I-64 or highway 40?
Last week the New I-64 was opened to traffic after a nearly 2-year reconstruction project. Although officially marked as I-64 to many in St. Louis this stretch of highway has long been known as highway 40 (“farty” to natives). Two names for the same stretch was confusing when I moved here and now it is just annoying hearing news reports use both names. The poll this week asks what the highway should be called – I-64 or Highway 40.
Whatever the name, all welcomed the rebuilt highway. The improved exit/on ramps are getting good reviews. Completed on time and under budget, the highway is a success. And that is the problem. Incentives to carpool or use transit have now just disappeared. With driving so easy more and more will drive the highway. This will eventually lead to the highway not being able to handle the traffic volume. This inevitable problem won’t show up a year from now or even five years from now. Ten years from now the big easy to travel highway won’t seem so big or easy.
I may be off on the time frame, if gas prices stay steady it may happen sooner. On the other hand, if gas prices rise to world levels it may take 50 years for the highway to get clogged, assuming the St. Louis region picks up population at a higher rate than in past decades.
I would have spent the half a billion dollars converting the old highway to a boulevard instead. It wouldn’t serve the same volume of cars but that would have been one of my goals. Another would have made crossing the stretch as a pedestrian easier.
– Steve Patterson
(incomplete thought in last sentence)
Thanks, missing one word I've now added.
The only big change, in reality, is the completion of full interchanges at 170 and at Big Bend. Capacity hasn't changed, as evidenced by the return of the traditional daily backups on either end of the reconstructed section. Safer and smoother doesn't equate to much new capacity, especially since lanes weren't added between 170 and Kingshighway.
I-64 sounds impersonal and unnatural. It's “Highway 40” in STL. I can't figure out why so many people are against keeping the more familiar moniker.
I will continue to refer to I-64 as Highway 40. My parents were raised saying that and I was raised saying that.
However, recent comments on STLToday were rather unfortunate. It seemed many believed that continuing to refer to the road as Highway 40 was a sign that St. Louis was backwards. Or perhaps it showed how provincial we are as St. Louisans. I found those sort of comments to be quite a stretch. There are many things to criticize or critique about our community. What one calls the highway however, should be far from the top of the list.
Don't forget about the highway upgradse that happened at the other end of I-64 near Wentzville. All at-grade crossings and stoplights have been removed, and the signage there emphasizes I-64 over US 40 or US 61. The last at-grade crossing was closed as of December 7, which is when I-64 reopened.
MoDOT has spent an awful lot of money upgrading the road to interstate-level status, so they can and will call the new road I-64. I will not be surprised that, within the next couple years, MoDOT formally requests AASHTO and FHwA to reroute US 40's designation from its current pairing with I-64 to pair up with I-70 (like we currently see throughout most of MO, IL, KS, IN, etc.). I'm sure that once word gets out about US 40's re-routing, the 80-year-olds of all ages in STL will complain about this change, but much like T. Scott Muschany's complaints, they'll amount to a lot of hot air.
I think this is the key point: I-64 from its junction with I-55/70 in Illinois to its junction with I-70 in Missouri is the pavement over which U.S. Route 40 travels. Unless the designation for U.S. Route 40 is changed, it's perfectly acceptable to call it either I-64 or Route 40.
I find the common reference to the road as “Highway 40” to be fun local flavor (and not all that confusing). Though, as a Los Angeles transplant, I refer to it as “The 40.”
“The” must be a Southern California thing, huh Todd? When I lived in the Bay Area, a friend of mine who was from L.A. always said “The 101”, whereas I and everyone else I knew just said “101”.
