Highway 40 once fed into Market St
I-64 it didn’t always slice through the edge of downtown St. Louis. Well, I-64 did but the original Highway 40 did not. Motorists heading Eastbound on Highway 40 ended up on Market Street.
The highway just became Market Street. No off ramp. The highway didn’t end, the pavement just continued and you were on a city street. I had long suspected this based on the excessive width of Market Street but when looking at a 1958 aerial photograph of St. Louis. To see the image go to historicaerials.com: Enter 3200 Market in 63103 as the address, pan to the left and select 1958 from the available aerials.
Why does this matter?
Myself and others have advocated removing a mile of highway between downtown and the Mississippi River after the new river bridge opens in 2014. I-70 will be routed across the new bridge leaving a stretch of the existing highway from Cass to the Poplar St Bridge unmarked. The end point of I-44 is going to be extended so the mile stretch has a number. Highway officials know that without an assigned number it is hard to justify keeping the road. We have argued in favor of a grade-level boulevard to connect the mile stretch.
The point here is that a highway becoming a street is not unheard of in St. Louis. It is not uncommon elsewhere either. I’ve been to Vancouver twice, both times by car from Seattle. My first visit I was as a passenger, the second time I was driving. Motorists leaving Seattle take I-5 to the Canadian border. Once past customs you are on their 99. Looks much the same except for speed limits and distances in metric. As you approach the city you cross a river and the highway feeds into Oak Street (streetview).  Just like that.
Back in St. Louis, between 1958 and 1971 the stretch of Highway 40 (I-64) was built between Compton and the Poplar Street Bridge. The PSB opened in 1967 so that is likely when Highway 40 ceased being dumped into Market Street. We can do this again for the mile stretch downtown. We must do this to reconnect our city to the river.
– Steve Patterson
Does anyone really care about this? What role does the general public have in this effort? What about blogs? How open is this process? Will designers have free reign to come up with ideas, or will they be constrained by present limitations on what's possible? Is that how Saarinen came up with the idea for the Arch?
The group advocating the boulevard between the Arch and the CBD will have a website up soon. Once the new bridge is open I think we will see a huge reduction in traffic volume on the mile stretch of I-70. Now is the time to plan for remaking how the city connects from CBD to the Arch and from the convention center to Laclede's Landing. The very real results would be outstanding and the positive national PR would be priceless.
I wish that whole highway complex could be rebuilt. Going westbound on the Poplar to get onto I55/44 is a nightmare with the hairpin turn. Headed eastbound I64 drivers cannot easily access I55 South. Likewise I55N drivers cannot access I64 West easily either.
If we had a proper, functional interchange on the west side of the PSB, then a new bridge might not even be needed. But doing so would reqiure a LOT of demolition of existing structures in the area (Busch Stadium?!), so the odds of that happening is pretty slim . . .
I'm with Steve, only more extreme – don't make it a parkway, just restore the original street grid, and send the through traffic over to Illinois, crossing the river twice. Reducing choices on the freeways and eliminating ramps would do as much to improve traffic as trying to rebuild what's there now.
My concept of the boulevard is basically a very nice street in a grid, so we are not far apart.
Would the idea of replacing the current depressed lanes and Memorial Drive (which is basically just an on and off ramp for the highway) with a restored street grid be allowed under the design competition? Does the city support this concept? What about Alderman Young? What is her position on highway removal?
I think it is important to remember that we want people coming downtown. So, while we might call for reversion to a simple street grid situation, is this the best approach? A Boulevard makes the most sense to me if we are going to raise the the highway and convert it. But at what point is this feasible and what point does it not make sense. Could capping the highway right in front of the courthouse suffice instead?
While the highway and the grounds themselves are big problems, the areas adjacent to the arch ground add to what makes the grounds a problematic destination. With the memorial being so expansive it takes a long time to get to the Landing and to the south there is not much that can be considered a destination. So what areas are we trying to connect to the downtown. Is it everything… just the memorial? We really need a more comprehensive view of what will make St. Louis better and what can realistically be done.
