People & Places

Best Public Works Project

The Page Avenue extension

In the early 1990s, environmentalists, urban planners, politicians and this newspaper railed against plans to stretch Page Avenue across the Missouri River. To critics, the massive public-works project -- something that was first identified as a regional transportation need in 1973 -- was a sop to real estate developers and the concrete cartel that controls the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission. The critics said the region would pay a stiff price for a new bridge: more urban sprawl and less pristine floodplain land. Maybe. One thing was clear: The critics didn't spend each rush hour crossing the Blanchette Memorial or the Daniel Boone bridges. When the first phase of the $500 million project is completed by the end of the year, there'll be, as our president says, time for some "revisionist history." Or not.