Memorial Boulevard / Congress Parkway

I'm a non-driver.  Owning a car is an expensive and stressful thing, and I've never had any interest in it.  It was therefore quite strange for me to find myself in Chicago last weekend with the burden of a car.  Chicago has always been easy to get to by bus or train, and a 3-day CTA pass gets me anywhere I need to go.  Yet I found myself constantly thinking about parking and navigating for a car.  Spaces previously very accessible became nightmares to reach, but parking the car at a Metra station was not an option.

At one critical point, after driving around in circles on one-way streets downtown, my frustrated driver suddenly demanded that I find a way to get us out of there and back towards our hotel.  I said, "Ok, just take Michigan Avenue to Congress and make a right."  To my driver's great disbelief, it actually worked out, and we zipped right out of town on I-290.

It's a really beautiful thing actually.  Congress Parkway begins at the Buckingham Fountain.

It heads west through downtown, and spontaneously becomes an interstate.  No merging, no ramps, no hassle.  It simply transitions.

On minute you're driving at a reasonable speed through stop lights and walkable streets,

and less than a minute later, you find yourself gradually increasing speed and shooting out of downtown.

Going the other direction, one is speeding from the suburbs into downtown,

and they find themselves slowing down a little and presented with the full street grid of downtown instead of just two or three exit ramps.

Keep going, and you're at that landmark fountain again.

This is wonderful for Chicago, but not every city is so fortunate.

St. Louis is kind of messy.  As I-290 goes into downtown Chicago, it becomes a beautiful boulevard.  As I-64 goes into downtown St. Louis, it rises high and destroys block after block with expensive on and off ramps. 


ramp, ramp, money, wall, wasteland, lack of access

 It is especially sad that many consider the boundaries of downtown to be Jefferson, Wash Ave, the river, and I-64.  Dear friends, the boundaries are Jefferson, Cole, the river, and Chouteau.  I-64 goes through downtown, it doesn't frame it.

Downtown St. Louis is not a terribly confusing place, but to the average Cardinals fan in town from rural Illinois or Missouri, it's surely a bit scary.  What if there was a Congress Parkway between Jefferson and the Poplar Street Bridge?  That would mean there'd be 15-20 cross streets, and anyone lost downtown would know they could take any north-south street to one of those intersections and hop on the boulevard that becomes the interstate.

I-70, in its current alignment, similarly zips through downtown tearing a jagged scar in the urban fabric as it goes, but the biggest problem is one of access and connectivity.  Biking to downtown from Old North last month, I was amazed to see the backed up traffic on 10th street only to realise that it was one of the only ways people from the north could into downtown from I-70.  A lot of people need to get in and out of downtown, but an interstate with a limited number of access points only known by locals makes that a challenge.

City to River has proposed that the I-70 alignment between Cass and the Poplar Street Bridge could become an at-grade boulevard when the new I-70 Bridge is completed (rerouting I-70 across the river north of downtown).   This would mean that a 1.4-mile scenic boulevard right in front of the arch grounds would become the obvious navigation point for anyone lost downtown.  Head to the river (make the street numbers go down) and turn left to get on I-70 and right to get on I-44/55.  Turn left to get onto Eads or the MLK bridge.  Turn right to take the Poplar Street Bridge.  It doesn't matter what street you're on.  If it goes to the river, it'll get you where you're going. 

Memorial Boulevard would get you in and out of downtown fast.  Or if you're trying to get into downtown, you'll get where you're going much faster.  For those driving through downtown from north to south or south to north, their highway will become a boulevard and five minutes later become another highway.  Easy.

City to River's plan would be the salvation of non-city drivers who want to get in and get out, it'd be an even greater blessing to city drivers who want to get somewhere downtown in a timely fashion, and it wouldn't be a big deal at all to the rest of the commuters in the region that want to breeze through it.  They'd see the arch on their way to work instead of a concrete wall.