Wheelchair Access and the Arch Grounds
Last week I showed the image below, the starting point of Market Street and for many a primary walking route to access the Arch grounds. Well too bad for those of us in wheelchairs, walking with a cane or just pushing a child stroller.
A block South of Market, at Walnut & Memorial, is the same situation.
The place to cross Memorial is at Chestnut —if you know about it and if you are brave enough to do so. Above I am about to cross Memorial heading West after leaving the Arch grounds. We can see a pedestrian stepping up the unusually high curb. To the right is the makeshift accessible route.
As you can see we are given a few feet of pavement and zero protection from motorists. Traffic on Chestnut is one-way Eastbound — toward me in the above image. I’m not feeling overly accommodated at this point.
The other way in/out of the grounds is at Washington Ave — a good distance out of the way depending on your point of origin or your destination. Meanwhile civic leaders and politicians are arguing over who has design control of Memorial and discussing how it will literally take an act of congress to do a lid over the highway.
What needs to happen is quite simple — accept the highway as a given. Realize we have acres of unused plazas already nearby. Nobody wants to sit out on a lid over the highway next to blank walls of the buildings facing the arch. Create safe & attractive ADA-compliant crossings at Chestnut, Market & Walnut. Populate each intersection with a street vendor selling water, hot dogs, pretzels and such. Get it done sooner rather than later. In the meantime get some of those MODot vertical sticks that help visually separate a traffic lane from what they are counting as an accessible route.
I agree, but do we need to take it a step further? Is the use of Memorial Drive as essentially a frontage road either (still?) appropriate or necessary?! What if the traffic flow were reconfigured (new off-ramps and poorer signal timing) to move/force most of the existing traffic off of Memorial Drive and onto Broadway and 4th Street? The existing condition certainly isn’t reflective of the tranquilty a national park deserves.
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Or, can we take all vehicular traffic off of the Chestnut Street bridge (making the Market Street bridge two-way, if necessary) and making it a pedestrian-only crossing over the trench? Traffic flow and traffic demand has changed significantly in the decades since the highway was first built – is now the time to examine some of the basic assumptions?
Agreed, the simple and inexpensive step to make it more pedestrian friendly is preferable over a lid. But the best way is to eliminate highways in urban cores altogether if you want vibrant, prosperous and sustainable communities. But given that MO brags about being the first to benefit from Highway Act of ’56, I do not expect much to change.
Steve, you mention Wash Ave. as an Arch Grounds access alternative (“The other way in/out of the grounds is at Washington Ave — a good distance out of the way depending on your point of origin or your destination.”), but it’s far from friendly for even the most able-bodied among us.
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I work in an office nearby on Laclede’s Landing and have stopped many a tourist from trying to cross the intersection South from Washington (from the Hamton Inn to the other side of Washington). There is a crosswalk signal and button, but it never changes to “walk”, and that green light to go South on Memorial is about 2 1/2 cars long (before required hesitation to be sure cars aren’t barreling down off the Eads bridge and running multiple reds, but that’s another story!). The point is, there isn’t enough time to RUN across that intersection, let along walk, push a stroller, or wheel across. I always direct them East on Memorial, underneath the darkened and pigeon-pooped I-70 bridge, then East on Third, then South across the Eads. THEN hopefully they’ve made it safely to the Arch grounds. It’s pathetic. Truly pathetic.
I work in an office by here and agree about the terrible conditions. It is quite sad to see someone in a wheelchair try to cross Memorial Drive. I’ve seen it on more then one occasion. If you cross on the wrong side in a wheel chair you end up smack dab in front of the sidewalk with no curb ramps. This leaves them no choice but to cruise in the traffic lane, or cross the over to the other side.
There should also be consideration for the school children on field trips that have to cross this mess between downtown and the Arch Grounds. Large groups of children cross over the depressed section several times a day last month alone. Try to fit 20 kids on that sidewalk. Instead of the visual sticks MoDOT needs to at least put up jersey barriers to protect pedestrians. While they’re at it they should put up bollards on the sidewalk along the west side of Memorial because some car accidents have actually ended up on the sidewalks at these intersections.
It is hard to believe this problem has been going-on for 40 years and nothing has been done. How many more people need to be killed or horribly injured at that intersection for something to happen? I have supported the lid idea but I also see the merit in restricting and/or closing traffic on Memorial if the highway off-ramp could dump you somewhere else, but there is virtually no room to make an off-ramp cross over to 4th/Broadway in that area. It seems to me if the damn casino can build a huge under-ground walkway within a year, that looks and functions better than the tunnels/walkways at JFK airport, I would hope the city could build a lid or change the traffic pattern there within 40 years…… !
Here’s an one out-of-the-box, off-the-wall “solution”:
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One, rebuild the ramp and provide direct, improved access from northbound I-55 to northbound 4th in the area around 7th, Park and Broadway.
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Two, close the ramp from northbound I-55 onto Memorial Drive, and close northbound Memorial Drive up to Market Street.
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Three, make Market into a one-way street eastbound between Broadway and Memorial Drive.
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Four, close southound Memorial Drive from Pine to Spruce, maintaining access to the existing on-ramps from the nearest intersections and maintaining access across I-70 with the existing bridges at Pine, Chestnut, Walnut and Market streets.
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Doing this would maintain pretty much all existing access to and from the existing freeways AND significantly improve the pedestrian “experience” in the area of the arch.
Wow great stuff! Thanks for sharing. Very informative. I strongly believe that sustainability has to become the major drive of
this innovation process. We have to re-think our mobility system. New
models are necessary and possible.