Guest Commentary: Suddenly Urgent Arch Tax Is Misguided

The 3/16 cent "Arch tax" bill that would authorize a public vote on Proposition P raises questions of priorities and transparency, and the supposed urgency of the measure is highly questionable. Great public works projects can take time, and the imaginative and daring Gateway Arch landscape went through funding hoops between its emerging from the 1948 design competition and the completion of landscaping in 1982. Despite bad infrastructure around the site - largely ignored by the current CityArchRiver plan, in the face of wide public support for removing I-70 - the landscape was worth the time it took. Icons are proven over time, along with the dreams of civic leaders.

As an architectural historian who was a member of one of the design teams in the City+Arch+River 2015 design competition, I fully understand the importance of sensitively addressing the deficiencies in the infrastructural mess around the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The vibrant landscape created by two of modern architecture's greatest practitioners, Eero Saarinen and Dan Kiley, has become the city's entrance and deserves our concerted effort to make it better. Yet most of the early phase improvements, from the "lid" to the lowest-cost version of revamping Leonor K. Sullivan Drive, are already funded through the entities working on improving the Arch grounds: the National Park Service, Great Rivers Greenway and CityArchRiver.