Goodnight Sweet Prince, Good Morning Big Mess

** here, Sweet Prince refers to Interstate 64 (or just Highway 40 as it is most often referred to here in STL)

On January 2nd, the Missouri Dept. of Transportations will be closing the the primary East/West thoroughfare through St. Louis.

Sound like your kind of fun? B/c I have yet to find a resident who is excited about it.

Highway 40 has long had its problems as more and more people try to use it each morning and evening to get to and from work. The traffic jams on it and our outer belt I270 can be horrible if there is any kind of accident near there intersection.

Its going to be a mess!

Overview of closed area and other impacted highways (ALL)

Thank God! I don't have to take it to and from work, but thats only part of the problem. The real problem is that no one really knows what kind of havoc closing the highway will cause all over town. In recent months (and as late as yesterday and today) MODOT has been working to increase lane capacity on some of the other major highways in town, but when you see the numbers on how many people take highway 40 right now on a daily basis, where in the world are all of them going to go? AND if they close most of the bridges at different times over the highway as they work, how are you supposed to get East/West let alone from one side to another!?

Its going to be a big mess.

I live in the South-West corner of town, outside of I270, but I work inside I270 North of 40. Normally I would leave early enough that I could take I270 North, past 40, to my exit and traffic would still be moving .... but I270 is going to be a parking lot in a few days b/c everyone who would normally take 40 in is going to need to get off at 270 and go north or south and everyone inside 270 who needs to go anywhere will need to either go in toward downtown farther or come out and go around.

My client is allowing employees and contractors effected by the closing (who isn't?) to do "alternative work schedules" if approved by there boss and will be paying for metro passes for employees who can use the bus to get to work which is nice.

Its going to be a huge mess.

Timeline Diagram

Oh and did I mention it is going to be shut down in phases for the next 2 years!? Roughly half (the outer half) will be shut down starting Jan 2, 2008. 2009 brings the closing of the inner half of the project and sometime the outer section will open. Fun! Who knows when overpasses and bridges will be done.

Every news outlet has there own web pages detailing the construction and how people "might" be able to plan there commute around it. This blogger reminded me of a Xkcd comic that seems odly appropriate. Check it out here.

Yep, a mess.