Friday, March 10, 2006

Plan Accordingly: Skinker Closed for Next Ten Days

Plan Accordingly: Skinker Closed for Next Ten Days

Starting about 7 PM tonight and until the morning of Monday, March 20th, Skinker Blvd. will be closed to through traffic from Clayton Road to Delmar Blvd. Skinker will be closed to all traffic between Pershing and Lindell, to accommodate construction work related to the Cross County MetroLink extension.

The official detour route is, like last time, via I-64/US 40, Kingshighway, and Delmar.

This is scheduled over the Washington University spring break, so traffic should be somewhat less than usual. Basically, they're removing the temporary bridges put in place some months ago, and installing new pavement to restore the intersection of Skinker and Forest Park Parkway.

Pedestrian traffic will still be able to use the intersection, which is good given that according to WashU, the fairly new pedestrian overpass over the new MetroLink and Forest Park Parkway near Melville Avenue connecting the university with neighborhoods to the north, will also be closed for finishing work. And, Forest Park Parkway will be closed to the local campus traffic that was able to use it, from Skinker west to Hoyt Drive on the WashU campus.

Also for these ten days, only one bus route will enter the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood. The Gold Line shuttle will detour westbound via Skinker to Lindell to DeBaliviere and back to Pershing via regular route. The Blue Line shuttle will detour northbound via Skinker to Lindell to DeBaliviere to Delmar and then north on Rosedale via regular route.

Since trucks and buses are not permitted on Lindell between Union and Skinker, the southbound #16 City Limits bus will detour through Skinker-DeBaliviere, via Waterman, DeBaliviere into Forest Park and around the History Museum, Lagoon Drive, and back to Skinker via regular route. The westbound #93 Lindell bus will detour from Pershing via south on DeBaliviere into Forest Park and around the History Museum, Lagoon Drive, and back to Skinker via regular route.

But hopefully, after this, we'll be one step closer to MetroLink actually opening for service by October 2006. I sure hope so!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Truck restrictions I can maybe see, but bus restrictions?! Last time I checked, Lindell is not private street. Buses should be allowed to take any public street, especially overly wide ones like Lindell.