Granted, 435-South could probably add an off-ramp for a more direct way to get onto 63 and the drive made to look nicer, but saying the the zoo is completely out of the way is ludicrous (and that ignoring the fact that a person from the suburbs or small town is just as likely to be coming up/down 71, not 435. As for being nervous, I don't even see what a suburbanite would be scared of coming down the 63rd would be nervous about; you aren't stopping any, you turn into Swope Park before you even hit the residential area, and you get into the parking lot pretty quickly. I hail from an area that is in the rural zone, and nobody I known finds it difficult to get to the zoo. And all of the places you mention are suburban spots; the Plaza is hardly any more accessible than the Zoo, and you have to drive over Troost to get there (if coming from 71). If that's the only thing keeping people from visiting the zoo, that would be a sad state of affair.zlohban wrote:I know you city dwellers will be shocked to hear that many suburban and rural families do not go to the Kansas City Zoo because of the lack of easy access to I-435. You all must realize that developers over the last 50 years have looked to interstate access as their money grabbing savior. You only have to look as far as the sports complex, WOF, The Legends, etc. etc..
Why can't a new exit and updated 63rd street corridor be developed for the nervous suburbanites who fear driving through Swope Park. The park needs larger better placed directional signs also.
I have a 1960 KC map that shows all the proposed parkways and interstates. It shows the park being divided by a new Gregory parkway and Manchester parkway, I found most of the proposed routes to be better.
Under that mentality, the St. Louis Zoo would have nobody, and your two parking options (unless you are really lucky and get the nearby parallel or diagonal spots) are shelling out $10 for parking or find a street parking spot where you have to walk along an obscure sidewalk-less wooded area. Not to mention that the zoo is free and in the middle of urban STL, you could end up with them hoodlums swarming the spot. But no, it maintains itself as a top destination, especially with those from the suburban County; not to mention if you are coming from someplace like Kirkwood or Fenton, you are not going to exiting directly into the Zoo but getting off at 44, driving up through urban low-income STL, and possibly getting lost in Forest Park.
Seriously, that is a very weak argument, and those who make such arguments are unlikely to visit the place anyways unless it was in Leawood.