Historical June 1999 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Dear Friends and Supporters: More than a year after the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council voted to expand the MetroLink light-rail system along the Forest Park Parkway to Clayton, the matter remains a hotly debated subject.
I am writing to you today in the hope of adding a little light to the heat.
On June 30th, East-West Gateway Coordinating Council is scheduled to make its next big decision… selecting one of two construction alternatives for the expansion from the Forest Park station to the city limits. One alternative is underground.
The other is at-grade, running either in the median or on the south side of Forest Park Parkway.
I support the underground alternative.
It links the 28th Ward to the region’s two largest centers of commerce and government, as well as to the airport.
It does so in a way that would enhance our already desirable neighborhoods.
With that said, I do not believe East-West Gateway will vote for the underground option. That stark reality, which has both financial and political roots, threatens our neighborhoods and risks worsening the already awful traffic congestion at Skinker. At my urging, East-West Gateway has agreed to consider a compromise… build MetroLink at-grade in the median of Forest Park Parkway, but avoid exacerbating the congestion by descending below Skinker to a station just east of the intersection.
With the help of Mayor Clarence Harmon, who is a voting member of East-West Gateway’s governing body, I believe this hybrid plan could be politically and fiscally palatable to a majority of the East-West Gateway members.
It is not an ideal solution. But, I believe it is the only realistic compromise between killing MetroLink altogether and building the completely unacceptable at-grade construction alternative.
I do not have a vote on East-West Gateway, but I do have a telephone and a computer.
I bet you do: too.
This third alternative… underground at Skinker… needs your support. Thanks… Lyda
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1999.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1999_06.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
