Post-Dispatch Editorial Board Weighs In on the Lid vs Boulevard Debate
Today’s paper has an editorial giving widespread attention to the idea of abandoning a section of I-70 once the new Mississippi River bridge is complete and remaking Memorial Drive sans the depressed lanes of the highway:
There appears to be widespread acceptance of the concept of the lid among local leaders; less so the concept of the as-yet-unspecified attraction, at least not yet. The National Park Service — the mission of which is the preservation and protection of the national parks, monuments and other entities over which it has stewardship — has reservations about it. And within the local architectural and planning community, there is some concern that the lid itself might not be the best way to solve the problem of access to the Arch grounds.
For the full editorial with links back to this blog, to Rick Bonasch’s blog and to a KWMU commentary by Michael Allen click here. Hopefully this will put an end to the costly “lid” nonsense and we can move forward with fixing major gashes in our city.
… Why cant I have both? 🙂 Yes, I would rather have Memorial drive gone and it be in the dpressed lanes…. but I still would want a lid on it 🙂
Wouldnt this mean a nice OPEN space between the court house and the arch grounds? That would be perfect. As of now they just want to LID the I-70, but people would still have to walk about Memorial Drive. With Memorial Drive in the depressed lanes, there wouldnt be a need for any roads there. Right? Or am I missing something.
[slp — the Arch grounds has nearly 200 acres of open space and you want more? I’m seeking a more vibrant Memorial Drive. ]
Good to see this is getting some attention. I spoke to John Danforth about this directly at the public meeting at the court house and he said others had also mentioned it.
Keep in mind that eliminating this section of I-70 will also remove the elevated section of I-70 that seperates Laclede’s Landing from Downtown.
Talking points:
Solves the lid problem
Reconnects the Arch and Landing
The same connection will also be located directly across the river
Other cities have eliminated their waterfront interstates (Portland and San Francisco come to mind)
The closing of Highway 40 non-event proves that sections of interstate can be eliminated with little impact.
The push back I heard was that the new smaller bridge (four lanes) would not be able to accommodate the additional traffic. I don’t buy it since the depressed section is also four lanes.
The “lid” is one part of what needs to be a bolder solution – connecting the city of St. Louis to the Archgrounds. Currently the buildings along Memorial Drive (mostly) turn their backs on the park. There’s no connection to Laclede’s Landing, and along the south side there’s highway overpasses and a maintenance building.
Our park needs to be more like Boston Common – we need to connect pedestrians – office workers, city residents and visitors – to the Archgrounds along the north, west and south sides of the park. Give people a reason to walk and linger along the edges – not just an improved entry from the Old Courthouse to the centerline of the Arch.
The push back I heard was that the new smaller bridge (four lanes) would not be able to accommodate the additional traffic. I don’t buy it since the depressed section is also four lanes.
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Let’s think about this for a minute…a new $500,000,000 bridge between Missouri and Illinois, increasing overall capacity between the two state and designed to lower congestion on the PSB, is not going to reduce traffic pressure on the depressed lanes? How is that possible?
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No, the real challenge for promoters of a new Memorial Drive is not whether it would be a good thing or not, it’s how to pay for it!
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The truth is maybe there’s no money to pay for anything – a new Lid, a new Memorial Drive, none of it.
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Until proponents of a new Memorial Drive can start talking about a financing strategy, there’s not much hope of this idea getting off the ground…or out of the ground as the case may be….
Think of what Chicago has done with Millennium Park. It sits on “found” ground that was once an open railyard. Chicago apparently once thought of it the same way many do about 70 and the Arch grounds: From the 1850s through the late 20th century, the site that is now occupied by Millennium Park was controlled by the Illinois Central Railroad. In Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago he considered the railroad property to be so untouchable that he developed the Grant Park portion of the plan around it. http://www.millenniumpark.org/parkhistory/.
Can relocating 70 across the river be seen as a benefit to EStL that will also be a net gain to the region?
Steve, don’t know if you read the comments on that blog link, but two posters backed ya for mayor!
Great solution…
I also got a bouncing baby Corolla a couple of months ago. It’s getting 42 on the hwy, which is a great surprise after my badly-myopic-POS Focus.
