urbanSTL

St. Louis is not the only city debating the highway removal option
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0302/ ... mainColumn

bump!

Alex - any more news on this initiative? I was driving over the PSB on Monday and thought about how cool it would be to have a Boulevard in place of that blasted highway.

Awesome! Keep up the fight.

Imagine if you had the entire St. Louis County power structure behind this initiative rather than just the City and MoDot. Behold, the (potential) beauty of regionalism.

Nice vid

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ Yep, still working hard to get St. Louis included in things like this. On another note, City to River has been included as part of the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development effort (Technical Planning Committee).

Congrats. Is the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development a new effort?

Thank you for your recent e-mail about the section of interstate 70 in
downtown St. Louis between the future location of the new Mississippi River Bridge and the Poplar Street Bridge.

There are no plans to consider a study to replace that section of
interstate. When I-70 moves north to the new Mississippi River Bridge,
this stretch of interstate will be redesignated I-44 to ensure that there remains a north-south interstate on the east side of St. Louis.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, there is very little
precedent for decommissioning an interstate highway and that process would be highly scrutinized. The plans currently underway will meet the requirements of the project, to include creating an easier pedestrian
access between downtown and the arch and a project completion date of
October 28, 2015.

We believe that the current plan that we are designing with our partners,
and will unveil to the public sometime next spring, will not only further
open up the Arch grounds and the park to the many visitors and downtown residents, but will also handle the anticipated traffic levels for the downtown area after the new Mississippi River Bridge has started carrying I-70 traffic.

v/r

Andrew Gates
Customer Relations, MoDOT St. Louis District
1590 Woodlake Dr.
Chesterfield, MO 63017
phone (314) 453-1808 cell (314) 223-8003 fax (573) 526-0085
NEXTEL 140*2*1086
andrew.gates@modot.mo.gov

"Our mission is to provide a world-class transportation experience that
delights our customers and promotes a prosperous Missouri."

jakektu wrote: There are no plans to consider a study to replace that section of
interstate. When I-70 moves north to the new Mississippi River Bridge,
this stretch of interstate will be redesignated I-44 to ensure that there remains a north-south interstate on the east side of St. Louis.

Andrew Gates
Customer Relations, MoDOT St. Louis District

"Our mission is to provide a world-class transportation experience that
delights our customers and promotes a prosperous Missouri."

Why does MoDOT's Mr. Gates think there will still be a need to ensure a north-south interstate on the east side of St. Louis after the new MRB is complete? There is already going to be a north-south interstate on the east side of St. Louis in a place called -- wait for it -- East St. Louis. The depressed lanes will not need to carry interstate traffic anymore. In fact, MoDOT is choosing to re-designate that short stretch as I-44 instead of I-70, I-55, or I-64 only because I-44 terminates there.

MoDOT doesn't just say they won't consider replacing the depressed lanes with a boulevard. They way they won't even consider a study to replace the depressed lanes with a boulevard. What are they afraid the study will say? It may show that the newly replaced elevated lanes by the dome are unnecessary. But when those lanes were built, they were needed. They were built before there was any confidence the new MRB would ever be built, so MoDOT should not feel embarrassed by that decision if the study says the elevated lanes should now come down.

Maybe they are concerned that they will need to fund a boulevard with State money, whereas the Federal government will continue to supply funds for that stretch if it keeps its interstate designation.

Mr. Gates need to watch this video posted earlier by another forum poster and reconsider his response:

http://nextstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=188299#p188299

The video points out that maintenance of the interstate highway was very expensive compared to a boulevard. And they point out that Vancouver has no interstates cutting the city off from its downtown water features. Nobody is going to build a restaurant with outdoor seating along Memorial facing the Arch grounds as long as the trench lanes and elevated lanes remain.

Sadly, I think the only person who could change the political mindset concerning I-70 downtown is Stan K. Until he declares that he doesn't want a raised elevated expressway in front of the dome its not going to happen. Unfortunately, he doesn't own or control any property near the dome, be it Bottleworks and/or Laclede's Landing. In other words he has no incentive to make others prosper by improving connections for people before and after a game. That is why they talked the Dome not having enough entertainment/restaraunt space within its footprint. Becuase he wants the revenue.

Nor has McKee let alone Pinnacle has brought it up or even show support for the idea. Which prepelexes me since both McKee and Pinnacle would benefit hugely. Which is even more disappointing considering that McKee's plan for a new 22nd interchance is the best part of Northside proposal (get rid of a terrible idea, create a blvd, and plant a high rise at the end of Gateway Mall) and Pinnacle will never sell a phase II until they can better connect the river to downtown.

