The St. Louis Lid / The Lid in Vancouver, Washington

This is a two part blog.  After reading this, see St. Louis Lid / Seattle's Freeway Park.
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Does this look familiar?

This is Vancouver, Washington.  It's just north of Portland, Oregon.

I think it looks a bit similar to this,

There's a downtown, a big historic park, and a highway cloverleaf.

In Vancouver, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is on the other side of a highway cloverleaf from its downtown.  The city can only access the park north of the cloverleaf.
In St. Louis, we have four interstates converging on a single bridge.  I-55, I-70, and I-64 all cross the Poplar Street Bridge.

Our interchange is also an obstacle.  It is safe to say that the Arch Grounds are difficult to approach from the south.

The national park in St. Louis must also be approached from further up the highway.  In our case, I-70 is the issue.

There is however a possibility of I-70 getting its own bridge north of the arch. 

When this is done, the section of I-70 that runs through downtown will be renamed as part of I-44.  There are those who are calling for the removal of that section of highway when that happens.

For as far back as I remember though, we've been talking about a lid over I-70 to connect the arch grounds to the Gateway Mall.

The lid would be replacing this,

with overpasses that look more like this,

HoK suggests widening the overpasses and making tree protected, landscaped walkways. 

Back to Vancouver.  The Columbia River Crossing from Portland, Oregon into the state of Washington is a massive highway project.  It too is contingent upon a giant new bridge.  It will also include a highway lid over I-5 at Evergreen Blvd. 

Like downtown St. Louis, this overpass also has a very wide road cutting off pedestrian access.  There is a stop sign there, though it is hard to see in this image.  I'm sure many rolling stops take place there.  The overpass itself is considerably more pedestrian friendly.  The sidewalk is wider and there are some cheap planters there to protect pedestrians from the fast moving traffic.  Still, this overpass is pretty horrible.  It connects Vancouver's downtown to their big park and historic site, Fort Vancouver. 

Like St. Louis, Vancouver has a plan for a lid.

There's a big open spot to still show off the highway infrastructure and include drivers in the space,

There's an effort to make it into a multi-level park that's an attraction in itself.

The lid doesn't solve all their problems.  They'll still have a much bigger mess to the south,

Efforts are being made though to include all sorts of stakeholders in the process.  Portland's planners have a hand it in.  It is very probable that this highway will be for bikes too,

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this post relates to the Arch Grounds, highways, and the Gateway Mall.