Turning I-64/Hwy 40 From Interstate to Boulevard from the River to Kingshighway
I-64 in the St Louis region is getting a makeover costing hundreds of millions of dollars. We are about to enter the second phase of reconstruction with the closing from Kingshighway to I-170 and the reopening from I-170 West to Ballas. I think we need to look at the section from Kingshighway to the Poplar Street Bridge (PSB).
Much of the Eastern stretch in the city is double decker with the lower section going Eastbound and the upper section going Westbound. This happens in two different places between the river and Kingshighway. Highways are a major barrier in older cities that were fully developed before the highway sliced through. Double decker highways are as much of a physical barrier and even more of a visual barrier than single level highways.
We need to reconnect our city and heal the scars created by highway construction. Lately I’ve focused this thought on the section of I-70 downtown between the PSB and the new proposed river bridge (see, Reconnecting St Louis to the Mississippi: Don’t Cover the Highway, 86 It from July). Removing that stretch of highway will enable downtown to reconnect with the river.
Similarly, Highway 40 creates a barrier between North & South. It runs along the south edge of downtown creating a barrier to further development.
My proposal is similar to that of Oklahoma City. There they are building a new stretch of I-40 just south of the current elevated roadway (I-40 Crosstown). They are sticking with interstate because if you are going East-West on I-40 you have few alternative options. The right-of-way for the old interstate will become a boulevard.
For St Louis I propose we use the parking/rail area to the South of the existing highway to create a new tree-lined boulevard/parkway.
The old right-of-way could once again become city street.
If you look at a map of the St Louis region you see that East-West through traffic on I-64 takes you to I-70. Those going West on I-64 with the plan to head Southwest on I-44 can use I-255 to loop around the core. Those traveling East-West on I-70 can use I-270 through the Northern part of the region. The more we can redirect traffic that is just passing through the better off we’ll be. This lets the existing corridors be about local traffic only. And boulevards/parkways like Forest Park Parkway can carry quite a bit of local traffic.
Of course with all the federal money going into the New I-64, my idea will never happen. In the middle of the 20th Century planners envisioned great expanses of highways. So I should be free to dream as big.
This stretch of I-64 with the elevated sections will not last forever. Over the last few years a lot of work has gone into maintenance and strengthening in case of earthquake. That will give the double decker elevated freeway a longer lifespan but eventually it will come down. It may take 50 years, but that stretch of road was not built to last indefinitely. I want to ensure that before we build something else in the railroad bed that we consider our future needs.
Highway 40 is a joke and being made more ridiculous by the New 64. Your main point, the highway divides north/side, is just as bad and even worse in areas west of Kingshighway. It creates barriers that inevitably leads to more traffic, noise, pollution, etc. Pedestrian bridges that use to exist west of Kingshighway have been permanently eliminated. MoDOT cares more about truckers than urban dwellers and brags about their large ramps in the New 64. You can’t fix stupid.
Aren’t those rail lines/yard still in use?
I was waiting for someone to suggest this 🙂
The bit of hwy 40 west of Kingshighway, south of Forest Park (including the “new and improved” entrance and exit ramps) is the most irritating to me. Neighborhoods that would otherwise be adjacent to Forest Park are completely severed from it by the highway. I say we rip it out all the way to Skinker.
I vote we make it a long transit park all the way from the Mississippi to the Missouri. I would like to see it become a metrolink/bike right of way. Closing it from 170 to 270 hasn’t caused much of a problem at all.
I’m going to be a contrarian . . . the last thing downtown needs now is another way to ooze out to the south, as if having “Highway 40 . . . creating a barrier to further development” is a bad thing. Successful downtowns are dense, bustling areas. If Highway 40 acts as a barrier and forces us to become more dense, then that’s great! And beware the law of unintended consequences. Giving the city a wide right of way doesn’t guarantee a quality boulevard. We already have multiple broad streets headed west from downtown. What we don’t have are the resources to make them better/more pedestrian friendly, much less any money to construct a new one.