I read this article and thought it would be worth sharing, since it directly applies to this discussion.

Some good example projects noted in the article.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... ovals/897/

Sorry if anyone has mentioned this in the past, but I just thought about this.

Would it be possible to turn that stretch of I-70 into a tunnel, and then have the desired boulevard on top? If this were feasible, it could potentially please both sides of this argument. It might be the best we can get, given the resistance to this idea. I just wonder if there would be water table issues, or if buildings would be able to be built on top of the tunnel. Obviously, funding would be a consideration.

Anyone have any ideas on this? Am I crazy?

Checked out the "Freeways Without Futures 2012". This topic had an earlier reference to the 2010 list where our I-70 was number 4 on the list. Now they show it at number 6. They write:

According to the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) “the downtown lanes [of I-70] are one of the least traveled sections of interstate in the Saint Louis area. Currently the majority of approximately 70,000 vehicles per day in this section are traveling through Saint Louis to points west. With the rerouting of I-70 it is probable that that amount of traffic could be reduced by greater than 50%.”

http://www.cnu.org/highways/freewayswithoutfutures2012

^I think the main problems with tunnelling I-70 is that tunnels are very expensive (both structurally and for ventilation equipment), and that keeping it tunneled north of the current depressed section would cause problems with the Metro running underground between the Convention Center and the Arch.

the count wrote:

stlsteve87 wrote:Sorry if anyone has mentioned this in the past, but I just thought about this.

Would it be possible to turn that stretch of I-70 into a tunnel, and then have the desired boulevard on top? If this were feasible, it could potentially please both sides of this argument. It might be the best we can get, given the resistance to this idea. I just wonder if there would be water table issues, or if buildings would be able to be built on top of the tunnel. Obviously, funding would be a consideration.

Anyone have any ideas on this? Am I crazy?

The "original" lid, proposed years ago by the Danforth Foundation was much longer.
Cost is driving the length of the lid. Anything over (IIRC) 290 ft long would constitute an "official" tunnel and consequently require stringent safety measures, ventilation, etc. to comply with tunnel code regulations. It would make the project unaffordable.

The lid will be built as is, I am afraid. We should probably focus our attention on the (future) removal of the elevated section of I-70.

I think your spot on Count.

Unfortunately, I don't think their is anyone in City leadership, local or business, that sees how the removal of the elevated I-70 section helps three proposals/propositions to go forward 1) Pinnacle's phase II 2) what McKee will propose for Bottleworks 3) Edwards Jone Dome negotiations. Individually, all three could be wishful thinking and nothing more then renderings. Tying them togeher would be big and still very much doable when you got at least two very influential individuals in Stan K and McKee. Like them or not they muster political support and have skin in the northside game.

mill204 wrote:

the count wrote:The lid will be built as is, I am afraid. We should probably focus our attention on the (future) removal of the elevated section of I-70.

If officials aren't interested in removing the depressed section of I-70, then I see no reason why they would ever be interested in removing the elevated section of I-70.

I really don't think its about convincing elected officials at this point. At the end of the day, its about who owns or leasing or proposing what next I-70 and what changes will maximize their investments.

The raised section of I-70 is in a very different setting/context in my opinion for the simple fact that you don't have a large Federal entity in NPS that is not beholden to Local politics nor dictated by local property owners. In other words, local influence that can take it to the state level matters much more and hate to say it, if you want this change you have to hop in bed with McKee.

Wow.

Is St. Louis eyeing teardown of I-70's elevated section?

BY TIM LOGAN • tlogan@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8291 | Posted: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 2:15 pm

Are St. Louis officials laying the groundwork to take down the elevated section of Interstate 70 downtown? It sure looks that way.

For the two years since a citizens group formed around the idea of replacing I-70 downtown with a street-level boulevard, City Hall has remained lukewarm to the idea. After all, big plans in the works to re-do the Arch Grounds and build a three-block lid over the highway, and tens of thousands of cars driving that road each day. And city officials have said the world-class architects and MODOT engineers working on all that are better equipped to deal with the issue than they are.

But now the city is poised to fund a study of how knocking down the elevated section of 70 might work. Last week, the St. Louis Development Corp. issued a request for proposals for a $90,000 "downtown multi-modal access study." It focuses on ways to improve connections between downtown and the riverfront, and includes this request:

In particular, address the potential removal of the elevated sections of I-70 from north of Pine St. to O’Fallon St, to determine feasibility and traffic impacts should the elevated sections be completely removed, brought to grade, and what various alternatives might be considered for this scenario to occur long-term.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... z1no2vkHVc