Free Press has it covered. Vote here: http://www.freep.com/article/2014060...SS06/140606001
Might I recommend 4 or 6. 5 does not free up any new space for development or productive use besides a bike trail. Aside from leveling the grade and encouraging walking from downtown to the east, 5 is not much better than the status quo. All of the other new options are upgrades, but I submit that 4 and 6 are the most interesting. The main difference is where the new development space is freed up. In 4, it would be a new slew of lots where the current downtown-side southbound service drive is. In 6, it would be a swath corresponding with the current freeway bed, abutted by the two current services drives each services as regular, one-way streets. 6 makes more sense to me. And it's less risky. If development does not happen, the freeway bed can just be green space with a trail to the river.
In addition, both 4 and 6 have the virtue of creating a new street going down to Atwater St., sweeping just past the Episcopal church on Jefferson. This new street would parallel the preexisting Schweizter place to the west, creating new development parcels and shortening up the mega-blocks on the near-east Riverfront. That is a benefit for pedestrianism and walkable neighborhoods that is not to be overlooked.
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