St. Louis Pulls I-70 to Boulevard Conversion from Downtown Multimodal Access Study

{the City to River vision of an urban boulevard in place of I-70}

The full story of the city's RFP appears to be something more than what was originally written below, or at least there's another take on it. SLDC Deputy Executive Director Otis Williams and Amy Lampe, SLDC Major Projects Specialist, reached out to offer more information. Williams says he was mistaken to say that the I-70 issue was "the primary reason" the study was held up. The real issue, they say, is that the $90,000 available to produce the study simply couldn't properly address the original language below. This is certainly true and the scope of the study has changed. According to another source, there were also some rather mundane bureaucratic issues causing delays. Although the study has not been finalized, we have learned that it will likely spell out the steps needed to eventually de-designate approximately one mile of I-70 as an Interstate, without offering a judgement on the merits of the idea. If so, the study will fall quite short of what was hoped for a year and a half ago, but perhaps the idea will live on. The original post is below:
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In particular, address the potential removal of the elevated sections of I-70 from north of Pine St. to O’Fallon St, to determine feasibility and traffic impacts should the elevated sections be completely removed, brought to grade, and what various alternatives might be considered for this scenario to occur long-term.

These words were included in the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) "Downtown Multimodal Access Study" RFP in February 2012. The study was to be completed by December 2012. Today, Tim Logan reports that the disappearing study is back, but stripped of the language above. The question Logan is unable to resolve is "why?"