The Missouri Department of Transportation announced last week that the Compton Avenue ramp to westbound I-64 will not be removed after all. This represents a walking back of a proposal that had drawn both sharp criticism from Midtown business owners and enthusiasm from urbanists and others disinclined to like highways.
Midtown businesses complained loudly about MoDOT’s original plan to remove the highway interchange at Compton, which was part of other upcoming improvements to the interstate corridor. They predicted that it would cause chaos at the conclusion of big events in Midtown like SLU basketball games and also took the plan to task for rerouting the traffic that had previously used that ramp to the notorious interchange at Grand and Forest Park.
Not everyone agreed. That pushback from Midtown business owners drew its own pushback from urbanists and others who tend to see highways as barriers to city life. To them, the removal of the interchange—while inconvenient in the short term—could have led to the swath of Midtown becoming more bike and pedestrian friendly. They also wondered aloud if forcing people to linger in a cool neighborhood for a bit longer after events was really the worst thing…