St. Louis County doesn't need a 'Road to Nowhere'

Letter to the Editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, published 6/19/09

We are taxpayers and residents in West County, where St. Louis County and the Missouri Department of Transportation plan a new highway of four to six lanes from Ladue Road to the Maryland Heights Expressway. A recent editorial ripped the cover off the fiction that these two 1.7-mile road projects ever had anything to do with congestion. This is greed and laziness, plain and simple. Congratulations for accurate insight on the "Road to Nowhere."

It is the duty of MoDOT, St. Louis County traffic and our elected officials to watch out for our communities and support projects that maintain or increase our quality of life, not just fill the county coffers with money. Without even looking at other options to fix the problems along Woods Mill Road and Highway 141, they are expecting us to agree to having our homes, communities and green space blitzed for the roads; fork over $34 million per mile of new elevated road and two tunnels that do not have adequate, current environmental or financial analysis; and, inevitably, provide tax subsidies for their future "Mosquito Marsh Mall" down in the flood plains along Creve Coeur Mill Road and Maryland Heights Expressway.

In short, they want us to pay for their "progress" and build the road to it too.

Soon after, they'll expect a bailout when it inevitably floods and the "For Lease" signs overwhelm them. Why don't they just send us all an invoice and be done with it? Encourage re-development rather than new development; this would save money and local farms and showcase us as leaders of responsible development rather than government waste. We hope all readers who have had enough of irresponsible development will protest directly to St. Louis County and their own community city hall. Complain like a paying customer; that's what you are.