St Louis unveils plans to revitalize Arch and riverfront; bike/ped important ingredients


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St. Louis and the National Park Service have unveiled five proposals to revitalize the St Louis riverfront area including the Gateway Arch.

The five proposals are the finalists in a competition designed to uncover the best plan for improving the area.

All the proposals include significant improvements to bicycle & pedestrian access in the area, which includes both the Missouri and Illinois sides of the river.

Currently, streets with heavy traffic and the I-70 corridor cut off the Gateway Arch grounds from the rest of downtown St Louis, making it difficult and even dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists to travel between the two areas, which are separated by only a few yards.

According to the St Louis Public Radio story:

"Really what we want to do is create a full-circle path that people can engage," said Spade, "not only from downtown St. Louis, but to go all the way around to the east side and enjoy the views back to the Arch and all the new activities that we've designed for the east side."

Alex Ihnen is a member of the community stakeholder organization, City to River. His group has been an outspoken advocate of removing the portion of Interstate 70 that divides downtown from the Arch and putting a boulevard in its place. Ihnen notes that several teams appeared open to the concept.

"I think its encouraging to see that more than one team calls for removing I-70 after 2015," said Ihnen. "All along we understood was a realistic goal. We're going to have to do some long-range planning to see how it would affect the region and the city." 

An eight person jury made up of national experts will pick the winning design on September 24th.

Details of the five proposals can be viewed here; the City to River website is here.

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