St. Louis County wants to develop “South County Connector”
Study area with core area highlighted
St. Louis County officials say a road similar to the Forest Park Parkway could help link Clayton and south St. Louis County and considerably ease traffic congestion.
One possibility for that kind of road would connect Laclede Station Road in Maplewood with River des Peres Boulevard in St. Louis, officials have said.
The county on Tuesday received proposals from eight national consulting companies for a study that could lead to a “South County Connector.” The selected consultant would look at that idea — and others — to find the best way to move people through an area generally along Hanley and Laclede Station Roads from Highway 40 to Interstate 55.
The study would take about a year, Garry Earls, the county’s chief operating officer, said Thursday. The county’s request for proposals said the consultant would have until Jan. 1, 2013 to complete an environmental assessment of any proposed project. The county hopes to pick the consultant by Oct. 6 and have the company under contract by the end of the year.
Earls did not estimate when the county would build the improvements the consultant would suggest. The request for proposal said the consultant should estimate the construction cost in 2015 dollars.
“The easy answer is extending Interstate 170 south, but I don’t think it is going to happen in a 100 years,” Earls said. “But we have to do something about the high level of traffic.”
The consultant could suggest a route for the connection between River des Peres Boulevard and Laclede Station Road, Earls said. It could go next to the Shrewsbury MetroLink station and the old Laclede Gas storage tank property possibly to join Laclede Station Road at the west end of the Deer Creek shopping center, he said.
The connector, Earls said, may not be the only answer. Rebuilt Highway 40 includes a much expanded interchange with Big Bend Boulevard, he said. It may encourage some motorists to use Big Bend to get to the Clayton area and ease traffic on Hanley Road, he said.
County Executive Charlie Dooley “wants to connect South County with the central corridor, where the center of the economy is,” Earls said. “We need a better corridor,” he said.
“Eight percent of the county’s land area accounts for one-third of the county’s economy,” he said. South St. Louis County is a huge bedroom community whose residents should be able to participate easily in that economy, he said.
The area Earls mentions is Clayton, Richmond Heights, Ladue, Brentwood, Frontenac and Westwood.
The corridor needs a better connection with Interstate 44, he said.
The study would consider the movement of local trucks, bicyclists and pedestrians, he said. The consultant’s recommendations would reduce traffic congestion, improve safety and get cars out of smaller streets, he said. He did not have an estimate of the study’s cost.
Companies submitting proposals are PB with CH2MHill, HNTB, URS, Mactec, Hanson, Jacobs, TransSystems and Crawford, Murphy, Tilley.
In March, 1997, the late St. Louis County Executive George “Buzz” Westfall withdrew his support for an extension of I-170 south of Highway 40, essentially killing the $600 million project. Residents along the expansion corridor from Richmond Heights to Mehlville strongly opposed the proposal. Construction since 1997 in the potential route “rendered that extension unfeasible,” the county’s request for proposal said.
it was supposed to be called I-170, but after the north side homes were demolished, the south side threw a fit
stew in your own juice near south st louis county (that would be traffic)
funny, keep voting down mass transit county scaredy cats, it is bad, bad, unless you want to get where you want to go fast, cheap and pollution free
“The connector, Earls said, may not be the only answer.” With all due respect, Mr. Earls - DUH. How about thinking outside the box and instead of building a bigger road, put in something a little more forward-thinking, like a rapid-bus corridor, streetcar line or even light rail? Dedicated BRT lanes in each direction would be cheaper and easier to maintain than a highway and would get a lot of cars off the road if you’re taking people where they need to go.
South County Connector? Wasn’t that supposed to be I-170? That got dumped when everyone couldn’t get past their fears that it was going all the way to I-55. So, it never happened. It should have gone all the way to I-44. That’s the area that is the most difficult to get through. A person can get from I-55 to I-44 alright, but not from I-44 to Hwy 40. Some long term county planning we have, huh? The Brentwood Promenade should never have been built, no matter how nice it is. So, let’s do the study and actually do something to “connect” Hwy 40 with I-44 once and for all.
Even if Mr Earls plan goes through, which would be nice, how about another think-outside-the-box idea that should have been done within the last 5 years. When the City rebuilt the Lansdowne bridge over the River Des Peres, which took WAY too long, they could have laid plans to build an additional diagonal bridge, which would directly connect River Des Peres Blvd to Wabash Ave, creating a seamless connection. That would eliminate the zig-zag that one has to do from RDP Blvd, to Lansdowne, to Wabash, if heading north. This modification would be VERY helpful, eliminate one traffic signal from the transit, and streamline this stretch of road. Try getting the City Streets Dept to move on this one, though! It would probably take 20 years to design and build, based on the construction timeline of the small Lansdowne bridge (2 years), or the tiny bridge over a creek on River Des Peres Blvd (1 year). And, that’s no joke.
St. Louis has always had small minded thinking in regards to items like this one. The good of the few always has to outweigh the good of the many.
Too bad so many people hate Metro, otherwise, extending Metrolink down to I-55 (from the Shrewsbury station) would be ideal, especially if the system could then reach parts of south city like Carondelet and Dutchtown, where the busiest bus routes are found.
I don’t hate Metro, just the clowns who run Metro (who should all be fired!). I will not support more money for Metro until the present incompetent leadership is tossed out on its collective heine. I mean the Board, and all the rest of the clowns who respect us so well!
It’s nice to see consideration for connecting the central county to the south. Obviously the best solution would have been to connect I-170 to I-44 and even to I-55. This would have drastically reduced traffic on I-270 as the only true north-south highway. But the discussion above at least provides hope for a moderate solution to the current patchwork of local roadways, that is until protest groups start going nuts and nixes it like I-170 to I-44 was nixed. I truly wish you good luck moving this forward!!