there we all were — a former Secretary of Transportation for the State of Pennsylvania, a bunch of reporters from The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a great crew of guests — packed into this cozy dive with a self-serve crock pot full of hot dogs, and we had this awesome conversation. It was just a really fun setting.
What were your hopes going into this season, and what do you hope listeners leave with?
My hope is that if you live in a city we visited, you appreciate the opportunity to come together and have these important conversations with people. By hearing about the work in places like Providence or Syracuse, you can see community efforts that are instructive and even replicable.
This series feels very grounded in the moment and practical. You can listen to it and wherever you live, it might give you an idea for what could happen to the highway in your city.
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