Opportunity is knocking on St. Louis\u2019 front door. The fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the Gateway Arch (2015), and plans for a new Mississippi bridge are creating a confluence of events with the potential to reconnect downtown St. Louis with its riverfront. And a new grassroots group, called City to River<\/a>, wants to help ensure that these two developments work together in a way that will transform the downtown area, the Arch, the riverfront and the connections between all of them.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the challenge. At the same time that the Gateway Arch was completed (1965), Interstate 70 opened between the Arch grounds and downtown St. Louis. \u201cAlthough it was intended to bring people into the regions\u2019 center, the interstate disrupted the city\u2019s street grid and isolated the new national monument and the river from the activity of downtown,\u201d says the City to River website. \u201cA two-hundred-year-old connection was lost. Now, St. Louis has a momentous opportunity to revisit the unintended consequences of the interstate. The time has come to reopen the region\u2019s front door.\u201d<\/p>\n

A walking tour of the proposed redevelopment area offers a powerful (and noisy) demonstration of the physical barriers and psychological distance between downtown and the riverfront. On a warm, sunny Saturday morning, with thousands of fans gathering in anticipation of a midday Cardinals\u2019 ball game, you\u2019d think that the sidewalks would be clogged with people strolling to or from the Arch grounds. They\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because people don\u2019t want to go the Arch. More likely, it\u2019s because they simply can\u2019t figure out how to get there. The Arch is an island–a reality not reflected by the glamor shots typically displayed on tourism websites. Getting from the Arch to downtown is equally daunting. Ask anyone who has worked at the Arch, and they\u2019re likely to tell you that among the most frequently asked questions are, \u201cWhere can we go for a bite to eat, and how do I get to Busch Stadium from here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you see someone walking along Memorial Drive, they\u2019re probably lost,\u201d says Paul Hohmann, an architect and a founding member of City to River, as he shouts above the noise created by Memorial Drive traffic and the depressed <\/a>lanes of Interstate 70. \u00a0\u201cThe area between downtown and the riverfront is a no-man\u2019s land. And that\u2019s true for drivers, as well. If you\u2019re driving in downtown St. Louis, and you try to get to the riverfront, chances are, you\u2019ll end up on a freeway ramp to Illinois or to somewhere else you hadn\u2019t intended to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to a bank of glass doors on the east side of the swank Hyatt Hotel, Hohmann notes that, although they face the Arch, its surrounding national park and the riverfront, the doors are locked and unused. \u201cThis should be t<\/a>he front door, not the back,\u201d he says. \u201cThe most valuable real estate in St. Louis is next to a highway\u2014a noisy pit of doom.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the answer? That\u2019s the $300-million question that a design competition, sponsored by the National Park Service, St. Louis City government and others, is working to solve. Five design teams have been selected as finalists. City to River is not competing for the project. Rather, it\u2019s a grassroots group seeking to add community input into the parameters of the competition and the final designs.<\/p>\n

City to River is not, however, without opinions. One of its top priorities is to remove Interstate 70 where it passes through downtown, and to replace it with an at-grade boulevard from the Poplar Street bridge north to Cass Ave. If that sounds radical, think again, says Rick Bonasch, of City to River.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther cities have removed highways,\u201d he says, citing successful projects in Portland, Oregon and Milwaukee. \u201cSt. Louis would have to be on its own planet to not consider it. The new boulevard that we\u2019re envisioning would allow pedestrians to easily cross over to the riverfront area, and highway statistics say that it could readily handle the projected 50,000 cars per day. Think of Paris\u2019 Champs Elysee: It\u2019s a boulevard, and it handles 80,000 cars per day. \u00a0Locally, we\u2019ve got Kingshighway, across from Forest Park. It handles significant traffic–in the range of 30,000 to 35,000 cars. This is doable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonasch may have some powerful mojo on the side of that argument. The National Park Service has indicated a preference for highway removal in other projects. In addition, he says, both the US Department of Transportation and MODOT are talking about rerouting Interstate 70 and even removing some of its entrance and exit ramps to push traffic away from the Poplar Street bridge and toward the planned new bridge north of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother little-known fact is that the Park Service actually owns most of the right of way and Memorial Drive, and it leases it to MODOT,\u201d says Bonasch.<\/p>\n

As to the long-proposed and well-publicized notion of building a \u201clid\u201d over Memorial Drive and the I-70 depressed lanes, Bonasch sees that solution as too narrowly focused and too low on the cost-to-benefit meter.<\/p>\n

City to River\u2019s leaders also want to expand the scope of the City+Arch+River<\/a> design project. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the Arch,\u201d says Tristan Walker. Standing on the corner of Spruce St. and Memorial Drive, he points south toward the Soulard neighborhood. \u201cSome of the original history of St. Louis\u2014like the Soulard neighborhood and Chouteau\u2019s landing, are within walking distance of Busch Stadium. But you can\u2019t see them or get to them, because they\u2019re cut off by a tangle of highway ramps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walk north to Washington Ave., cross Memorial Drive, and you\u2019ll find a similar situation. Deafening noise, a confusing <\/a>street configuration under an elevated section of Interstate 70, and vehicle fumes create what Bonasch describes as \u201ca horrible environment, where visitors should be enjoying some of St. Louis\u2019 most important historical destinations\u2014Laclede\u2019s Landing and the Eads Bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at a historic junction of need, civic desire, and opportunity,\u201d says Bonasch, who welcomes input from community groups and individual residents. \u201cThe time to address all of these issues with a unified solution is now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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