A cap or lid addresses that single spot only. I'm talking about repairing a mile stretch rather than one point. We want people to visit downtown, not pass through at 60 mph in a ditch or tunnel. The comprehensive & realistic view is to look beyond the disconnect to the Arch such as the highway over Washington Ave., the dome/landing relationship, etc…
Financially would it make sense to do this? Don't get me wrong…I am all for doing this, but I wonder if the costs of doing so are worth it. Could this money be better used? Thats probably highly debatable, but I have yet to see any numbers that suggest leaning one way or the other.
I am interested in what happens in the Arch design competition. That will probably help solidify my views.
A mile long boulevard at grade would be cheaper than a 3-block long tunnel. It could be done in phases and the private market would flock to develop along a pedestrian-friendly boulevard with views of the Arch. The Arch competition does not rule this out.
The new highway 64 was about $500,000,000 for eleven miles. That project included the complicated rebuild of the 170/64 interchange along with over 20 other bridges over I-64. The cost of the new I-64 worked out to about $45 million per mile.
The Danforth Foundation report to the Mayor estimates the 3-block lid project including the cost of a maintenance endowment to exceed $100 million.
Which would you rather have? A 1-mile boulevard that opens up and reconnects downtown and the riverfront neighborhoods from the Poplar Street Bridge to the new Mississippi River Bridge or a 3-block lid between the Old Court House and the Arch?
Think of this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. What is the best decision for the long term future of downtown and the region?
Fourth and Broadway already function well as a couplet/pair of one-way streets connecting the existing freeways. With a few minor tweaks, they could replace both Memorial Drive and the depressed part of I-70. Tourists have no problem finding the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia without direct freeway access; they should have no problem finding the arch here, if the original street grid were restored.
Current connections to both Fourth & Broadway from the highways are not good, but those could certainly change. Between a new tree-lined street/boulevard (Memorial), 4th & Broadway considerable volume can be handled. Thursday's post will show alternate routes.
Vancouver has gone great lengths to discourage the building of freeways and automobile use in the lower mainland.
As a result Vancouver also has legendary traffic issues.
Vancouver may have traffic but it also has a vibrant core because it is not carved up by highways – they made the right decision.
Traffic congestion is not the end of the world. Portland, OR has infamous traffic snarls too, but has a great downtown (connected to the river!) and is considered one of the most livable cities in the nation, precisely because they pulled out the highway and made it a park & encouraged development right up to the river. Portland also has so many bridges connecting the east and west sides that the city truly extends to both sides of the river that bisects downtown. We could have that here, too, instead of the vast decaying wasteland that we currently have across the river, huge rotting swathes of valuable space going unused while people move out an hour and more beyond the urban core!
Those same 1958 aerials also show the “Third Street Expressway” (present-day I-44/55) ending as an at-grade boulevard in front of the future archgrounds. So you don't even have to compare the former transition at Market/Compton, when there used to be a transition in the very location advocated today.
If you study what really happened as well illustrated by the link) was the large destruction caused to neighborhoods by building highway 40 west of Skinker.
The New 64 (managed by Hassinger & Hoffarth) only exacerbated the destructive decisions made in the 1950 which led to the largest outflow of city residents in just 20 years. Of course you prefer to keep your readers in the dark on the importance of this route and attempt to center attention on midtown and not the region.
The opportunity to create a grand boulevard through the heart of the region has now been lost. Your silence on this critical issue is defining.
My understanding is when Eisenhower proposed the interstate system he envisioned a system where highways would at the city limits and not the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods. The flow into Markets seems to be more of what he envisioned.
Steve, another route I ve tried to reconstruct is Gravois and the changes it has undergone, especially where it flows into Tucker/12th St around the current 44/55 interchange. The oldest map I've seen is in the permit dept on the 4th floor of city hall.
This is a great idea. I'm surprised we don't hear more about it in the media, from politicians and civic leaders (fyi, if it's old news, i'm new to this site and now live in Chicago).
Any pro anti-highways rallies planned? Those things are like knives into the heart of the city. Anybody building models to help the public see the future?
I will definitely help if so.