This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 23, 2010 - 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.
Under the group’s plan, Memorial Drive would run 1.4 miles from the terminus of Interstate 44 at the Poplar Street Bridge, through downtown St. Louis past the Arch, Washington Avenue, the Eads Bridge and Laclede's Landing, and north to the new Mississippi River Bridge, where drivers would rejoin Interstate 70.
As Rick Bonasch, who is helping to spearhead City to River, explained: “The conventional wisdom is to build a three-block lid over the depressed [highway] lanes. But the interstate would still be under that, and the problem of the highway cutting off downtown and the riverfront is larger that just those three blocks. The elevated lanes create a barrier, too, so we are talking about abandoning a whole section of the interstate, including demolishing the depressed and elevated lanes and using concrete to fill back in those depressed lanes.”
In the highway’s place would be a new, at-grade boulevard with wide sidewalks, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights for cars passing through. Among the group’s members are architects who have done renderings of what such a drive would look like. You can find some of those images here.
Those behind City to River note that several cities across the country have knocked down highways near waterfronts and replaced them with more pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares.
Bonasch, who has long blogged about his hopes for downtown and the waterfront, said a series of ongoing developments have motivated people who support the City to River plan to ramp up their campaign. The first is the upcoming construction of the new Mississippi River Bridge, which will connect St. Louis to Illinois and, as Bonasch sees it, finally make plans to get rid of the depressed I-70 lanes feasible.
The second is the progress made by the National Park Service on the master plan for the Arch, officially the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. A handful of members of City to River attended public meetings and provided formal testimony to the park service advocating for the highway's removal. Group members are also closely monitoring the design competition for the Arch grounds.
Bonasch said that while the group wasn't in a position to enter that competition, members want to consult with teams that are still in the running about their concept. The idea is to also meet with community groups, businesses, downtown residents and other organizations to build suppport for the City to River proposal.
As the group notes on its website, "since the boundary of the design competition includes only depressed lanes, the National Park Service does not have jurisdiction over the elevated lanes of the interstate adjacent to Laclede's Landing. However, if highway removal is going to happen, it should include the entire section from the Poplar Street Bridge to the new Mississippi River Bridge and not just the depressed lanes."
Added Bonasch: “Whatever comes out of the design competition, this is our one real shot to do something transformative for the downtown and riverfront. It’s more than just better integrating the Arch grounds into downtown. We need to think big, and think beyond the next 15 to 20 years."