As much as I would enjoy to join in on the hate for smog producing automotive vehicles and associated planning for them, this statement seems disingenuous. Planning for street widenings of this era all date back to before 1920 and included city beautification and rapid transit as equally important rational for the projects. Heck, there are multiple references that being located on a street where widening was performed was often desired as commercial buildings on these streets were given higher appraisal values owing to the increased traffic that passed in front of them. Widening projects that were completed included Washington and Olive and 12th; not completed, Kingshighway and Grand (made obvious by the additional 20ft setback of buildings on the block between Juniata and Connecticut) .quincunx wrote: Another example of taxpayers paying to destroy the city's tax base to accommodate cars. Tough to look at.
Stltoday - Photos: Work in the '20s and '30s widened several St. Louis streets
It is a bit disingenuous, especially when you consider that the city's tax base only continued to grow for another 20-30 years after these projects were completed. There's also an aerial shot of the city looking east down the completed Olive corridor, I'd hardly say the urban fabric was destroyed all that much for this project. Now, Mill Creek, the Mall, Near North, Arch clearance and others are what really set STL back, but most of those came later.mill204 wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018As much as I would enjoy to join in on the hate for smog producing automotive vehicles and associated planning for them, this statement seems disingenuous. Planning for street widenings of this era all date back to before 1920 and included city beautification and rapid transit as equally important rational for the projects. Heck, there are multiple references that being located on a street where widening was performed was often desired as commercial buildings on these streets were given higher appraisal values owing to the increased traffic that passed in front of them. Widening projects that were completed included Washington and Olive and 12th; not completed, Kingshighway and Grand (made obvious by the additional 20ft setback of buildings on the block between Juniata and Connecticut) .quincunx wrote: Another example of taxpayers paying to destroy the city's tax base to accommodate cars. Tough to look at.
Stltoday - Photos: Work in the '20s and '30s widened several St. Louis streets
For reference: A Major Street Plan for St. Louis (1917)
http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/2017/10/o ... rtholomew/Since 1916 St. Louis has expended over $40,000,000 in opening, widening, connecting, and extending the system of major streets. Much has been accomplished in converting a horse and buggy street system to automobile needs. As the total volume of traffic increases, however, certain new needs arise. An example is the desirability of grade separations at extremely heavy intersections, such as at Grand and Market and at Kingshighway and Lindell. Likewise there is a need for complete separation of grade where traffic volume is sufficiently heavy to justify the cost involved. The Federal Government, which has helped finance our splendid system of national highways, has recently revised its policies and Congress has appropriated substantial funds to aid the cities in the construction of express highways and for facilitation of traffic flows from certain selected state highways through metropolitan areas to the central business districts of large cities
