The NPS first draft report on the new management plan for the Arch was due out a month or so after the public meetings held at the end of June/first of July. It's been two months, so we should be seeing something any day. Any advance word on the findings?
Lots of people testified about the idea of rebuilding Memorial Drive as a proper connection between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront. It will be interesting to see how the idea is presented in the draft report.
Driving the route early this morning made me wonder about who would be against such a remaking of the area. Putting big rigs on a new Memorial Drive might be the biggest downside to the idea.
Or would it be an overblown concern? There is heavy truck traffic travelling on S. Broadway through Soulard, especially semis serving the brewery. Soulard survives pretty well.
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To tell you the truth, you can have the most magnificent plan for Memorial Drive (and you offered a nice one), but I think the truck traffic and their moneyed interests will trump any concerns of the citizens, unless it becomes so vocal that those concerns are on the level of a revolution.
It is unfortunate since St. Louis and America need to create new directions in so many ways.
There is still too much business as usual and not enough appreciation that we are at war.
What!, we are at war?
You just have to observe Hwy 100 from Hwy 44 to Washington, Missouri and see what is happening to realize that in fact urban planning for the wealthy insiders is still doing well. Forget wars, energy shortages and the like, money is to be made.
In the same way, the fault of your Memorial Plan is that it does not accommodate the moneyed interests. This is irregardless of what it may accomplish for the citizens of St. Louis.
This happens over and over and over and over, until America fails, but hey, a few guys get filthy rich off the style of urban planning that rejects innovative solutions such as your Memorial Drive proposal.
Personally I consider the whole process a farce, simply run for the interests of a few. I hate to feel that way, but I see so few speaking up, it makes me wonder. Please understand I'm a Vietnam combat Veteran and not some young idealist talking from left field.
didn't the danforth foundation after a couple million bucks determine that the liklihood of constructed a lid--at the heightened security requirements of post 9-11--made it an unlikely prospect? If the danforth foundation finds that such an investment didn't make sense--for a foundation, for christ's sake, that doesn't have to turn a profit or convince skeptical political leaders--that how in god's name is the NPS report going to say anything different about the lid concept or, even more radically, removing the highway? that was the point of the Danforth pressure--that working on access issues to the riverfront made no sense without starting first on making the riverfront something worth going to. and that means convincing NPS--along with the corp of engineers, one of the most publicly insensitive fed agencies--to give up their turf for other means. the NPS study is a reaction to that call for releasing the land for other uses, and, as such I predict, will basically call for the same old thing.
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