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That said, I do like the larger concept, although the financial hurdles are significant. The one big change I’d make is to dump the whole boulevard concept and bring back (or introduce) a finer, block-by-block street grid, matching the areas to the north. Whether it emulates the Pearl District in Portland or either Commons Park or Stapleton in Denver, we need to create neighborhoods, not ways to move suburbanites out of downtown. And building a new freeway where the tracks are now would be easier than trying to rebuild the existing alignment, and should be more than adequate to carry the necessary traffic volumes.
Destroying neighborhoods will make us more dense too, mentally and physically. Let’s not kid ourselves, dreaming that MoDOT cares about creating livable streets and prosperous neighborhoods is not a priority for those concern with asphalt, not people. Quality boulevards in Chicago, NY, Paris, Berlin, and other great cities prove their record of success. Highways and wide thoroughfares destroy density and the ability for surrounding neighborhoods to prosper in the long run.
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Steve, I think you should put together your wish list of what the city should look like. What would you do if money wasn’t a problem? I am not asking what you would do if you had a magic wand and eraser. I am not interest in ideas like completely rerouting highways to the perfect location and making up new rail lines. But what if you could take what we have now and fix it.
Personally, I wouldn’t get too drastic. I would put the new rive bridge closer to O’fallon Park and connect in IL north of the speedway. This would free up the current lanes to downtown to become a boulevard. A trolley line running on olive (to start off a system). A metrolink line running north bto ellefontaine and south to mehlville. And to top it off, I would love to see an entire neighboord of new brownstones north of downtown around st louis place park in the vast abandonness. I believe that all of these are possible, affordable, and would drastically change the landscape of the city.
For the metro area, I would obviously like to see a huge expansion of metrolink to include old st charles, westport, chesterfield, kirkwood, etc. But we can leave the disscussion to just the city proper.
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How about simply overhauling our stupid zoning code? That would be almost free (hire a new chief for Planning and Urban Design to fill the existing vacancy and change her with the job) and foundational to making a better city.
Why not use the existing “Boulevards” of Market and Chouteau. Just west of Vandeventer, motorists could split between a new at-grade boulevard connection to Market at Compton or the existing exit to Chouteau. As for motorists coming from the Poplar Street Bridge, more lanes are needed anyway to/from I-44/55. Combine a doubling of lanes to those ramps with the conversion of the depressed section of I-70 into a boulevard, and the remaining lane capacity coming off the PSB could just be a Downtown exit, say to 4th and Broadway. Then, PSB commuters (trips through the region should be using the beltway as a true bypass) bound for CWE and Clayton (if not taking MetroLink) could use either the new Memorial Boulevard or any other N-S streets such as the already wide 4th/Broadway couplet to access Chouteau or Market.
Don’t think tearing down freeways is crazy or impossible. Here in Milwaukee we removed the Park East freeway (it was more of a spur) that cut downtown in half. Now redevelopment of the area has probably moved slower than people would of like but projects are happening and now there is talk of possibly removing more!
This town needs more tunnels.
Ahhh, more excellent planning ideas. I love it. Can I contribute?
1) Michael Allen said it best; reform, fix, or city’s zoning laws. Affordable housing, zoning, etc. Also, enforce them!
2) Simply demolish Interstate 64. 55/70/44 is more than enough. Bring back Highway Farty!
3) Eliminate TIFs
4) Reform city gov’t. Reduce the BOA from 28 to 14. Also, add a city council made of seven members, elected staggered at-large. The top vote getter becomes the “mayor”. Something along the lines of Cincinnatti, except with the BOA, ours would be bicameral.
5) Expand MetroLink
6) C’mon, stop bashing the schools. It does more harm than good.
Just my .02. Also, what do people know about this “Chauteau(sp)’s lake/pond”? Seems like an interesting idea. However, I am against gentrification, and I think there should be a park around it, not office complexes or condos. Are supporting the project and my political stances compatible? 🙂
I think Steve is being realistic in his planning in that I-64 is here to stay and supports commerce in its own right as well as being a major east/west alignment with Poplar Street Bridge.
I much prefer this idea over Choteau Lake for the simple fact that their is more then enough space to make rails, metrolink, a highway at gade (much more economical) and even a greenway trail work while reconnecting some of the street grid to the north. Choteau lake doesn’t promote density where as this plan allows a street grid to come back to its own.