No December Preservation Board, Meeting Tonight on Highway 40
There will be no December 2007 meeting of the St. Louis Preservation Board. Well, technically they will meet by teleconference this week to set up a date for a second meeting in January 2008. Normally their meetings are held on the 4th Monday of each month, which happens to be Christmas Eve this year. In these cases, the meeting is often moved up a week.
Tonight (12/17/07), at 6:30pm, a public meeting will be held by traffic engineer Joseph Passanise regarding his opposition to the full shut down of portions of highway 40 through 2009. This meeting will be at 6:30pm at Maggie O’Brien’s located at 20th and Market (map).  For more information see stophighway40closure.com. I think I’ll walk the half mile to the meeting rather than take highway 40 to get there.
Not closing Highway 40 at this point would cause a lot more problems than it would “solve” – just get in, get it done and move on . . .
Joseph Passanise ran unsuccessfully for county executive at least twice. So I question what his motives might be. But I did find his calculations interesting. I think he is right about the way the project is being handled is transferring costs to the project to individual motorists who will be impacted by 40 closure. I guess you could make the case is those are the people who should all be it indirectly rather than a toll.
On KWMU, he also spoke of how Metrolink should be shut down. He also apparently teaches American Government out in St. Charles County.
Second half of interview:
http://kwmuweb.streamguys.com/Slota/110206web_56k.asx
His calculations are absolutely meaningless. How about seeing the calculations for having slowed and stopped traffic on an under-construction highway 40 for four years or more? The fact is that the highway needs to be rebuilt. The method chosen will have a negative affect on a small portion of the metro area and will not “cripple” the economic engine of St. Louis County (though surely it will be blamed for any negative event in the County for a decade or more). His is what I call lazy-ass, mindless, activism.
His fuel cost calculations are bunk. He assumes fuel costs increase with an increase in travel time at a directly proportional 1:1 ratio when in reality it is significantly less. I believe Passanise has confused time with distance in his calculations. The increase in fuel costs in probably 1/3 his estimate, max.
still, it’s government subsidized suburban sprawl.
Plus they haven’t built in room for future expansion- wonder why? $$$$$$$$$$$$$!
Where is the impact study? I haven’t heard about it.
what large scale project with the govt. involved doesn’t have an impact study?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!
I still think the impact will be far less than most think.
Anyone familiar with the impact on traffic in Minneapolis after the bridge collapsed?
That was a Mississippi River bridge, and I heard the next closest crossing was 4 miles away. That is a much more impactful closing than Hwy. 40 which has an infinite number of alternative routes. I haven’t heard any follow-up stories on the economic devestation this has caused there, so I think people pretty much figured it out and went about their lives.
The full closing is a much better solution, because people will just figure out alternative routes and see parts of the city and county they never would otherwise. If they left open one or two lanes in both directions, everyone would still try to use it and complain about the traffic on 40 for four years.
He does realize that Hwy 40 is closing in 3 weeks, right?
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That would be like me holding a meeting to publicize my opposition to the new Cardinals stadium.
Yeah, but what if it is really, really bad. Like the state rep from Town and Country said. A “catastrophe”. What happens then? Too bad, so sad?
There are not as many alternative routes to the section of Hwy 40 from I-170 to Ballas as there are for the inner-ring/city portion that will close in ’09, but I think people will figure out the best options after a few weeks.
For one, unless your destination is located along it, avoid Clayton Road! If you need to get to the Brentwood shopping areas, there are several back roads through the industrial park.
In going to meetings, etc. in West County (which to me means anything west of I-170) by car, I’ve taken a strong liking to Old Bonhomme Road. It’s a very civilized little neighborhood route through Olivette and U City, which eventually turns into Forsyth and takes you directly to Clayton, WashU, and Forest Park. Another possibilility is Midland Boulevard, for points further to the northwest.
But if you are heading west-by-southwest, yeah, Manchester and the curvy routes through Kirkwood and Webster are pretty much your only options. Litzsinger only goes as far west as Lindbergh, for example.
I missed the Dooley piece on KWMU when it was originally broadcast. How embarrassing that the largest and most prosperous county in the state has such a dim bulb as its chief executive. Dooley sounds like a nice guy, and his heart may well be in the right place. But he and and Lacy Clay sound like intellectual kinfolk. Horrible.