Chouteau Greenway in Forest Park

There used to be a very large lake in the middle of St. Louis.  Chouteau Lake was filled in, and most people have no idea it ever existed at all.  Yet there are plans, questionable plans, to rip out the railyard south of Union Station and make an artificial lake, which would be called Chouteau Lake as a simulacra of the original.  It isn't a very green plan or even that great economically.  I-64 would remain... 

It has been suggested in order to solve the problem of the undeveloped lots south of 64 near downtown.  It would extend to Grand metrolink station where that fancy new plaza is being built,

Past Grand Station there would be a nice little park that sort of ends at the Grove.

From there perhaps development along Clayton Avenue would continue into Forest Park.

Forest Park and the Botanical Gardens would be connected to the arch downtown.  With a bit more vision, perhaps more could be done though.  UrbanSTL recently noted that Forest Park Forever might be giving a parcel of land cut off from the park to the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.

That parcel of land is identified in blue above to the right of Kingshighway.  To the left is another unused parcel that currently has access issues.  Clayton Avenue is shown in yellow, and Chouteau, in green, is show deadending at the parcel in question.  It seems sensible that the greenway could continue along Chouteau into this section of the park.  Perhaps there could be a tunnel under Kingshighway.  These large, grassy fields could be connected and called a greenway.  All that's missing is a bike path and a connection across Kingshighway.  There's already a tunnel under I-64 and that fancy new tunnel near the zoo.  Two or three more and we'd be set.

If we biked from downtown to Forest Park and ended up at that tunnel under 64, we could go into the park or onto SLCC's campus and continue biking west.  eventually we'd run into some turtles.

Turtle Park is really great, but it's also kind of disconnected from everything.  It's in another parcel of the park cut off by I-64.

Again, looking at the map, it looks like all those cut off grassy fields could be connected into one greenway somehow.  Clayton Avenue is shown again in yellow, and can be seen coming to an end at the Hi-Pointe.  The Katy Trail, perhaps starting in downtown Kansas City, reaches Creve Couer Lake in St. Louis County and joins the Centennial Greenway which reaches the campus of Washington University.  Wash U is on Skinker north of the H-Pointe and has a north-south bike path running along it in Forest Park.  The Hi-Pointe can be the place where the Katy Trail and Chouteau Greenway meet.  With Clayton Road added in, it seems fair to say that Dogtown could have more than just a giant Amoco sign.

It is this blog's advice to Forest Park Forever that they keep those parcels of land and attempt to join them into a greenway.  Perhaps Great Rivers Greenway could help financially.  If this greenway is called Chouteau Greenway, then it will be conceptually blended with the planned Chouteau Greenway in midtown and downtown.  It would connect the Hi-Pointe to the Grove.  Instead of working from downtown to the park, development could start in the park and work towards downtown.  The Grove is an up-and-coming neighborhood.  If Forest Park could put a greenway together, then the wonderful people of FPSE could probably figure out a way to connect it to the Sarah or Grant metrolink stations.  Greenways are supposed to make connections.  Why not put one in the most disconnected area of the park?

Doing this would then lend credibility to any future project along the proposed greenway downtown.  Ripping out an active railyard is a controversy.  Connecting isolated pieces of parkland is a no-brainer.