Thought I'd start a thread on City to River (http://citytoriver.org/index.html), the grassroots citizen group advocating for the removal of I-70 and the construction of a new Memorial Drive downtown. Their website is live and they have a discussion forum (though it's being spammed at the moment).
They've put together some very good illustrations. I'm hoping that they can speak loud enough to be heard in the public discussion and that someone with decision-making power may take up their cause. It should be a no-brainer for many, many reasons.
Nice. This seems like one of those cases where a Facebook page for the group might be a good idea. Convincing the public at large that this is a good idea is quite important. I have yet to hear any public official endorse the idea. The more exposure the idea gets, the more likely it will be to actually be endorsed by someone with some say-so on whats going on.
I like the website, especially putting pictures to the ideas which will help a lot of people see what we won't be missing (that damned viaduct by the Landing).
All of the businesses from the hotels to Lumiere, the Convention Center and the Rams should be approached with this idea/concept. They should absolutely sign on. Imagine was a new Memorial Drive would mean to the owners of Mansion House, etc.!
That will take citizen effort, obviously, so it really falls on the City to River Group (CRG) to keep very active. A dormant site is no good to anyone, so when we ask what CRG can do to put us to work, they need to be ready with some answers.
Reading the through website, I really got to thinking about the costs associated with this move. With the highway removed, I am curious how much real estate would be freed up. Should this reclaimed land prove to be developable, could the land be sold to private developers as an offset to some of the removal costs. Would this be feasible?
Posted 9 a..m. Mon., 02.23.10 - In conversations about what ails downtown St. Louis, Interstate 70 often gets tagged as one of the villains. It’s an eyesore. It’s a barrier between the city and the waterfront. The grumbling has come from many corners and is sure to continue as discussions heat up over how better to connect the Gateway Arch to the Mississippi River, St. Louis and Illinois.
There’s a new group that wants to make sure those integration plans don’t include the highway in its current form. It includes a range of people who have long been interested in city affairs and seeing a revitalized downtown but who only recently considered coming together under an official name.
The citizens group, called City to River , had its unveiling last week. For now at least, it is not an incorporated association, but rather a coalition of a dozen volunteers pushing for the creation of a new Memorial Drive that they say will better connect the city to its riverfront.
I really wish the point could have been made during the I-64/Highway 40 planning process that St. Louis could survive without the highway rebuilt to Interstate status. In addition to eliminating Interstate 70 between the new Mississippi River and Poplar Street bridges, I think the area would have survived just fine if 64/40 was rebuilt as a six-lane parkway from I-270 to downtown, not unlike Forest Park Avenue, with synchronized signals at major intersections.
Baltimore is a fine example of a city that survives just fine without major interstates separating its core from the rest of the city's neighborhoods. Interstates 70 and 83 in Baltimore stop well short of the downtown area and feed traffic into major streets and boulevards, while I-95 and a small stretch of I-97 that will ultimately provide a limited-access link to Annapolis, Md. pass through well to the south of the downtown area. I must admit that I haven't visited Baltimore since President Clinton's second term, but based on what I know about the city, I would submit that its downtown is much better off without the direct interstate access.
It's too late to make the case for Interstate 64, but it is certainly not too late to convince local, state, and federal officials that maintaining Interstate 70 is redundant when a multilane boulevard linking the new alignment with Interstates 55 and 64 would be sufficient to accommodate traffic, and at the same time, provide a better link between the Gateway Arch grounds, Laclede's Landing, and Lumiere Place better than any lid or other fixes ever could.
^The decision to make I-64 an interstate was made many a year ago. They have been upgrading the highway west of 270 for years to make the stretch interstate-eligible all the way to I-70. No way they would have backed down fro that after spending all that money. The now-completed project east of I-170 has been set for over 20 years.
Additionally: Tristan Walker, one of our members, was interviewed by KMOV Channel 4 for (we're told) tonight's 10 PM lead story. A representative of MODOT will also be interviewed, so it'll be interesting to see what they say about the concept.
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To those wanting to get involved in the highway removal cause: help keep this momentum going.
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Decent story overall. Good job by Tristan in the interview. I hope the story wasn't slanted too much over getting rid of the road instead of replacing the interstate with a boulevard. They did show some of the renderings of the Memorial and Washington intersection.
The MoDOT official who was interviewed was Ed Hassinger, the head the MoDOT St. Louis district. Of course they're not wholeheartedly endorsing the idea so a little prodding is in the order.
This thread on SSP has a run-down of the projects underway in Milwaukee on and around the land freed up by the removal of the Park East Freeway. Pretty cool: Link
Apparently MODOT told the reporter "Despite the upcoming construction of a new Mississippi River bridge, all lanes of I-70 would still be needed."
That's such BS. I mean, I-64 could simply be removed and the city and region would be OK. And we know this from experience. It's not a guess. We must pivot our thinking and understand that Interstate highways (and other infrastructure) are a choice, a want and not a "need". There is absolutely zero reason why St. Louis couldn't choose to remove I-70 from downtown. Let's stop deferring our environment to an agency whose sole mission is to build and maintain roads. What do you think their answer is going to be?
In my experience, Ed Hassinger is your classic engineer only wanting to build more and more roads. He doesn't seem to grasp the concept that there are other ways to move traffic besides interstate lanes and that we have plenty of capacity in the area. He really needs to go, along with many other people at MODOT. I have one employee in particular that needs to go, but that is not appropriate to talk about publicly.
It would help to get some prominent St. Louisians supporting this effort. Does anyone have a personal connection to Mr. Danforth? Someone really should present this idea in one-on-one meetings with key individuals.
Grover wrote:It would help to get some prominent St. Louisians supporting this effort. Does anyone have a personal connection to Mr. Danforth? Someone really should present this idea in one-on-one meetings with key individuals.
I really do think Danforth is the key. Not only is he an important player locally in the Arch game, but he also has the money to fund a transportation study. I know his money he was going to put towards the Arch grounds a few years ago is pretty depleted, but I would imagine he could afford it.
They don't call us the Show Me State for nothing. You're gonna have to SHOW people that it can work. SHOW them how other cities have done it. SHOW them how they're gonna get from South City to the airport. SHOW them how it will improve Downtown. SHOW them that it's gonna be OK.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!
(Sorry dont know where that came from)
I think the site does very well with those renderings. I think that might be the biggest asset this group has, by visually SHOWING the public their vision. Then again their biggest asset could just be how ugly and unnecessary that section really is.
