Meeting on Ill-Fated Mississippi Bridge Tuesday, November 8th
The next public meeting on the over-sized and over-priced Mississippi River Bridge will be held later today — Tuesday, November 8th. From a recent mailer:
“A new, more economical design concept for the New Mississippi River Bridge Project has been developed. The Missouri Department of Transportation invites you to learn more about the new concept and to comment.”
A recent Post-Dispatch story makes you wonder if the project will ever get off the ground:
“Missouri had always said, ‘Let Congress pay for it,'” Missouri Transportation Director Pete Rahn said Tuesday. “This is a project that had never been on our front burner.”
Rahn and his counterparts in Illinois are at odds over how to pay for the bistate link they say is needed to alleviate worsening rush-hour and truck traffic between St. Louis and the Metro East area. While Illinois has devoted several million dollars to design and other work in recent years, the bridge does not exist in Missouri’s five-year plan.
Once estimated to cost $1.6 billion, the bridge project could cost $910 million if a scaled-back version gets federal approval.
Missouri and Illinois congressional delegations secured $239 million in federal money for the project. Illinois Transportation Secretary Tim Martin has said his state can afford its share of the remainder. That leaves Missouri with about a $350 million bill, Rahn said.
“We have no dollars to commit to this project right now,” Rahn said.
Missouri is pushing for tolls to pay their share but Illinois says no. Maybe we’ll be lucky and this massive bridge to more sprawl project will finally be abandoned. But the mayor’s website says, “The new bridge will be built.”
The mayor’s site also says, “The new bridge would be good for Downtown and for the City of St. Louis.” Really? How exactly? Oh yes, the theory is some of the development happening in Western St. Louis County and St. Charles County will happen in the metro East instead. How is that good for downtown and the city?
Previously the mayor had indicated the new bridge would make it easier for people to get to us. Right. Easier to get downtown. Or perhaps easier to leave downtown? Yeah, that is it. I certainly don’t see a new bridge, costing nearly a billion dollars, helping improve our neighborhoods.
So what about the Page Avenue Extension from St. Louis County into St. Charles County. Does anyone actually think the bridge helps St. Louis County by making it easier to get there from St. Charles County? Doubtful. Our Metropolitan Planning Agency, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, expects sprawling St. Charles County to add 93,600 residents in the next 25 years while St. Louis County will lose 13,900 residents in the same period. The patterns are clear – the Page Avenue bridge is used to get people from St. Charles County into St. Louis County. St. Louis County must do all they can not to lose workplaces and retail outlets to St. Charles County.
Another bridge from Illinois to Missouri can have the same results. I’ve seen nothing to prove St. Louis City would benefit from this new bridge. One might argue we’ll gain some money simply from the construction process but if we need to create massive building projects to create jobs lets do it in the form of new housing. Congestion is a claim for the new bridge but even that comes into question. The same report from East-West Gateway, named Legacy 2030: The Transportation Plan for the Gateway Region, indicates St. Louis ranks below average in congestion. Their congestion maps show severe morning congestion on the Poplar Street Bridge (PSB) into Missouri and then on I-64/Hwy 40 Eastbound into Illinois in the afternoon. It also shows severe congestion in relatively new interchanges such as I-64 & I-270.
From the propaganda site promoting the new bridge:
The economic future of the urban core on both sides of the river depends on the efficient movement of goods and services, and the ability of people to simply get to work. Transportation paralysis will force businesses, jobs and new growth out of the urban core. An improved highway system at the heart of the Bi-state will help to revitalize downtown St. Louis, the north riverfront and the Metro East area, notably East St. Louis and the National Stockyards redevelopment area. By the year 2020, the 90-minute period of rush-hour congestion will double to three hours. Average delays will increase from 10 to 55 minutes.
East-West Gateway says Madison & St. Clair Counties in Illinois will add 35,200 residents between now and 2020. This is an increase of just under 7%. And from what I can tell these estimates are based on the new bridge being built. As a whole our region is expected to increase in population about 6.4% between now and 2020. So how is it our 90 minute rush hour becomes three hours? Or delays go from 10 minutes to 55 minutes? Part of the answer is the estimate is that more younger people will be driving but we’ll also have an older population that most likely won’t be driving. The answer is that our urban policies will continue to encourage people to drive single occupancy vehicles and live further and further from the center of the region.
Illinois is the one paying for the bridge website and likely more than half the other expenses. Why? They have the most to gain. The idea this bridge will help renovate downtown St. Louis and East St. Louis is false. In Illinois this will help those in sprawling subdivisions continue driving long distances to work in their SUVs but now with the added benefit of not having to actually drive through East St. Louis on the highway. I can see this new bridge being used by people in suburban Illinois to drive to St. Charles County — bypassing the areas that are supposed to benefit from this bridge.
