How was your commute without four miles of Highway 40?
UPDATE: How many of you posted below something to this effect: “Yes, Highway 40 closed on Jan. 2, but the real test is how things go on Jan. 7″? Well, that day is here. Return and let us know how the “real test” went, since most schools are back in session and most people are not still on vacation.
Note: Comments from today, Jan. 7, start on this page. Read below for comments prior to that.
The original posting from Jan. 2:
Not sure if you heard about this…but Highway 40 shut down overnight between Ballas and I-170. We’ve featured the project in a special report, we’ve upgraded and promoted our online traffic reports, we’ve even done a game to try and have some fun with the project.
So, today was the first day we’ve had to cope with the change. And whether or not you usually drive on Highway 40, everyone’s expecting fall-out from the shutdown to affect drivers in other parts of the region.
So the question today: Did it affect you? How’d you deal with it? What route did you take? Was traffic heavier than usual on your usual commute?
Got photos from the Highway 40 reconstruction or the surrounding area? Click here and post them to our readers’ album.
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Buran is clearly a typical liberal nutjob, probably lives in the city. Who cares if people still call it Highway 40? This is a free country, isn’t it? And besides, there are fewer syllables in “Highway Forty” or just “Forty” than there are in “Interstate Sixty-four” or “Sixty-four”.
Oh, and from now on, I will expect Buran to refer to Lindbergh as “Highway 67″, St. Charles Rock Road as “Highway 180″, Olive as “Highway 340″, Manchester as “Highway 100″, Gravois as “Highway 30″, Tesson Ferry as “Highway 21″, etc., etc., because they ARE HIGHWAYS AND HAVE BEEN FOR A VERY LONG TIME NOW.
Buran - you hit it on the head. I was neither born nor raised here and I don’t understand it either. I don’t know HOW many people I have talked to that were born and raised here that look at me like I have three heads when I suggest ever leaving here or living somewhere else. EGADS! The horror!
sickofthisalready - I’m sure that pothole news report will also have its own corresponding graphics and theme music to go along with it. They should throw in a voiceover for it as well: “(dum dum dummm) Chaos on Manchester - a News 4 Special Report.”
I’m a “nutjob” just because I agree with you? What’s wrong with people these days that they have to disagree with people by insulting them? Where I live is none of your damn business. Oh, and you probably live in a doublewide trailer home, shop at Wal-Mart because you can’t afford anything better, drive a jacked up rusting pickup truck that spews fumes constantly, and are a typical Republican rightwing nutjob.
See how ridiculous your BS labeling is?
Ecity-
You’re so right about the breaking news and the theme music. Laughing so hard here!
… DON’T agree with you. And I certainly don’t.
My normal route was Hwy K in O’Fallon to 40 to 6th St exit downtown, so I was really dreading this since I only live a mile or two up from 40. I now come Page to Lindbergh to Olive to 170S to 40, and on in. The first two days my commute was 45 minutes both ways leaving home at 6:30 am, and leaving the office at 4:30 PM, which was only about 5 to 10 minutes longer than it used to be. Today, there was a wreck on 170S, so I stayed on Olive not knowing how far I could drive in on it since my office is on Olive downtown. Mistake. After taking the scenic route through the city, I came up to a split that went North and South, except I had to go North because I was in the left lane. So, I took that until I hit Page, which is where I started off on, and took Page to Kingshighway, since I knew that connected back to 40. About an hour and 10 minutes later, I come strolling into the office. I’m buying a GPS system this weekend.
I’m always amused by the high-and-mighty, latte-drinking, goatee-and-beret-wearing, Thomas Pynchon-reading, city-dwelling liberal nutjobs like Buran who complain that people “refuse to recognize that there’s a world outside this city”, while at the same time think that no culture exists outside their little crime-infested St. Louis City cocoon. Praise God that I live in the suburbs and don’t have to be neighbors with people like that.
If by ‘culture’ you mean Starbucks and Chesterfield Valley shopping, then we all stand corrected.
Agreed, cityDweller!
Did the suburbs suddenly get a satellite office of the Fox Theatre, Powell Symphony Hall or Busch Stadium that I had not heard about? If so, my perceptions of the suburbs have been all wrong! You mean there’s more than chain restaurants and strip malls?