~Lisa
“Relocating 70 across the river” isn’t the real issue, it’s whether or not 70 on the north side of downtown needs to be directly connected to 44/55 and 64/40 on the south side. And since the 64/40 connection doesn’t exist now, that just leaves 44/55, if/when a new bridge is built. Do the two freeways need to be connected to serve the larger area (to give local people on the north side a direct freeway connection to the south side, and vice versa)? Or, is the bulk of the local traffic on both freeways using downtown as their origin or destination? Answering that fundamental question (and I don’t know which it is) will inform much of the future debate. As the truck wreck showed, once again, last week, creating persistent congestion is trouble waiting to happen. Putting a stoplight at the “end” of a freeway/start of a “parkway” creates a new “challege”, but one that’s no different than one faced at the end of any urban off ramp. It’s all about weighing risks versus rewards, and mitigating the risks as much as possible.
There is a simple fix to the concern raised about 44/55 terminating at a stoplight on a new Memorial Drive: don’t think of it as a highway – think of it as the “Downtown St. Louis/Memorial Drive EXIT”. Same for drivers heading south off of 70 – they either cross 70 into Illinois or take the downtown/Memorial Drive exit heading south.
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For drivers insisting on an interstate connection to between north and south side destinations, they can cross the PSB or the new MRB to Illinois, bypass downtown and cross back over on either bridge. So they actually have two options – take the Memorial Drive/downtown STL exit, or stay on 55 to 70 in Illinois, then cross back on one of the 2 bridges.
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Most would probably realize its no big deal either way, take the downtown exit, and then get back on the highway a few minutes later.
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The hardest part about this is getting people to consider changing their driving habits and generating political will.
Remove it. Make Truman/12th/N Florrisant, (as well as Jefferson/Parnell and Grand) more desirable as it (they) travels north out of downtown… Oh, McKee owns all that… maybe that’s part of the NOT a plan.
Northside – I’d actually go further – send ALL northbound 44/55 traffic east or west at the PSB/40/64, and make people who want to go dowtown get off at Park & Broadway/4th Street, south of downtown. Memorial Parkway should be a sedate drive, not a major thoroughfare or a frontage road for freeway on ramps – the 4th and Broadway one-way couplet does a much better job. The same gose at the north end – merge the old I-70 into Broadway and 4th at Cole/Carr.
This is certainly an interesting set of political battles being brewed. The original plan and intent of highway 170 was to provide a north-south connection between the east-west 270 on the north with the other east-west routes such as Forest Park Expressway, 40, 44 & 55 and thus would have served as the internal link. Instead the highway abruptly ends at Eager creating unnecessary congestion and destroying neighborhoods. Highway 170 should be completed as planned and 70 should be removed from the Arch grounds.
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MOdot does what it wants and public opinion can be easily and conveniently ignored. Danforth clearly sees the need of circumventing this power, has elicited local leaders and the federal government to help in this effort. MOdot remains largely unaccountable and is managed by a group of transportation commissioners that places a higher priority on the needs of certain segments above those of the StL region. Danforth is attempting to change these historical trends.
Commission Members: http://www.modot.missouri.gov/about/commission/currentmembers.htm
“Instead the highway abruptly ends at Eager creating unnecessary congestion and destroying neighborhoods. Highway 170 should be completed as planned and 70 should be removed from the Arch grounds.”
…because completing 170 certainly wouldn’t destroy any neighborhoods…
I don’t think completing I-170 would have been a solution to this issue, anyway. Totally different origin and destination points.
It happens I drove through the depressed section like, four times on Sunday. Not very fuel-efficient, I realize, but it was in two different vehicles for two different trips. Anyway, I really don’t see a problem with making through-traffic enter onto a surface-level boulevard for a brief stretch in downtown. It could really make the riverfront area much more attractive and accessible. And, I would love to see a direct connection to the Eads Bridge, my favorite route to the east.
Anyway, nothing happens fast when you’re talking about Federal lands that are supposed to preserved in perpetuity like National Parks. The culture of NPS is, by definition, an old-style conservative one. Combine that with the slow-moving administrative review process, and it will take years for this to happen, Danforth or not. And we have places like Yellowstone and Yosemite to show for that conservatism.
The wild card in the equation is Danforth Foundation money. Danforth is quoted saying that if the NPS endorses the plan developed by Groundswell for Change, his foundation would help pay for it, and he’d help to raise the rest of the money.
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The Danforth brothers are getting up in years, and that may be why they have put a 5-year timetable on getting something done.
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The GFC website refers to the Lid option and it’s $100+ million dollar price tag. Does anyone think the GFC/Danforth group might consider a different option at this point?
