We've Moved

Ecology of Absence now resides at www.preservationresearch.com. Please change your links and feeds.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Hemmed In

A resident of north St. Louis is heading south to see a friend. He drives south on Florissant Avenue but then remembers that the section of Florissant/13th/Tucker over the old Illinois Termianl Railroad tunnel is closed indefinitely. So he makes a left turn on Cass Avenue, figuring that he can useBroadway to head south and bypass downtown. oops! The bridge over I-70 is closed indefinitely. So he turns around, heads west on Cass and then south on Jefferson. That is fine until he passes I-64. Jefferson is closed.

In the kind of city where north-south connectivity is easy, this driver would not be having so much trouble. But in a city with fewer than a half-dozen north-south streets that actually connect downtown to the city south of it, he's in a bind due to some coincidental road repairs.

There is definitely a spatial dimension to our city's polarization between north and south. I sure hope that Richard Baron is thinking about this fact as he contemplates Chouteau Lake.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can no longer value anything you write, as your blog links to "MayorSlay.com."

I'm a bit confused as to why a racist's propaganda is worthy of your endorsement.

Anonymous said...

^ wow - how open minded and fair. hey, even if you don't like him, to be an informed citizen you should be aware of what the Mayor is doing.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, I wonder why a site about the goings on in St. Louis would be linked to the Mayor of St. Louis's website. Doesn't seem to make much sense does it?

Chris said...

Chouteau's Lake, according to rendering I saw somewhere, unfortunately will not include more roads from downtown south. If anything, the lake being in the way will prevent new connections from ever being built. Perhaps someday they could make Wharf Street actually go somewhere south of the Arch.

Anonymous said...

Chouteau Lake won't add any new north-south connections, but it also won't rip out any existing ones either.