Poll: Do You Agree The Highway Lanes Cutting Through Downtown Should Be Replaced With A Boulevard?
ABOVE: view of the arch from North 4th St. Vibrant, huh?
The City+Arch+River competition has me thinking more and more about the future of St. Louis without the poorly placed highway slicing through downtown. I’m so thankful the planned downtown highway loop at 22nd Street never got built, but we still have to address the one that did get built.
If you are at the Old Courthouse and you want to get to the Arch the crossing of Memorial Drive and the highway lanes in a ditch are not that bad. But that is only one spot along a 1.4 mile stretch of highway City to River wants to replace with a boulevard.
ABOVE:The Arch is close but yet so far given the obstacles.
Four out of five competition finalists mention highway removal in their narratives, noting a boulevard was not included into their designs because of the October 2015 deadline. The 50th anniversary of the Gateway Arch is Wednesday October 28, 2015.  So the question of timing is important.
There are several possible times to rip up the old depressed & elevated highway lanes.
- The day after the opening of the new I-70 bridge, you could call the press back for a ground breaking on the removal of the existing highway.
- The same event/week as the 50th anniversary of the Gateway Arch would also work well
- Years after the 50th anniversary
Spring 2014:
Tearing out the highway in the Spring of 2014 makes a lot of sense. When the new I-70 bridge is built the interchange could be designed to transition from interstate to boulevard. Work on the connection to Tucker will be done along with the new bridge. The removal of the old I-70 lanes could be phased — part before the anniversary celebration and part after. For example, the elevated section and section at grade up to Cass could be done by the 10/2015 deadline and used with the existing depressed section. Or the reverse. Either way the opening of the new I-70 bridge is the perfect timing to go right into removing the old I-70.
Fall 2015:
This option waits until after the 50th anniversary celebration on October 28, 2015. Like the year before, everyone will be gathered together — this would be a great time to break ground on a new boulevard.
Either way, the traffic study needs to get started immediately. Various people and organizations have already agreed to fund the necessary traffic study but they were waiting to see what happened with the competition. I’d have started it months ago, but they were concerned the teams might be against highway removal. Well we know now they are not against removal. Why wait for the final selection, get the consultants busy figuring out how to best manage the flow of cars once the new I-70 bridge opens.
ABOVE:the current elevated lanes creates the opposite environment envisioned by City to River.
The poll is in the upper right hand corner. Please vote and add any additional thoughts you may have in the comments below.
- Steve Patterson
