South County Connector - A Great Concept but Not A Great Implementation


As a resident of the mid-county area I was initially pretty excited about the idea of having a "South County Connector" route to connect mid-county to South County. I had always wondered why I-170 abruptly ended at highway 64/40 and why there was no better way to drive down to Webster Groves and on south to South County without just taking smaller roads. So, yes, in concept creating a "South County Connector" sounded like a great idea. And then I saw the plans.

The plan by the county is to build about 2 miles of two lane divided roadway (not a real highway) starting at Hanley south of Manchester and continuing on to River Des Peres Blvd near Watson. And as at a cost of $110 million, that seems a lot of money for not much "connector". That means all that traffic would still have to go through the Hanley/64 interchange of lights, then hit the many lights on Hanley and the traffic all the way down to Manchester. I am not sure exactly how this little bit of extra roadway will help all that much. It may reduce some of the traffic on Laclede Station, but it does not even seem to include a real intersection at I-44, which may be a better place to start!

It also seems like all sorts of cities (like Maplewood, Shrewsbury), organizations (Citizens for Modern Transit, Trailnet) and residents are opposed to the current plan, but I do not think anybody is actually for it except for the county government. That is a lot of taxpayers' money that could probably be better spent in other ways to help the area.

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