"South County Connector" Open House
St. Louis County is hosting an open house on December 9 where it will present information about its proposed “South County Connector.” The meeting begins at 3 p.m. and will conclude at 7 p.m. in the Affton White-Rodgers Community Center located at 9801 MacKenzie Road.
Though details about the “South County Connector” are lacking on the open house announcement page, the project likely involves a northwards extension of River Des Peres Pkwy to Big Bend Blvd or Hanley Rd. An alignment option from the 2005 study is shown above.
The intent of an extended Des Peres Pkwy is to improve connectivity between mid and south St. Louis County. The county has been looking for ways to fix this “missing link” ever since the cancellation of the southward extension of I-170 to I-44 and I-55 in the 1990s. The Cross County MetroLink extension and the deferred Metro South extension were projects meant to supplement the cancelled I-170 highway project.
In a related project to facilitate increased vehicular traffic between mid and south St. Louis County, the county is widening Hanley Rd to six lanes from I-64 south to Flora Ave. Part of this project involves reconfiguring the intersection of Hanley and Manchester as a median u-turn intersection. Prior to early 2009, the county had considered building a SPUI interchange at this location, but changed plans for a variety of (good) reasons.
Update: The “South County Connector” project website is now up and running.
It's hard to tell in your graphic, but the conceptual RDP Connector is grade-separated over Lansdowne Avenue. So not only would this project compete with MetroLink by improving motorist travel time, but it would also make it harder to access the station.I also think the connection between Big Bend and Hanley should be scrapped to allow the Deer Creek shopping center to truly redevelop into TOD. Too bad this large infill site is between stations, but the roadway alignment shown will only guarantee the site remaining auto-oriented.
I take it this project is a given? That is, that the bulldozers will come out and various neighborhoods will be leveled and streets "improved" (that is, widened, straightened, speeds increased, pedestrian access removed, and generally made safe for big-box stores) regardless of what the community input might be?sPh
sPh, there's no guarantee that anything will be built as a result of this study. The no-build option is very much possible. The 1990s study I referred to recommended against not only the southern extension of I-170, but also a parkway from Hanley to River Des Peres Pkwy similar to the one depicted above.