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. 
“Not sure if you heard about thisâ¦but Highway 40 shut down overnight between Ballas and I-170.”
WHAT? Gee, I hadn’t heard! What, with the news stations starting traffic coverage at 4:30am (and 90 minutes of local news on Wednesday night). What is this closure you speak of???
Seriously, STL media…give it a rest. This is not Earth shattering news…the road is closed, move on.
I should not be surprised, though. Isn’t this the same town where people camped out to watch them blow up the Tamm Avenue bridge? Now THAT is my idea of entertainment.
Once again we’re surely being laughed at by those in other cities, especially Chicago. And please…don’t get on your huffy bike and spew forth the typical native St. Louisan response by saying “well, we’re not Chicago!” It’s that kind of inferiority complex that will never allow us to push forward and BECOME a city like Chicago, Atlanta or Philadelphia.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to prepare for the apocalypse. And by apocalypse, I mean that someone from Ladue will not be able to get to the Galleria in a timely manner.
Why are there headlines that the commute was mostly jam-free this morning? Are they serious? What a waste of someone’s time and a waste of space on the front page that could have been used for real news stories. Can we stop beating this horse to death and revisit it JUST ONCE on Monday to see how everything is and then never speak of it ever again?
I actually paid off all the people doing construction on Highway 40, and they still let me use it. I get to work in 10 minutes from the county to the city now.
Why are we allowing 18-wheelers on our streets? A semi in the right lane was allowed to go straight across, despite incessant honking from several cars back, tying up the dozen cars whose drivers actually thought ahead and got in the correct lane and unfairly delaying drivers who were stuck behind the jerk who let over the trucker with a false sense of entitlement.
Hanley was just repaved, too. It’s going to turn into a rim-eating pothole-filled mess within months if we continue letting trucks on side streets. Trucks were banned from Forest Park Parkway for good reason. Drivers with a sense of entitlement aren’t helping.
Then there was the trucker who decided he wanted to move from the far right lane on Kingshighway to the far left lane RIGHT NOW and STOPPED in the middle of the right lane, sitting there tying up traffic.
People. The solid lines mean DO NOT CROSS! If you made a mistake, continue until you can turn around and go back. DON’T TIE UP TRAFFIC. Those of us who actually know what we’re doing appreciate it.
I forgot to note this was at Eager & Hanley, sorry.
And now we have KSDK doing the scroll thing at the bottom of the screen during programs to be sure we don’t miss the highway mens’ news conference at noon. (was funny when the dude at head of mess said there were no backups, then a second later their reporter was standing in front of the mutha of all jams. Funny as hell, but expected)Sure isn’t a slow news day considering world events, so what’s up with this? The automatic feeding of preapproved news pablum by major stations is getting really obvious, isn’t it? If the subscriptions of the controlling news bite producers doesn’t have it included, it isn’t important and we won’t see it. I’m just staying off that side of the muddy and not missing a thing. Love STL, but our highway system lacks a lot. Now where is that story about the guy at the head of this who screwed up so badly in the southwest that they had to rebuild all the “highways” he put in within a couple of years? Must be with those pics of the pretty coffins heading back from the sands that GB orders be hidden! Keep those guns holstered as you creep and just blow kisses to all…MU-AH Mu-AH Big bonus if you piss a phobe off enough to redden their face and someone else mistakes it for ardor and flirts even more lustily.
Judging by many of the comments above, it seems there are a lot of liberal nutjobs here in St. Louis.
I can’t believe that this has had so much attention that it has. First of all, 40 didn’t close, part of it closed. There are other routes in St. Louis besides 40 between 170 and Ballas. My god, a countdown to the closure and numerous references to this during the same 30 minute newscast. Either you need to get a life or we are a very fortunate city that we have nothing more newsworthy to report than a partial highway closing. I tend to think it’s the former rather than the latter. Whatever will we talk about in a few weeks? A newly discovered pothole on Manchester Road and how it will cause major traffic snafus?
Something my husband and I have wondered about ever since we moved to Swansea in 1995 — why do St Louisans refer to this as highway 40 when it’s been I-64 for quite some time? (Reading about the history of the Soap Box Derby in St Louis gave me some insight on this though — did you know MANY years ago they used to shut down a 2-lane 40 to run the local race?)
Because a lot of people here refuse to recognize that there’s a world outside this city, have their heads in the sand, and think old-fashioned points of pride need to be kept far longer than necessary. This drives me crazy too and I was born and raised here.
It’s like people want to forget that this road IS AN INTERSTATE AND HAS BEEN FOR A VERY LONG TIME NOW.
But the media is too big obsessing over this to actually go and do a search-and-replace on all their articles to change “Highway 40″ to “Interstate 64″.
I also have no idea why there’s this fixation on what high school one went to.