Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Kbh3rd
The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge is now open to traffic—but it's apparently getting less of it than expected.
Actual numbers from the Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation are significantly below the initial estimates of 40,000 vehicles a day crossing the bridge. Though about 33,000 vehicles reportedly crossed on Day 1, just 27,000 motorists used the bridge later that first week. (Bridge use could rise this summer, however, as folks on vacation head across the nation.)
The new bridge comes after decades of being a priority for the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association. In 1994, almost as soon as he arrived in St. Louis, former RCGA president Dick Fleming stressed the bridge’s importance. How do I know? I was Fleming's assistant, as well as managing editor of Commerce magazine, at the time.
“Without the bridge, which would be located just north of the Martin Luther King Bridge, traffic conditions in the Poplar Street Bridge Corridor will continue to worsen," Commerce's September 2001 issue noted. "Without the bridge, congestion will last for three hours in the year 2020, with an average delay of 55 minutes per vehicle. The core of the St. Louis region needs a functional roadway infrastructure to be able to compete with other regions throughout the nation.”
It's been more than a decade since that was published, and I think we can agree that conditions along the Poplar Street Bridge were not on pace to require a three-hour wait time by 2020.
In 2004, Commerce had an even more dire warning: “Without a new bridge in Downtown St. Louis—at the point where four interstate highways converge—experts predict this key national junction will be close to failure in 20 years.”
Based on travel figures for the bridge's first two weeks, we weren’t as close to failure as warned.
On Sunday afternoon, I took my first drive east across the “Stan Span.” In my opinion, if you are traveling east on Interstate 44 and plan to cross the Mississippi River, you would be more inclined to use the Poplar Street Bridge, unless there was an accident or pronounced delay. And if you're traveling east on Interstate 64/40, you have to leave the highway entirely and drive to the bridge's entrance, at Tucker and Cass. Personally, I'd rather deal with a snarl on the Poplar Street Bridge than leave the highway altogether and deal with downtown traffic.
For the past few years, when I heard “four lanes,” I thought the phrase meant four lanes in each direction, similar to the Blanchette Bridge near St. Charles. Instead, the new bridge is just two lanes each way. I doubt that more lanes can be added later, so the bridge most likely will remain this way for years to come—until St. Louis simply must have another bridge.
Developer Paul McKee’s plan to revitalize the city’s near north side could turn the intersection of Cass and Tucker into one of St. Louis’ hot spots in the future. At the moment, however, the spot where travelers enter St. Louis is not postcard material—a nearby, lonely McDonald’s stands to benefit as much as any business from the addition.
Of course, it’s too early to say the bridge isn’t needed altogether. There likely will be more cars traveling over it in the future, particularly if the region doesn't put more emphasis on mass transit.
Commentary by Alvin Reid
