Questions 162=164 refer to the following report.
Report for City Council Executive SVIeeting, March 18 Options from the Planning Department
The Truman Expressway is now 50 years old and is no longer fit for use. The surface is becoming less even, and the underside of the elevated road is crumbling, posing a potential hazard to the pedestrian areas and smaller roads that run beneath it. There are three main options for how to handle these issues with the expressway.
The first is to invest money in the repair of damaged sections. This is the cheapest possible option, as well as the quickest. However, some community activists have noted that people do not like having to walk along the dark streets underneath the expressway to reach the waterfront on the other side. The city has been trying to increase low visitation rates to the waterfront area, and making road repairs only would not address this problem.
The second option is to rebuild the roadway underground. This would allow us to maintain the same traffic capacity and provide more space aboveground for other structures or buildings.
However, it would be extremely expensive and possibly disruptive.
The final option is to tear the expressway down and widen Elmview Road, which currently runs beneath it. This could help to expand local retail, as shops at ground level would be able to tap into a large customer base. However, Elmview Road would not be able to take all of the traffic that currently runs on the expressway. Much of this traffic would try to bypass the city by taking smaller roads to the north, probably through the community of Greenville. At the same time, the residents of this community would most likely be against using their city as an alternative route due to an increase in through traffic and noise on their roads.