If Illinois officials and St. Louis officials were genuinely concerned about the core of the region being competitive they’d be fighting sprawl throughout the region. They can start with THF Realty’s proposed development on a large tract of land in Belleville Illinois for a Wal-Mart anchored strip center. From a recent Post-Dispatch story:
The 140-acre site is at Green Mount Road and Carlyle Avenue. Green Mount is one of the hottest growth corridors in the Metro East. Carlyle is a main thoroughfare to Scott Air Force Base.
The site that THF Realty wants to develop is bounded by MetroLink tracks and is across the street from the Southwestern Illinois College campus; a new YMCA is next door.
It seems to be prime development property. And THF is getting the land at a bargain-basement $50,000 an acre. Developers just to the north have paid more than three times that to build large stores.
Yet, without $19.8 million in tax breaks, of which about $11.3 million will be the equivalent of TIF financing, the developer argues that it would not make financial sense to do the project, which also includes 357 houses.
Imagine the possibilities of a 140 acre site next to MetroLink. This is an excellent opportunity for a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) that would allow residents to take MetroLink to work in St. Louis or after next year, Clayton. But, THF will squander the proximity — just like they did on Hanley Road in Maplewood.
Increased transit ridership comes only when it is more convenient than using a car. This bridge will discourage use of our existing mass transit as well as reducing calls for expansion of the system. The transportation project that will have the single greatest positive impact on the City of St. Louis would be the Northside & Southside MetroLink lines. Period.
Mayor Slay — if you want to get something built forget about the riverfront and this bridge — go for more MetroLink. By 2030 you’ll be seen as a hero rather than the guy that frittered away millions on floating islands in the Mississippi River.
For my prior post on the new Mississippi Bridge, click here. Today’s preview of the latest bridge design will be held at Webster Middle School, 2127 N. 11th, St. Louis MO 63106.
– Steve
The mayor’s thinking is tainted by an acceptance that people will inevitably choose to live outside the City, and we must make it easy for them to come in for work or entertainment.
That fundamental acceptance needs to be challenged. I believe the City is attractive enough on its own merits that we need to get over the “please come visit” mentality and assert ourselves. If you chose to live elsewhere, that’s your loss.
Until reading your post, I had never considered the new bridge’s role in creating a continuous highway route between sprawl in exurban St. Claire & Madison counties and sprawl in St. Charles County. You are absolutely right that the bridge will allow the exurbanites to visit each other easier without having to engage urban areas. Sheesh. I hate the bridge even more now.
Could you imagine what $1 billion could do for North St. Louis alone? We could invest that money into making our neighborhoods safer, seriously improving our public school system, mass transit, a trolly system, better metro-link coverage, renovating buildings… I could think of a hundred better ways to spend $1 billion that would truly benefit the city.
Where is the outrage, public demonstrations, storming city hall, etc. on this issue. I think a valid and compelling argument can be made that we don’t need either the bridge or the Highway 40 expansion, but there is mostly silence. This is what aggrivates me about the anti-eminent domain issue and its activists. It is low hanging fruit.
The two mega projects are bigger issues and involve massive eminent domain and negativly affects the many more that are left living in the immediate area, but I don’t see anyone rallying the troops. Because it is big government not “greedy” developers now everbody sits on their hands?
I think this is the fundemental flaw in the anti Eminent Domain battle. I’ve been to some meetings and everyone concedes the power of eminent domain to the government to build “roads, schools and police departments” (BTW when was the last time a government used eminent domain to build a school). Believe me “greedy” developers are benefiting plenty from these two benevolent government projects. But that’s OK because “greedy” developers aren’t “taking” people’s homes.
The problem is not eminent domain, its bad projects and these are two bad ones.
If it does happen perhaps this is an opportunity to solve this issue of the I-70 Depressed Section. Just shut it down and fill it in and knock down the elevated section that cuts North Downtown from Lacledes Landing.
There is no need to connect 40 to 70 in downtown. That decision can be made by drivers 5 miles to the east in Illinois.
Now 40 is no longer an Interstate it is just US 40 as it should be – a local access parkway. The resulting reduction in through traffic makes the expansion of 40 unecessary.
I can dream, but I don’t think this is a bad idea.
Matt,
That’s a great idea that is perfectly reasonable. Eliminating the connection between I-70 and I-64/40 would be a great step forward and the best result of a new bridge. But the planners of the bridge are only thinking about more paved planetary surface, not less.