Transportation Ideas (St. Louis, Springfield, Ozark: how much, schools, college)

[MUTigersFan09]

Post your ideas on transportation for Springfield and/or nearby communities here.
I personally would like to see more road widening on congested streets/highways and hopefully get a rail system back to town again. A light rail would be nice for Springfield and nearby communities.

[Curmudgeon]

Ideas? Here's one. Leave the Ozarks alone. If we wanted California we'd move there. We don't!

[MUTigersFan09]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Ideas? Here's one. Leave the Ozarks alone. If we wanted California we'd move there. We don't!

So just let roads in need of upgrading carry on more and more traffic each year? Sounds like a good plan to me Have you ever drove down US 65 where the 6 lanes ends during rush hour? The road carries over 90,000 vehicles per day. Just doing nothing and letting traffic get worst wouldn't help the situation at all. Springfield is continuing to grow each year. To be truthful, Springfield will eventually grow up to be a large city in 50-100 years. Planning now is essential to a growing community.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by c.dang21

So just let roads in need of upgrading carry on more and more traffic each year? Sounds like a good plan to me Have you ever drove down US 65 where the 6 lanes ends during rush hour? The road carries over 90,000 vehicles per day. Just doing nothing and letting traffic get worst wouldn't help the situation at all. Springfield is continuing to grow each year. To be truthful, Springfield will eventually grow up to be a large city in 50-100 years. Planning now is essential to a growing community.

Yes. I've driven 65 a lot over the years. At issue is what I bolded. Just how much growth is really wanted? Build more infrastructure and they will come. Do you have a vested interest in it? You've invoked many California businesses. Is your vision for Springfield one of sprawl, more traffic resulting in gridlock, overcrowded schools, increased crime, bad air, a proliferation of strip malls, impatient people, little boxes made of ticky-tacky passing as housing and costs driven higher, more homelessness, nearby towns being encroached upon until it's all one big, ugly megopolous?. Is this your vision for Springfield?

It's certainly not mine nor that of many others I know; many of whom moved to the Ozarks to get away from precisely what you're advocating.

For me the saving grace is that I'm almost 70 and have just a finite number of years left. I'll likely have reached the end of my shelf life and assumed room temperature before you and others like you succeed in ruining this region.

[MUTigersFan09]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Yes. I've driven 65 a lot over the years. At issue is what I bolded. Just how much growth is really wanted? Build more infrastructure and they will come. Do you have a vested interest in it? You've invoked many California businesses. Is your vision for Springfield one of sprawl, more traffic resulting in gridlock, overcrowded schools, increased crime, bad air, a proliferation of strip malls, impatient people, little boxes made of ticky-tacky passing as housing and costs driven higher, more homelessness, nearby towns being encroached upon until it's all one big, ugly megopolous?. Is this your vision for Springfield?

It's certainly not mine nor that of many others I know; many of whom moved to the Ozarks to get away from precisely what you're advocating.

For me the saving grace is that I'm almost 70 and have just a finite number of years left. I'll likely have reached the end of my shelf life and assumed room temperature before you and others like you succeed in ruining this region.

No, certainly shouldn't get too big to face those types of problems. I just think that Springfield should face some of its terrible traffic problems. Still the same clean air friendly people Ozarks, with a drop of citylife to it.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by c.dang21

No, certainly shouldn't get too big to face those types of problems. I just think that Springfield should face some of its terrible traffic problems. Still the same clean air friendly people Ozarks, with a drop of citylife to it.

Bite your tongue!

[KonaKat]

what terrible traffic problems? LOL I was just there earlier this year along with Dallas and OKC. Now THERE's some traffic.

A rail system? I don't know when they were supposed to have had one in the past as you infer but I highly doubt people there will go for it.

[Arrby]

Traffic will expand to fill the space allotted.

I remember very well when US 65 was Glenstone Ave. (For that matter, I remember when St. Louis and College streets were Route 66; but let's not go there.) As its opening approached my father commented on how little traffic would be left on Glenstone once all the trucks and through traffic used the new expressway. It took a year, maybe two before the traffic count on Glenstone was as high as it ever was.

City after city has discovered that once all the arteries are clogged people will start moving back into the city core. To a certain extent this is happening in Springfield even now.

Springfield once had an extensive trolley system. I remember riding the city buses back in the 60's as they followed the rather inexplicably bizarre routes laid down by the ghosts of the tracks. There is a reason cities went away from streetcars and to buses: buses can change their routes, streetcars cannot. Even City Utilities finally figured that out.

[vinix1999]

Speaking of roads, Springfield is one of the largest cities that I've been in to have so many heavily used, two lane roads without turn lanes or curbs (and with open ditches alongside said roads). An example: Seminole from Glenstone to Campbell (except where they've improved it at a few intersections). Another is E. Galloway from Lone Pine to Luster. Or Cherry east of Glenstone. These roads have been busy for 20+ years and the city has done little to improve them. The recent rebuilding of the intersection at the south Glenstone Walmart was long overdue. It seems Springfield reacts very slowly to growth issues.

It also seems odd that the only six-lane highway in the area is a state highway, not an interstate (although the city is supposedly trying to get 65 and James River designated an interstate).

[MUTigersFan09]

Originally Posted by vinix1999

Speaking of roads, Springfield is one of the largest cities that I've been in to have so many heavily used, two lane roads without turn lanes or curbs (and with open ditches alongside said roads). An example: Seminole from Glenstone to Campbell (except where they've improved it at a few intersections). Another is E. Galloway from Lone Pine to Luster. Or Cherry east of Glenstone. These roads have been busy for 20+ years and the city has done little to improve them. The recent rebuilding of the intersection at the south Glenstone Walmart was long overdue. It seems Springfield reacts very slowly to growth issues.

It also seems odd that the only six-lane highway in the area is a state highway, not an interstate (although the city is supposedly trying to get 65 and James River designated an interstate).

Missouri has recently been having trouble finding a way to fund state transportation projects. More highways than Illinois + Kansas combined but not the funds they have. Ya, I heard about that proposed I-244 that was announced about a year ago. 2-3 years they said but that's only if they had the funds to do so.....