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Last question re. the Lid…does the Lid act like a bridge OVER Memorial Drive? So there’d be three layers: the depressed lanes on the bottom, Memorial Drive in the middle, and the Lid on top of the whole thing like a bridge/ramp?
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Or does the Lid stay at grade with Memorial Drive? If so, then either the Lid or a new Memorial Drive would still have pedestrians crossing over to the Arch grounds via crosswalks and signalized intersections.
I’m pretty sure it’s the latter
so how is putting the north bound 55 thru traffic (thru to n bound 70) and south bound 70 thru traffic (thru to s bound 55) onto an expanded memorial dr. lessen the barrier between dt and the arch grounds? the raised section of 70 just north of dt is raised because the cost to blast out the underlying rock in this section of dt 30 yrs. ago was seen as to expensive hence the raised section. the landing has always suffered from this barrier.
the lack of the 170 connection to 44 is a key component that was nixed by richmond hgts. and other munis. years ago and with the development of the promenade is unlikely to ever occur. would have provided a bypass around dt for some of the thru traffic that currently utilizes the depressed section. a similar cross-city connection via a boulevard was suppose to happen at 18th street where 55 hits 44 but that was nixed many years ago by city.
all of this discussion is well and good but the question that needs to be addressed first is why has st. louis lost it’s connection to the river? 5o yrs. ago the arch grounds were derelict bldgs. and old warehouses. the idea was to clean it up and build an urban park. there is nothing to draw people to the river in dt other than the arch, which if you live here you see it once when you are a kid and don’t go back for 25 yrs. until you need to take your kid to see it. if you don’t live here you go to the arch and then wonder what your going to do for the next 3 days of your vacation.
the barrier is not limited to a physical barrier caused by the road network (although that is part of it) the bigger barrier is the lack of other attractions to draw one to the river front. in part that is what danforth is getting at. yeah the slum clearance was needed 50 yrs. ago but now we need to address the lack of destination type activities there too. i.e. ferris wheel at navy pier, outdoor concert venue with monthly summer acts other than the beach boys or other (“family/non-drinking/has been”) entertainment, acquarium ala new orleans, something, anything, is better that what is there now which is nothing.
To cross the depressed lanes how about a bunch of ropes where one can swing from one side of the lanes to the other over the open pit. Home grow some tarzans and bonus points for any one going one handed and/or in a loin cloth. AAAAyayayayayayaahhh.
In responding to the Post Dispatch Platform, it is easy to see why St. Louis is in trouble. They try to dismiss criticism of the process involved in reconsidering the Arch grounds as misplaced.
Yeah sure, just after Paul McKee gets his personal multi million dollar tax credit passed by the state for work on the North Side, and this, even though there was no true public discussion and debate for options that might have included approaches that allowed tax credits for small scale development or other alternatives.
Even ignoring this legal corruption worthy of any Banana Republic on the globe, (it is the same legal corruption Mugabe does in Zimbabwe, his corrupt legislators pass a law, and his corruption is magically legal), the same narrow thinking people are running things that orchestrated the decline of St. Louis and mass transit in the 50’s and early 60’s. (Check out the 1954 Plan of St. Louis, the demise of the city is spelled out in black and white and in color)
A solution to the planning disaster of the Arch grounds and it’s connection to the city might have a fighting chance if there is an architectural competition.
But even that effort should have been coordinated with new efforts in the Gateway Mall, namely the new sculpture park that was also shoved down the throats of St. Louisians. (After all the elite know so much more than everyone else, that is why St. Louis has been declining under their leadership for so long)
So yes, rightfully there are doubters about both the process and the potential solutions for the Arch Grounds, which, given the history of development in St. Louis will not be designed to serve the welfare of the people, nor the future of the city, but rather, shoved into a direction that favors the lining the pockets of insiders, irregardless of the consequences for the city as a whole.
The Post generally represents the arrogant views of the established elite. The Platform editorial once again demonstrates this prejudice. (“local leaders advocate the lid” prepping everyone for usual mediocre elite solution).
Urban Review and other blogs represent new creative voices rather than the status quo positions of the Post. If St. Louis is going to prosper, to become a desirable national and international headquarters for firms, to encourage development of vital small business and economic opportunity, a much more robust discussion of city planning and its implications must take place.
One doesn’t have to go back very far, just a few months, to see it is business as usual in the political/corporate establishment that calls the shots while ignoring democracy, ethics, and the future of the citizens of St Louis.