I really don't have strong feelings either way, as long as the signage matches reality. For example, even now, the overhead signs on NB 141 don't include I-64 signs, just US 40 ones – for people unfamiliar with any area, consistency and repetition are the two keys to effective wayfinding. My two pet peeves/similar realities from my Denver days include calling US 36 the Boulder Turnpike, even though tolls were removed 40 years ago (and there are no longer any signs that say “Boulder Turnpike”), and referring to “where the airport tunnels used to be” on I-70 during the rush hour traffic reports. In both cases, locals and old-timers know what you're talking about, but new arrivals are left clueless. And whether or not this is a bad thing probably depends on which side of clueless and confused you find yourself . . .
No one saying that you can't say its highway 40. However, it should be posted and reported as I-64 because that is what it is. Things change in time. As for me, another transplant, I will appreciate the local flavor just as I appreciated the multiple miles driving through this country without having to guess what highway I was driving on from state to state, I-10 got me from Texas to Florida just as I-95 got me from Maine to Georgia and now I-64 will get someone from Norfolk, VA to St. Louis, MO
Captain Roger Brand, KMOX's helicopter flying traffic reporter, calls it Highway 40. 'Nuff said…
I'm a Northern California transplant of about 10 years now, and married into a family that called it “40”. My co-workers mostly refer to it as “40”. I recognize the significance of the upgrades, and that it is “I-64”. That's fine. But it's still “40”, too, and always will be in my book.
Now on to some gripes, as well as some praise.
Praise first:
– I'm a big fan of the street names on the overpasses
– The road is smooth and easy to navigate (during daylight hours)
– It seems appropriately lit during the evening
– Anything completed reasonable close to on schedule or near budget deserves extra credit
– The new on/off ramps definitely are easier to use, and much safer, too
The gripes:
– Have you driven the new stretch at night, in the rain? I did the other night, and it's nearly impossible to see the lane markings. There is not a single reflective “road dot” anywhere on the new stretch. Coming from the West Coast, where these things were commonplace many, many years ago (even where it snowed, so snow plows are not a valid excuse), I find it absurd that St. Louis (and Missouri, as a whole) is so completely behind the times in lane safety. I consistently see people scrambling to keep their vehicles within the lanes during bad nighttime weather on highways all over the metropolitan area. Are we under-budget because someone decided they weren't necessary? Take a drive, MoDOT. The glare from the overhead lighting on the wet road surface completely masks the white-paint-on-a-little-patch-of-black-paint-on-light-gray-cement. You want safer highways during bad weather? Try making the road usable.
– I feel the work done was “too little, too late”. As pointed out by another comment, the highway wasn't really expanded in a few key areas. The highway was congested before the construction started. Some of that may have been due to poorly designed interchanges and on/off-ramps. Some of it may have been steep hills, or sharp or sudden curves. Some may have been to poor surface quality. But there's a measurable portion of congestion due to lack of square footage, too! The changes that were made recently should have been done years ago, and the last two years should have been spent expanding it even further (or making Metrolink rail usable to more people, like West County, perhaps). Why wasn't it widened more? I don't know. Was there not enough free space on either side, or was it too expensive at the time? Okay, fine. Whatever the excuse, I don't understand why the overpasses were (re)built in such a way that even if land adjacent to the highway is made available at some point in the future, it'll be impossible to squeeze another lane under the overpass without rebuilding it! And come on guys, this is Missouri. Bad weather moves in *all* the time, and drivers usually seek refuge under overpasses. You really think having a little extra space under the overpass would kill us?
I'm just a little guy with his own little opinion. I'm not a highway planner, or pretend to really know anything about what I'm talking about. I just call them as I see them. And sometimes, the way stuff is done just doesn't look or seem logical.
The Old Highway Farty received what the old bats on the infomercial for sagging faces got, an aesthetic facelift. Highway Farty, and the women, are still the same on the inside, older and tired-er. Where was some MDOT genius who should have discussed the NEED for adding more lanes? Or how about increasing traffic flow by reducing a few entrances/exits to the highway? Being an Interstate it is, after all, to be a limited access highway now. And you have bridge structures coming right down next to the emergency lanes… where is the ability to expand in the future? We got earrings on a pig and they want to say it is improved