McKee & MoDOT To Announce Plans To Complete A Revised 22nd Street Parkway
At a news conference at 1pm this afternoon MoDOT and Paul McKee will announce a revised plan for the long-stalled 22nd Street Parkway. The following is based on confidential materials I viewed briefly.
![The blue represents new highway, to be called the McKee Motorway. Red is the new bridge under construction.](http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aprilfools2013.png)
As part of the plan:
- The resurrected 22nd Street Parkway will be connected to I-44/I-55 by replacing Truman Parkway
- Ameren Electric will build a new headquarters on the former Pruitt-Igoe site, the old HQ will be razed to make room for the highway.
- It would bend over and replace Jefferson/Parnell & Salisbury and connect with I-70.
- A connecter will replace Cass Ave to reach the new bridge.
![ABOVE: Only part of a planned highway loop around downtown was built, a huge waste of land to the west of Union Station.](http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/22ndinterchange.jpg)
From the embargoed press release:
“The solution to redeveloping north St. Louis is having much more highway frontage” said developer Paul McKee, “plus the new McKee Motorway way will serve as a divider to keep unwanted types out of my development area.”
Of course I’m opposed to this plan! Do they think we are fools?
— Steve Patterson
Finally, more highways. That’s the city’s real problem: not enough highway! Now folks will *finally* start moving back in. Especially to North St. Louis. People love living next to highways. This one’s called a “Parkway”? no way! That’s even better. Parks are great. Also, people will definitely drive to the city more now that they can do so easily. Let’s resurrect the City Centre mall! All those stupid urbanists wanting “street cars” and “walkability” what a crock. Those are the things the city had and people left the city! Obviously the market has spoken. Gas will be a dollar a gallon soon again, just wait and see. Maybe they can build some *decent* restaurants along this new stretch of road like Applebees or Bob Evans. God, I hope they’ll build a Wal*Mart (with plenty of convenient parking!). Maybe if they make this stretch look more like O’fallon, MO people will start moving back in. That’s what the market wants. That’s simply the reality of the situation. Let’s tear up the street grid and build some cul-de-sacs. Next maybe we can do something about Soulard, Benton Park, & Lafayette Square. GOD those buildings are OLD. Time to go!
It’s good to know the city planners aren’t *fools*!
Happy April Fools!
Dude, relax…it’s an April Fools joke that Steve is making
That site on the southeast corner of Cass and the Parkway would be a great place for IKEA! It would be centrally located for all the new residential this will be generating, what with it being the old Pruitt-Igoe site.
So, does this included the necessary widening of Jefferson/Parnell that’s been discussed over the last two decades? About time! The traffic on those streets is horrible!
Waaaait a minute, what’s the date?
A good one, Steve; you were fooling me until I saw the name of the motorway–should’ve called it 755 (an actual road planned for that route) and it would duped me.
Great news! More highways means more progress!
But one concern, they’re not going to destroy any parking lots/garages for this are they?
Because while St. Louis clearly needs more highways, it might be too high a price if we have to reduce our woefully inadequate parking spaces.
Too bad it’s an April fools joke. St. Lous needs a downtown beltway, somewhere, really.
Not funny!! Ok a little funny now. I work at Ameren and was about to print this and pass it out at work tomorrow.
That McKee dude is a raving ego maniac. What we need is input on these projects from young forward thinking individuals. McKee is a self centered jerk that doesn’t care about the current residents of these areas that he has been blighting for the past 20 something years.