Atlanta vs. St. Louis

I grew up in St. Louis and loved it. I moved to Salina Kansas in 1975 and loved it too.  I moved to Atlanta in 1983, when the population was 3 million and it was good. Since 1983, the population of Atlanta doubled and the highway and road systems didn’t keep up. Atlanta Metro needs to shrink in population and double its highway and road infrastructure. The City of Atlanta needs to concentrate on becoming a decent suburb.

We travel to St. Louis to visit relatives and I naturally compare my experiences driving around St. Louis Metro as opposed to driving around Atlanta Metro.

The population of St. Louis Metro is 2.8 million in a land area 8,261 square miles. St. Louis has a grid of 7 highways connecting all of St Louis County with access to St Charles County. Travel time across the metro is 30 minutes tops.

St Louis is extremely well designed with the City of St. Louis host to Busch Stadium, Mississippi River front Gateway Arch, office buildings, civic buildings and St. Louis Symphony Hall downtown. 

At Mid-Town, St. Louis hosts Forest Park, a 1,293 acre park that houses the St. Louis Zoo, Municipal Opera, Steinberg Ice Skating rink, St. Louis Art Museum and a lake with boats and a restaurant. The park is bordered by Grand Avenue, Lindell Blvd, Clayton Road and Washington University. 

The suburbs are host to multiple cities, shopping centers, sports centers, churches, schools and hospitals.

The city of St. Louis contains five interstate highways that connect to a larger regional highway system. Interstate 70, an east-west highway, runs roughly from the northwest corner of the city to downtown St. Louis. The north-south Interstate 55 enters the city at the south near the Carondelet neighborhood and runs toward the center of the city, and both Interstate 64 and Interstate 44 enter the city on the west, running parallel to the east.

Additionally, Interstate 170 crosses the central portion of St. Louis connecting South St Louis with North St. Louis. Interstate 270 crosses the extreme northern portion of the city before crossing the Mississippi River on the Chain of Rocks Bridge. Two of the five interstates (Interstates 55 and 64) merge south of the Gateway Arch National Park and leave the city on the Poplar Street Bridge into Illinois, while Interstate 70 crosses into Illinois via the newly built Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge north of downtown. Interstate 44 terminates at Interstate 70 on the western end of the Stan Musial Bridge.

The city of St. Louis also has several major roadways, including the north-south Memorial Drive, located on the western edge of the Gateway Arch National Park and parallel to Interstate 44, the north-south streets of Grand Boulevard and Jefferson Avenue, both of which run the length of the city, and Gravois Road, which runs from the southeastern portion of the city to downtown and used to be signed as U.S. Route 66. An east-west roadway that connects the city with surrounding communities is Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, which carries traffic from the western edge of the city to downtown.

St. Louis Metro grew out from the Mississippi river front, filled out in St. Louis County and spilled over into St. Charles County across the Missouri river.

The population of Atlanta Metro is 5.8 million in a land area of 8,376 square miles. Atlanta Metro completely gridlocked and is tightly surrounded by the circular I-285 highway and has no grid highway in the middle of the circle.

Atlanta is poorly designed with Brave’s Stadium in Cobb County and other venues scattered all over town. Atlanta has suffered from HOV and Toll lanes for decades. Travel time across Atlanta Metro is an hour if you’re lucky.

Three major interstate highways converge in Atlanta; I-20 runs east to west across town, I-75 runs from northwest to southeast, and I-85 runs from northeast to southwest. I-75 and I-85 combine to form the Downtown Connector through the middle of the city, carrying more than 340,000 vehicles per day, making it one of the ten most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States. The intersection of I-85 and I-285 in Doraville is nicknamed Spaghetti Junction. Metro Atlanta is also approached by Interstates 575, 675, and 985; Georgia 400, 141, and 316; and US 78; all terminate near the Perimeter.

Atlanta grew in all directions and changing jobs often requires moving to another suburb.  The suburbs are self-sufficient and residents can function adequately, but travel across the metro and into the City of Atlanta is avoided because of poorly laid out streets, not enough highway lanes, problems parking and venues that are not worth going to.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader