Kingsbikeway

Frankie and Johnny

2011-10-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

At an antique shop in Festus last summer I came across three of these,

Click to Enlarge

In its time, Custer's Last Fight was on every bar wall in America, or at least in and around Anheuser-Busch's backyard.

Here's why it matters,

Click to Enlarge

It's tucked away in that room Thomas Hart Benton painted in Jefferson City.

It's right above the door there. Frankie and Johnny have a problem.

Here's another version,

This dated piece of bar advertising disguised as art found its way into the preserved record of Missouricana and will be with us until the Capitol Building collapses or some angry republicans paint the walls white. It seems justified then that whatever copies of Custer's Last Fight are still floating around out there should find their way into bars around town. I know where to find three of them...

STLGROWN.COM

2011-08-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

In the past this blog has shown city branding videos from SLU, Wash U, UMSL, the CVC, and others, but this set from Monsanto's STLGROWN.COM program has got to be the most unusual. The employees profiled on their promotional posters seen here, are not scientists as one would expect given Monsanto's reputation, but people pulled from marketing and administration. The streetscapes in the videos are out in the county and even in St. Charles. The shot of Grand Center is of an empty street devoid of people. The scenes from the city are of Forest Park, the arch grounds, the botanical garden, and a community garden with Union Station and the city as background details. Urban spaces are minimized and left out. Those interviewed do not appear to be very knowledgeable about the city where they supposedly live and work, and the places they like to visit are only those places where Monsanto happens to donate money. Is this effort intended to attract quality employees to St. Louis or to boost Monsanto's image in the community? It appears to fail on both counts, but maybe there's a class of middle-aged suburban professionals out there that like that kind of thing.

Unsafe Crosswalk

2011-06-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I often find myself walking north on Vandeventer and feeling unsafe crossing DeTonty. Here's the intersection.

Red is where the crosswalk is. Yellow is where I usually cross to avoid an untimely death. Here's why.

The wall around the botancial garden's parking lot obstructs the view of traffic whipping around the corner to get onto I-44. I'm at the edge of the curb here and that black truck is coming pretty fast. Cars can't see pedestrians. The wall blocks the view. Either the curb should be extended out, the wall removed, or the wall pushed back a few feet. The first solution is most sensible. Here are a couple more views from the crosswalk. The first was a crazy shot taken from the middle of the death zone and the second from the island in the middle of the highway ramp.

This is just north of the new 'Complete Street' project on Vandeventer which finally has sidwalks.

In Your Ward: 21st Ward (Alderman Antonio French)

2011-04-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

South Campus Heritage Tours

2011-04-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

UMSL's history department is located in Lucas Hall, which is named after Jean Baptiste Charles Lucas, a judge who moved to St. Louis in 1805, made a lot of money, bought some land certificates intended for victims of the 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes and bought up all the land that now belongs to UMSL. He is also the guy that donated the land for the Old Courthouse to be built on, the guy Lucas Park (behind the Central Library) is named after, and the namesake of the Lucas Place Neighborhood that the Campbell House Museum is representative of.

Perhaps what is most amazing about this early St. Louisan is the fact that his son, Charles Lucas, was shot and killed by the namesake of another UMSL building. UMSL's Physics department is located in Benton Hall named after Thomas Hart Benton (great uncle of the regionalist painter). This is the Benton that Benton Park is named after. In a duel on Bloody Island (an island that used to sit in front of where the arch is now) with young Charles Lucas, he shot the guy in the neck and was himself shot in the leg. In their second duel, Lucas died and Benton walked away. That was in 1817, about four years before Benton became a powerful US senator and about forty years before he himself died.

On the tenth anniversary of Benton's death 30,000 people attended the dedication ceremony for that majestic statue of him in Lafayette Park. That was in 1868, the same year this property map was made.

When JBC Lucas first bought land on Natural Bridge, it was referred to as Normandy after the beautiful woodlands like those found in JBC's French hometown. Only two children survived him. It can be seen in the above map that his son James H Lucas got the builk of the property and his daughter Ann built a home in one corner with her husband Wilson Price Hunt (as in Lucas and Hunt). Hunt is the man that lead John Jacob Astor's overland fur trading mission to found Astoria, Oregon by following the tracks of Lewis & Clark in 1810-1812. Astoria is celebrating its bicentennial this year, and St. Louis should be a little proud of that.

So where is this story going?

Well, the Lucas properties eventually fell into Catholic hands of varying sorts. Most interesting being the Daughters of Charity, who acquired a fair amount of property south of Natural Bridge through various real estate deals and built St. Vincent Hospital in 1894 using the same architect that designed City Hall and the Compton Hill Water Tower.

Then a St. Louis Province was created (think of it like a super parish for the order) and a Provincial House dedicated (and subsequently expanded).

Then the Daughters of Charity created a college, Marillac College.

Then in the 1960s something unusal happened north of Natural Bridge on the rest of the former Lucas estate. The Bellerive Country Club sold its land to Normandy for the creation of a community college. That community college was accredited by the University of Missouri and grew so quickly that the UM System was born with campuses added in St. Louis and Kansas City. Two colleges co-existed side-by-side. UM-St. Louis was on one side of the Lucas estate and Marillac College was on the other. That lasted about ten years and then the order closed Marillac College and sold the buildings to UMSL in 1976.

Years went by. UMSL expanded, and the Daughters of Charity shrank. In 1998, the Provincial House was sold to UMSL, and I moved into the Villa wing in 2001. The DoC didn't completely move out of the building until 2002 so there was some overlap.

Ten years have passed since I first lived in the home built for the Daughters of Charity, and I think it is time to revisit the past and dig up conversations that need to happen. UMSL has swallowed up most of the original Lucas family properties as well as the Daughters of Charity's legacy. St. Vincent County Park, the Daughters of Charity cemetery, and the old St. Vincent Hospital (now Section 8 housing, a gut rehab) still remain on the edges off of UMSL's campus connected by a bike trail bound for the History Museum.

How can the past (Lucas and DoC), the present (UMSL), and the future (bike trail and ???) be discussed in an informed manner? By coming to UMSL this weekend!

Announcing,

South Campus Heritage Tours
April 16th, 1 PM - 4 PM, Provincial House Common Room, Pierre Laclede Honors College, South Campus

This is right inside the main door and easily accessible by MetroLink.

The Lucas Family history and heritage
1:00 - 1:30
UMSL Historian, Dr. Peter Acsay will present a broad historical survey of the “Normandy tract,” that will include changing patterns of land use, transportation, economic use, etc. over time.

Daughters of Charity in St. Louis
1:30 - 2:00
Discover the history of the Daughters of Charity in St. Louis and at UMSL. Carole Prietto, Archivist for the Daughters of Charity, will present an illustrated talk on the history of Marillac Provincial House, the Marillac Cemetery, and the stories behind the artwork in the Provincial House Chapel.

Ecological Restoration Creek Walk
2:00 - 3:00
Join James Fish, the project director for the Campus Honors Environmental Research Program (CHERP), on a walk around Engelholm Creek and St. Vincent Park. See the projects currently being undertaken by UMSL students and local youth around the park and learn of the changes that have happened to the landscape over the past two hundred years. The tour will begin and end at the Provincial House Common Room.

South Campus Architecture Tour
3:00 - 4:00
Walk with Lynn Josse, of the Preservation Research Office, on a tour of the former Marillac College. Learn of the architects, movements, and changes that have shaped the built environment of UMSL’s south campus and their importance in the region’s architectural legacy. The tour will begin and end at the Provincial House Common Room.

Clark Avenue

2011-03-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Herbie Markwort wrote something provocative on NextSTL.com. He published this map in a blog post titled Realigning MetroLink to Better Serve St. Louis.

His premise was that Forest Park Avenue and Market Street are the spine of the central corridor, and would have served us better than the free alignment we chose for our first light rail line.

What bothered me, and what has kept Herbie's map in my mind this past month, is his choice of possible stations.

Grand and Jefferson are both suitable places for light rail stations, near SLU and near Wells Fargo, but neither is particularly close to Harris-Stowe State University. Herbie's choices isolate an important university. As the best choice for HSSU would be Compton, its exclusion underscores a disturbing fact. Compton is a horrible street.

On the west side of Compton is a fence with grassy fields beyond controlled by Saint Louis University. On the east side of Compton is a fence with grassy fields beyond controlled by Harris-Stowe. The street itself is simply the no man's land in between. Four structures stand out: a gas station, a parking garage, a building with a huge set back, and an arena set back by a huge expanse of grass.

Market and Forest Park Avenue do not go straight into each other but divert south into the interstate to make a senselessly complex interchange where a simple one would suffice.

The post on NextSTL said that Forest Park Avenue and Market Street are the spine of the city, but said nothing about the fact that our back is broken. That's why I have been dwelling on Herbie's words.

I don't know how much money is spent maintaining the current interchange, but I'm sure that it's significant. It cannot be easily crossed on foot, and it does not generate any tax revenue. In the summer it probably takes quite a few guys to cut all the grass.

If Market and Forest Park Avenue were aligned to flow directly into each other and not into the interstate (yellow), then Harris-Stowe and the Chaifez Arena would be smartly placed along the city's spine instead of set back at a great distance. The land no longer needed for the complex interchange could be made into developable, and taxable, real estate (blue), and Clark Avenue could be extended (red). This would separate our spine from the interstate by two blocks at least. Like any patient after radical back surgery, we'd suddenly find ourselves much healthier.

I see this idea as just one of four important things that need to happen in the Central Corridor.

We should build Clark Avenue as a continuous street between Grand and Memorial Drive. Just as essential as fixing the Compton interchange is reconfiguring the 22nd Street Interchange, anchoring Union Station, and connecting downtown to the arch grounds. Expanding Clark Avenue is one way to do that.

The above map is the Northside Regeneration plan for 22nd street as the end of the Gateway Mall and connection to the near north side. Drawn in red is my hope for a future Clark Avenue that continues across 22nd street and under Union Station's train shed.

If Union Station is to thrive again, it needs more than surface parking. Punching Clark Avenue through it is one way to breath life into the decaying landmark (red). Developing real estate next to Clark, under the shed and above the MetroLink, would help too (blue). The structure of the shed wouldn't need to be touched, a streetscape would fit under it easily.

Anchoring Union Station anchors downtown. The ten blocks along Clark between Union Station and Busch Stadium are serviced by three under-used light rail stations, a hockey arena, and housing in waiting in the unrehabbed Cupples Station buildings. There's also abundant surface parking to build on. Clark is, of course, also an important connection for the future Ballpark Village.

My last suggestion is that connecting the ballpark to the arch grounds could be achieved with the removal of the interstate once the new I-70 bridge is finished and the highway rerouted. City to River has proposed that replacing the interstate with an at-grade boulevard would free up extra arch-front real estate for development and make the entire national park accessible by crosswalks. If that happened, then maybe a day would come when the Millenium Hotel would not need such a large superblock and baseball fans could walk right through.

Wheelchairs and the City

2011-03-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

Why do wheelchairs matter for the future of St. Louis?

If you've looked around the city with an eye towards inclines and obstacles, you've probably noticed that most of St. Louis does not comply with the Ameicans with Disabilities Act. We need to. We have to.

To some extent, the city with the best para-transit and facilities for the disabled can attact people from all over the country. They spend a lot of money in our hospitals and help us build a better city.

More importantly though, building a city that is friendly for wheelchairs creates a place that's good for quite a bit more.

Imagine the last time you walked around a major city as a tourist with a heavy bag. Tourists have the same need for elevators and relatively flat inclines. Sidewalks that aren't cleared of snow or that have inch-deep water pooled on them are obstacles. As great as the Gateway Arch and the Cathedral Basilica are, if the sidewalks are terrible, it might be the only memory people take home with them.

When returning home to St. Louis from a long trip, locals must also get their bags on the trains and local sidewalks. It's a concern for everyone.

If St. Louis is to grow its population, it must be a place where families are comfortable. Raising a child is similar to having a partner in a wheelchair. Every day countless mothers lift their strollers up and down the stairs on the bus. Every day, kids get bumped around on our unrepaired sidewalks.

Wheelchair infrastructure is also family infrastructure. If we are to be a city that is a good place for families, then we must also be a city that is good for human-propelled wheeled vehicles.

Is St. Louis a good place to retire? Those of us that don't end up in wheelchairs in our later years, will still need flat sidewalks and stairless buses.

How about pushing a bicycle or a dolly full of packages? All over St. Louis, I've seen new ADA compliant sidewalks go in poorly. The curb cuts that are supposed to be wide enough for wheelchairs have fire hydrants or telephone poles in the middle of them. They don't line up with crosswalks. Rather than sloping down to be flush with the street, they are sharply cut, so that the users must follow a complicated navigation route. This is especially true at Tower Grove Avenue and Manchester in front of Sweetie Pie's.

We need to be very careful about the way we provide for wheelchairs, but not just because of the off chance that somebody in a wheelchair will actually need the infrastructure. We need it for our mothers and grandmothers. We need it for our shoppers and tourists. All of us use it, and all of us need it.

Consider how a donation to Paraquad can make life easier for a woman with a stroller.

Forest Park Outside of Forest Park

2011-03-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

Not all of Forest Park is within the boundaries of Skinker, Lindell, Kingshighway, and I-64.

There's a significant amount of park space that has been cut off from the park proper, and it seems like there's quite a lot of confusion about what to do with it.

The Washington University School of Medicine could obviously make great use of the land just south of their medical complex.

Any density Wash U could build into this part of Forest Park would be entirely in the 1/2 mile walkshed of the Central West End MetroLink station.

Virtually nobody thinks of this land as part of Forst Park, and it seems silly to have such a small playground park next to the largest park in the city, but the last I heard Wash U and BJC is unable to develop the land without incurring a fees from Forest Park Forever indefinately. This impasse has produced a park space with very little identity of its own. There are no great statues or attractions, just a playgrund and some tennis courts. People walk through it, not to it.

I do not know the constraints on the land, but many in-between plans seem possible. If not an intense development like a hospital expansion, then perhaps it could be set aside for the Science Center for a future history of medicine museum or similarly appropriate use that fits their mission, the character of the lower CWE, and the terms of Forest Park Forever. Perhaps a museum of the senses to partner with the adjacent School for the Deaf. Giving the Science Center a stake there creates an incentive for them to maintain and improve the visitor experience in that corner of the park.

A better east-west connection along Clayton Avenue is vital, because there isn't a connection south of there until Manchester Road. If an institution like the Science Center saw such a connection as part of it's long term plan, the city and the park would benefit immensely.

Looking south, this empty land in the CWE connects to Forest Park Southeast along a pedestrian bridge where there is a proposal for a Drury Hotel.

I believe for this hotel to go forward, the land would be given by Forest Park Forever to Forest Park Southeast and then developed on. The pedestrian bridge to the Central West End would remain in the Drury plan (in yellow above). My only concern however is that it would do nothing to address the east-west connection across Kingshighway. It is too difficult to get to the King's Oak neighborhood from FPSE.

I regularly ride my bike north along Tower Grove Avenue to Chouteau and on to the CWE. Sometimes I take Taylor and sometimes I take the pedestrian bridge (getting off and pushing if there are other people, of course). If there was ever going to be a Chouteau Greenway, it would make sense for Chouteau Avenue to end at two bike/pedestrian paths. The tunnel under 64 should be duplicated under Kingshighway. There's plenty of space and Great Rivers Greenway, Forest Park Forever, and Drury could pay for it in intallments.

The tunnel under 64, as it is now, is disconnected from the rest of the city. It simply dumps onto Oakland. The Bike St. Louis network ends at Macklind and doesn't make the extra distance along to the tunnel. Again an isolated section of Forest Park could make a connection.

There is plenty of space between the interstate and the sidewalk on Oakland for a bike trail. I don't really understand why it hasn't been suggested before. Oakland isn't the greatest street to bike on and the grassy dead space parallel to it is part of Forest Park. As Macklind is the best bike corridor to Forest Park from the south, it shouldn't just dead end. There should be a plan for bikes to continue into the park

Further down Oakland is the Turtle Park.

The theme of giant animal sculptures visible from the interstate is a good use for this section of Forest Park in Dogtown. A ring of pedestrian and bicycle paths surrounded by extremely large animal sculptures tells everyone driving through exactly where the zoo is. It creates amenities for the residents of Dogtown and draws them across into the park. Conversely zoo visitors can be drawn into Dogtown for lunch and leisure. Tamm and Hampton could be tranformed into gateways to the zoo and to the park. The Animals Always sculpture could be a pedestrian entrance, and a similar entryway could be made on Tamm. The new Hampton Concourse is not a friendly pedestrian space, but this ring of parkland at the zoo's front door is developing in a wonderful way... slowly.

The area of the park between the Hi-Pointe and the Tamm Overpass presents an interesting challenge. The land is simply not being used. The Forest Park bike trails dead end on Skinker and there is no way out, so a system of pedestrian and bike bridges over the highway exits could create scenic overlooks and fix a vital connection problem, but it would be expensive.

Scott Ogilvie, an independent running for alderman in the 24th ward, suggests that perhaps a Dogtown dog park would fit in there. I agree. The space is large and it isn't being used.

Another idea might come from the future I-64 Bus Rapid Transit line that Metro has envisioned as part of their Moving Transit Forward program.

Bus-only-lanes on Oakland or on the interstate would both require large investments. Metro expects to move a lot of people back and forth along the southern edge of Forest Park, and when not on the bus, these passengers will be pedestrians. That means all of the red areas on the map above will need to be thought about in pedestrian terms. Wherever the stations go, larger sidewalks and more pedestrian amenities will need to be considered.

An idea that came out of the CityArchRiver competition was that large urban parks need a rough edge that is neither park nor city, a blending edge that helps people transition from one side to the other. Putting museums like the History Museum and the Science Center at the edge of Forest Park has achieved this, and so has the Turtle Park, but gateways and other entry options still need to be explored. Forest Park has a six mile long border. Making the entire length of it attractive is going to take decades.

Franklin County as part of the St. Louis Region

2011-02-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Census has many lessons to teach, but perhaps one of the biggest is that when St. Louisans talk about 'the region' we need to have a wider definition than just the two red areas in the center of this map,

I'd like to write today about Franklin County. I don't believe many St. Louis urbanists consider it an important part of our region or of our future. Perhaps the feeling is mutual. Regardless, the more we know about each other, the better.

There are several programs that are meant to be regional but have never been expanded beyond the core for lack of voter support. Each of these programs creates a different opportunity for regional inclusion and for economic development. I'd like to put these tools out there in the hope that the citizens of Union and Sullivan may take some interest. Among these programs are the Zoo and Museum District, the Great Rivers Greenway District, and the CVC. Let's go through each of these and see how they could benefit Franklin County.

The Zoo and Museum District

The ZMD is a tax district that supports the five flagship cultural institutions of St. Louis: the zoo, the art museum, the science center, the history museum, and the botanical gardens. At the moment, the ZMD has not been expanded beyond St. Louis City and County, but Franklin County is an interesting prospect.

Perhaps because the ZMD is so geographically limited, the five member institutions have done very little in the surrounding counties. Franklin County is an exception. Concerned that smoke and air pollution in the city would kill all the orchids at the Botanical Gardens in the 1920s, MoBot sold off some of their land in the city and bought a large area down the road along Route 66. Today, Shaw Nature Reserve exists as an attraction in Franklin County paid for by the taxpayers of St. Louis City and County.

If the ZMD expanded, it is likely that Shaw Nature Reserve could benefit from whatever revenue MoBot would recieve, and the potential for investment from the other four institutions would be interesting to explore. Beyond an expansion of outreach programs, all five institutions could build assets for the county if the money was provided.

Perhaps one idea for an expansion of the ZMD into Franklin County might be for an enchancement to Meramec Caverns. The Zoo could operate a collection of cave life and launch a program for the many endangered bats of Missouri. The Science Center could create a geology and cave formation museum. The History Museum could do something on Jesse James, Route 66 or whatever. The county can get as much as they give, but in that process the whole region would benefit.

The Great Rivers Greenway District

The two rivers that form the shape of St. Louis County, the Missouri and the Meramec, both flow through Franklin County. Both of these rivers are destined to become important bicycle tourism corridors through the River Ring concept pursued by the Great Rivers Greenway District.

Because Franklin County is not a party to the tax district like St. Charles County, they are not seeing the same kind of investments. This is most clear in the alignment of the Katy Trail.

The Greenway District, above all, is a trail builder and maintainer. The Katy Trail is one of the most important trails in the country, and it bypasses Franklin County entirely. Augusta, in St. Charles County, enjoys the benefit of having the trail run directly through its wineries. New Haven and Washington, south of the river, are inaccessible. Breweries in Hermann and Augusta fit directly into the trail and benefit from the mobs of bicycle tourists that ply the trails all summer long. Breweries and wineries in New Haven and Washington, like 2nd Shift, are not as easily visited.

If Franklin County joined the Greenway District, then it would be be easy to imagine a day when the Katy Trail is on both sides of the Missouri River with many brides in between. Boutique hotels and bike shops would pop up all along the route.

The other trail of concern, the southern half of the River Ring, follows the Meramec River, and again Franklin County's exclusion from the planning process leaves them excluded from the benefits.

The Meramec Greenway will eventually expand into Franklin County, but the money, marketing, and building will be a lot slower.

The Convention & Visitor's Commission

It's distressing that the tourism agency for St. Louis is not responsible for promoting Cahokia Mounds, Meramec Caverns, Old Town St. Charles, or the Piasa Bird. The CVC is only in charge of St. Louis City and County. This means the thousands of visitors to downtown St. Louis every year really don't learn much about the surrounding region. It means the CVC's budget is small. It means the local UNESCO World Heritage Site sits unvisited. It means Meramec Caverns will have to rely on it's billboards along the interstate.

Route 66 is one of the more attractive of the national scenic byways in Missouri, and it's an important point of historical connection between St. Louis and Franklin County. The same is true of the Katy Trail. When the Katy Trail finally connects to downtown St. Louis (via the Confluence or Centennial/Chouteau greenways), it would be nice if the CVC could promote it as a connection to the Rhineland: to Augusta, Washington, and New Haven.

Concluding Remarks

St. Louisans, Franklin County is part of our region.

Citizens of Franklin County, consider joining regional efforts and benefiting from them.

Failing to Capitalize on Big Events to Improve Transit for Everyone

2011-02-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

[This post originally appeared on NextSTL.com]

Cities need exercise just as much as people. St. Louis exercises through her big events like Earth Day, Fair St. Louis, and First Night. Such events should enhance civic life beyond the event itself, just as exercise enhances our bodies. Huge public events should leave the city feeling good and ready for more activity in the future. They should not hit like a heart attack or a blood clot.

The more big events we hold, the better our circulation should be. People should discover something about the city, public transportation should work better as more people are introduced to the system and regular users experience little disruption, and the least appealing aspects of public parties should be minimized. Stress on the system should introduce new experiences and improve the city’s capacity to invite regular visitors throughout the year. Perhaps St. Louis needs a personal trainer.

regular route of the 73 Carondelet in green and the route of the Run for your Beads 5K in blue

This Saturday, February 26th, the Mardi Gras Run for your Beads 5K will close 12th Street through Soulard. On the event website attendees are encouraged to show up at 12th and Lynch and informed that abundant parking exists in several nearby lots.

The 73 Carondelet will need to be rerouted for this event, but that information has not yet been announced by Metro on their website or blog. People in Soulard using Google Transit Saturday morning on their smart phones will probably not feel so smart when the bus never shows up to collect them. If the event renders the bus undependable, how could anyone be expected to take the bus to the event?

the Beggin’ Pet Parade is accessible by the 8, 10, 30, 40, 73, and 40X

The following day, Sunday the 27th, is the Beggin’ Pet Parade. This event will not interfere with bus routes and will be accessible by the 8, 10, 30, 40, 73, and 40X buses. However, buses generally run with less frequency on Sundays.

Both of these events, the 5K run and the pet parade, should be warm-up stretches to the big workout. People attending these events should get an idea of the neighborhood and how to get there by bus. Organizers should be able to see how people are arriving and in what kind of numbers. Metro should be able to practice the alternate bus routes. Bus riders should see that something big is happening and that it affects their commutes.

you will have no luck riding a bus through Soulard on March 5th

The following Saturday, March 5th, the River City Grand Parade will shut down the northern half of Soulard. Cars and buses will not be allowed. Hundreds of people will be driving around trying to figure out where to park. Four buses will be diverted away from the neighborhood along new routes. The 73 Carondelet will follow I-55. A shuttle (run by Metro) will replace those buses, and suburbanites following instructions from the event’s website will be scratching their heads looking for the Soulard MetroLink station because as the website states: “The Metro Link also drops off at 10th and Marrion.”

As the night progresses, people will be leaving litter, vomit, urine, and worse on the streets and stumbling to their cars to drive home and crash. Months later, those who successfully figured out the MetroLink shuttle combination might find themselves downtown asking, “How do I get to Soulard from here? That shuttle I learned to use is gone, and all I see are buses… Meh, I guess I have to drive.”

this event is accessible by MetroLink

The Tuesday night following the big parade, March 8th, the Lumiere Place Light Up the Night Fat Tuesday Parade will block Broadway through downtown and all buses from Illinois in the process.

red indicates closed streets - MetroLink will be unaffected

March 12th, the St. Patrick's Day Parade and Run will reroute every downtown bus. Commuters trying to get to the parade may be able to take MetroLink. Commuters trying to make their normal bus transfers will be disappointed.

What will happen to the 59 Dogtown, and does the parade begin in Forest Park?

March 17th, the Ancient Order of Hibernians will hold the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dogtown, and Clayton Avenue will be closed (and perhaps part of Oakland Avenue as well). Where will the 59 Dogtown bus go? It isn’t clear. It could be rerouted to Oakland. If so it would be a very good way to get to the event. Otherwise, maybe it will have to use Manchester Avenue or perhaps travel through Forest Park to Skinker and back south to resume the normal route.

We can do better. St. Louis as a city deserves better event planning. Public transportation is an essential part of good urban circulation, and large events make it even more essential. All of these locations are very accessible by bus, yet organizers ignore that fact and actively work against it. Events like Mardi Gras should have tens of thousands of people, not ten thousand cars. Drunk people should be driven, not driving.

It is very possible to rework our parades and festivals in the coming years into more transit friendly events. Key bus routes can be invested in with advertisements leading up to the event and increased frequency during. Volunteers can guide people from bus stops. Cars can be parked at Metro’s many commuter lots. Regular commuters that are not attending the event will not need to be frustrated. Attendees who drive to the event can find parking because the majority of people came without their cars. In the wake of the event more people can feel comfortable riding the bus. They will know that the 73 Carondelet will take them to Soulard. They will know the 59 Dogtown takes them to Tamm.

Like the legacy of the 1904 World’s Fair, St. Louis should be a better place in the wake of large events. Our events should leave annual gifts and legacies that accumulate in an ever improving civic space. Businesses involved in large parades and festivals should find new customers in the future as event attendees return throughout the year. Public art like the Mosaic Bunny or the Eifel Tower should debut. Metro’s budget could be buffeted by increased ridership and advertising revenue. Phone numbers should be exchanged and hands should be shaken.

Anybody can throw a block party, but the city’s flagship events require genuine leadership and collective ownership to truly be assets to the city and its residents beyond the day of the event.

Dedicated and Free to All

2011-02-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

After half a decade abroad, I finally moved back to St. Louis this past September with my wife and three cats. One of the first things we did was to picnic on Art Hill with my family and watch the hounds chase the bunny.

It was nostalgic for me because I remembered being there many times as a kid, the same age my nephew is now, and watching the balloons. I remembered rolling down the hill, running to the top, and rolling down again... and then itching.

DEDICATED TO ART AND FREE TO ALL

After the race, we went into the SLAM for a few hours to see the art and remember the hundreds of other times we had casually walked in and seen our favorite pieces. A lot of the art has been shuffled around with the renovation, but Benton's Cradling Wheat is right where it was when I was in college. After five year's out of town, my art, our art, St. Louis' art is still there. We fund it with property tax and visit often; it belongs to us all.

A couple weeks ago, I ended up in the hospital after an unfortunate sledding accident.

But that hospital visit will remain in my memory, and I'll be more careful next year. Sledding on Art Hill is a St. Louis tradition, even though there are dozens of safer hills in Forest Park, Art Hill has always been the place to be.

Sledding down Art Hill in 1904

When asked what my favorite thing about St. Louis is, I always say it's the free museums.

When asked what St. Louis can do to improve on its strengths, I suggest that the institutions of the Zoo and Museum District reach out to the entire St. Louis region through summer camps, teacher trainings, university partnerships, and tours of international field sites in Madagascar and elsewhere, and that in turn the ZMD be expanded to include every county in the St. Louis region. We should all pay into the pot.

When asked where my favorite place is, I say Art Hill.

It isn't just that Art Hill has been there my whole life and will be there when I die. It isn't because it is beautiful and different in all seasons. It isn't about the Symphony conducting concerts there or the free Shakespeare plays nearby. It isn't the awesomeness of hundreds of FBC kids 'bike sledding' down it at midnight. What I love about Art Hill is its timeless potential. I can see the past, present, and future, and all are fantastic.

Just look at the Grand Basin.

When St. Louis was preparing for the 1904 World's Fair, a big concern were the fountains. Tap water in St. Louis was brown river water. Nobody wanted to see pillars of brown water shooting from a pool of mud. Making sure they sprayed clean white water required the city to invest in modern water treatment systems. The Grand Basin gave St. Louis clean drinking water.

Looking down at the more modest Grand Basin today, a full century later, we're still looking at clean potable water. The Grand Basin contains treated tap water independent of local ecology. It's a revolution waiting to happen. Forest Park is at the heart of the River des Peres watershed. Feeder streams like Engelholm Creek flow dirty through industrial sites straight to Forest Park, go underground, and then dump into a concrete ditch south of the park to head to a treatment plant in Carondelet and then into the mighty Mississippi. That can and probably will change. Upstream programs at UMSL and the Green Center are taking hold. Great Rivers Greenway is looking to buy up the land around the streams and put in riparian buffers. Forest Park itself has become a semi-free flowing wetland complete with egrets and turtles. It isn't hard to imagine a day when rain falling on Natural Bridge flows into the Grand Basin and on to the Mississippi. The place that gave us clean drinking water a hundred years ago may one day be the face of a clean watershed filled with daylighted streams and bike paths.

Look at the timeless boats. They always were and will be.

Standing on one of the bridges admiring an egret stalking its prey, one can always be pleasantly surprised to hear laughter below and see a boat emerge from under the bridge casually plying the sun lit waters. That experience is more than a century old.

A hundred years makes a big difference. It's hard to believe the image above is from St. Louis, but indeed that is Art Hill. The Art Museum used to be part of a much larger complex.

The grandness of it's former size is a little hard to imagine. Two large halls flanked the current structure, and three domes sat in front.

It makes the current expansion of the SLAM seem quite modest indeed.

Seeing what was is a hint of what could be.

I'm glad Art Hill no longer has steps and flowing water, but it would be amazing if the rest was still there. It'd be huge--fantastically huge. I wouldn't be sad at all to see the current structure hidden behind that wall of marble.

Thinking about its past, it is impossible to stand on Art Hill today and not imagine an incredible future for the place. It's an unfinished project. There's so much more that can be done. One day we will party again in the Plaza of St. Louis.

And the zoo just may furnish an elephant or two (or five) for the occasion.

If you live in Jefferson County or St. Charles County or Madison, Monroe, or St. Clair, if you live in Franklin or Warren County, perhaps up there in Calhoun... please consider what Art Hill means to you. It's more than a free museum, it's a pool of potential at the heart of our region. Take your kids on a field trip. Ask your elected officials what it'd take to expand the Zoo and Museum District to your county.

Ask what's in it for you. Jeffco, wouldn't you like Mastadon State Park expanded into a full Museum of Natural History under the auspices of the Science Center? St. Clair County, wouldn't you like the History Museum to invest in Cahokia Mounds and the Zoo to adopt that new aviary on the arch grounds? Madison County, wouldn't you like the River Museum to buddy up with all five ZMD institutions? Illinois wouldn't you like to see MoBot and the Missouri History Museum renamed StlBot and the St. Louis History Museum? St. Charles, how about the botanical gardens investing in your wine country? How about the zoo protecting animals at the confluence or a bunch of joint professorships popping up at Lindenwood? Franklin County, did you know Shaw Nature Reserve is funded by taxes from St. Louis City and County, but not by you?

When the whole region buys into the ZMD, the ZMD can invest in the whole region. It would mean that every school child would go to every museum. It would mean every school getting support from our flagship institutions. It would mean a stronger economy driven by five world-class institutions and their allied industries. Most importantly, we could all buy into a sense of identity based upon the idea of being from a place that connected us to ideas and to the world, a place that brought knowledge, art, and culture directly to us and made us who we are. A hundred years from now, when our children are in Namibia on a Science Center field trip studying the geology of Snowball Earth and locals ask them how they got there, they will say, "We're from the Gateway City, we were born with open doors in front of us. The world is in St. Louis, and St. Louis is in the world."

Jump to the 1:15 mark and enjoy this video.

Shutting Down Tamm and the fate of the 59 Dogtown

2011-02-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Everything I read about the upcoming St. Patrick's Day parade in Dogtown ignores the issue of transportation. "Parking will be difficult, but maybe you can pay somebody $10 to park in their drive-way." is the only advice offered.
Like so many big events in St. Louis, this too could be reached without a car. Why would you want to drive through this anyway?

The parade route is along Tamm, and the heart of the action is at the intersection with Clayton.

That means that the 59 Dogtown will not be following it's normal route. Yes, it is very possible to take the 90 or 32 and walk, but what about the 59? It should take people right to the middle of the event, but will obviously need to be rerouted. How will it be rerouted?

In the past, rerouted MetroBuses have simply happened with nobody really knowing in advance (like the 70 Grand at First Night). Perhaps Metro doesn't even know what they will do with the Dogtown bus on the day of the parade.

Here's what would be great,

1) Metro and the Ancient Order of Hibernians get together and decide on a route far in advance of March 17th. Perhaps Oakland and McCauseland will connect to Dale.

2) AOH and other promoters buy advertising space on the 59 Dogtown. The exterior could be green and say 'This bus March 17th.' The inside could have more detailed advertisements and an altered route map clearly displayed for all to see. People who take the bus regularly (mostly FoPoCoCo students) will know their trusty bus will take them for a different ride on the day of the parade. People who see the bus as it goes down the street will say, "Oh, so that bus will take me to the parade? Cool, I should look that up." Unpleasant surprise could be replaced with eager anticipation.

3) AOH and other organizers plan for people to arrive by bus from the CWE and put up nice temporary bus stops on Oakland or wherever for the arriving masses. Those bus stops become the orientation space for the event.

Bike St. Louis Intersections

2011-01-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a post about bike boxes appeared on St. Louis/Elsewhere and covered two intersections along Shaw, a designated Bike St. Louis route.

The intersections of concern were Shaw and Kingshighway and Shaw and Vandeventer, which would be good spots for bike boxes because the two intersections are so large.

As a follow-up to that, this post covers the intersections with Macklind and Tower Grove Avenue, and calls for better signs because the two intersections are transfer points.

They currently look like this.

There are two visible markers for Bike St. Louis at these intersections.

There are wayfinding signs and the on-the-road route markers.

I think there's one thing missing, and it ought to be right on the Bike St. Louis map.

The map made by Bike St. Louis marks the route intersections with only red dots, but they really should be made more visible. The logo works well there. Why not make it an on-street symbol like the arrows?

Imagine Shaw and Tower Grove Avenue looking like this,

Or perhaps when the Downtown Bike Station opens up with Big Shark and Trailnet, we might compliment it with something nice out in front.

Rationality is the New Black

2010-12-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

Copenhagenize the planet. And have a lovely day.

Shaw MetroLink Station

2010-12-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

This is the Southwest Garden Neighborhood.

This is where I live.

I have a bit of trouble indentifying with Southwest Garden because I feel like everything on the other side of Kingshighway is part of the Hill or somehow very removed from the place where I live. We have pretty brick residential buildings. They have all kinds of random buildings jumbled together with retail and Italian names.

I feel like my little neighborhood is very isolated.

On one side is the Botanical Gardens barb wire fence, and on the other is Vandeventer with its missing sidewalks and strip malls, and MoBot's blind-eyed and fenced off Monsanto and Commerce Bank buildings with accompanying parking lots.

If I want to do anything, I have to leave my neighborhood.

I don't drive, but I bike and bus proficiently. I prefer small family owned grocery stores like Local Harvest, Jay International Market, and the shops on the Hill. If there's something I can't find, I usually stop at Straub's or the Schnucks on Arsenal or Grand. I bike to other neighborhoods to get coffee, eat, or meet someone for drinks. The only thing in my neighborhood that I use is the Kingshighway library.

My building is beautiful. My street is beautiful (except the barb wire). The Bug Store and Gringo Jones are great... But can I really live here far into the future?

I need a place to walk to. I need that triangle of deadness across the road from me to become something.

At this time Vandeventer is dead. There's a rotting school building and some strip malls. Where Vandeventer hits Kingshighway, there's a public library that faces a parking lot, a vacant lot that's supposed to be an Operation Brightside garden if Pepsi blesses them, a car lot, and a gas station. Where Vandeventer hits Shaw, there's a giant botanical library fenced off and set back from the street and two large surface parking lots.

A long time ago Metro suggested a Shaw MetroLink station, and I'm pretty sure it would have been in the middle of that triangle of dead space made by Vandeventer, I-44, and Kingshighway.

The 14 bus is currently the only bus that serves my neighborhood and it just takes me to the Central West End every half hour. A MetroLink station (or better bus service...) would change my opinion about where I live. I just don't know how that short section of Shaw could possibly be saved unless MoBot's new director suddenly realised his institution happened to be in a city... O'Connell's Pub is a good anchor, but it can't hold the street all by itself.

It's a tough road to make walkable given its current state of neglect by design.

I'm a member of the Botanical Gardens and buy a Metro pass every month. My money is paying for those parking lots. I'm also a resident of the Garden District for now.

Anybody want to start a "Friends of Shaw Station" movement? We could have fun events like biking to the train tracks and waiting for the train... waiting... and waiting...

Walks along the St. Vincent Greenway

2010-12-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

I spent this weekend exploring the beginning and end of the St. Vincent Greenway. It started yesterday at UMSL.

UMSL's campus falls into two different watersheds. Natural Bridge is actually a natural ridge. Water flows away from it. This means rain falling on UMSL's north campus flows east to the Mississippi, and rain falling on UMSL's south campus flows south to Forest Park to join the River Des Peres. Any rain landing south of Natural Bridge flows into Engelholm Creek, and that watershed looks like this,

Engelholm Creek on UMSL's campus is relatively clean. Some nutrients flow off the golf courses, but the CHERP stream team measured the water two weeks ago and found it more or less fine. The problem is farther south. South of UMSL it flows through Pagedale and Wellston industrial areas and backyards to finally enter a concrete channel just north of Skinker and Olive in a far more toxic state.

Engelholm Creek and St. Vincent Greenway together in the future with wider wetland buffer.

The River Des Peres cannot be unearthed and restored to a natural flow in Forest Park until its tributaries are cleaned, and Engelholm Creek is one of those tributaries. Cleaning Engelholm Creek cleans the River Des Peres, but sadly the St. Vincent Greenway Concept Plan offers a pretty grim assessment of its current state,

click to enlarge

The St. Vincent Greenway is more than just a bike trail. It's a way towards a cleaner watershed. A bike trail can be a good partner for a creek.

The greenway can help us clean our water.

Yesterday I found myself walking along an abandoned path between Engelholm Creek and the old St. Vincent Hospital.

In the past it was obviously used by the Daughters of Charity as part of their nature therapy program. Patients and sisters probably walked right out of the main entrance directly onto the path to sit on benches or enjoy the shade. It has clearly been abandoned for some time, but it isn't hard to imagine it as a tree lined walk.

With the hospital being gut rehabbed into Section 8 apartments, a fence was put in place, and access was denied. Perhaps with the St. Vincent Greenway now at the end of the trail, that fence could potentially come down. Could the greenway help us to reclaim some of our history?

Today, I walked around the other end of the greenway starting from the Delmar MetroLink station and ending at Forest Park station.

It's amazing how quickly things get scary walking north on Skinker away from the Loop. Within a few steps there appears to be nothing but cars, a chicken place, and significantly lower property values. Etzel is a fantastic street full of disconnected housing stock from dozens of different infill projects staggered over the last century. The streetwall is jagged, but mostly constant. It's a very interesting street that will make a good neighborhood component of the future greenway.

Ruth Porter Mall, or Porter Park as the signs now say, is pretty crazy. It's like one of those powerline cuts one finds occasionally when hiking in the mountains. All is grass. The way the path winds through little landscaped mounds makes me assume the sidewalk probably holds all the water when it rains, like everywhere else in this city of planners that never walk.

The rebirth of Porter Park could be a really great thing for the residents that live on the nearby streets. It would give them fast access to a MetroLink station in either direction.

Walking along it today, many streets were cut off with pots and bollards. It's too bad that temporary wounds to the street grid will probably going to be made permanent if the drawing above is realised. In a city of bike riders that don't know how to stop or slow down for stop signs, Porter Park without road closures could be a good training area for those not yet ready to bike on the road.

Debaliviere has a long way to go before it becomes a nice street, but the Loop trolley and the St. Vincent Greenway together make great amenities for future developers to consider.

The St. Vincent Greenway is a fascinating project that can do a lot for St. Louis in terms of ecological restoration, historic preservation, economic development, and community connections. Played correctly, the greenway ought to be a magnet for grants for UMSL, Wash U, governments and non-profits alike. It's a relatively short greenway, but it covers very diverse territory and countless small projects waiting for champions.

The Main Trunk of the St. Louis Sewer System

2010-11-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

Michael Allen, of the Preservation Research Office, recently put his essay on the River Des Peres' Channelization on his blog again. This essay has surfaced a few times now, and I've read it each time from the perspective of where my mind happens to be at that particular moment.

This week, I've been thinking a lot about the dozen or so projects I've been trying to promote around town and how they basically fit one unified vision, which would be four corridors connected to Forest Park: north, south, east, and west. These have names. They're the Centennial Greenway, the St. Vincent Greenway, the Chouteau Greenway, and my own idea, the Dogtown Greenway, which would connect Forest Park to the River Des Peres Greenway.

Four corridors could meet in Forest Park. The Dogtown/River Des Peres Greenway is drawn in Blue.

There are several overlapping systems at work in these four corridors. The first and most obvious is the creation of a bike trail network centered on Forest Park. The bikes are just the beginning though, and should be seen as an invitation to other possibilities.

Second, there are wildlife corridors. Forest Park is a wildlife oasis, but with four corridors connected to rivers, it could also be the meeting point for many different populations. For now, creating bird habitat is the easiest, but animals less able to hop mile-long gaps like raccoons, opposums, and even turtles could be provided for later.

Third, there is a great possibility of economic development and community connections. Each corridor goes through or close to a major university. St. Vincent runs through UMSL, Centennial goes through Wash U, Chouteau will divide SLU, and Webster is in the proximity of the River Des Peres. Most of the areas the greenways run through are underdeveloped, but offer great potential, like Pagedale and Forest Park Southeast.

Fourth, there is the substance of Mr. Allen's essay and the nature of the projects taking place in the greenways. The Green Center operates in Ruth Park along the Centennial Greenway and works to ensure the water that feeds the River Des Peres is clean. CHERP at UMSL along the St. Vincent Greenway works in a very similar way with the health of the Engelholm Creek, which eventually flows into the River Des Peres. These two greenways come close to overlapping around the Delmar Loop

If the these two greenways can be cleaned, and drainage improved, it will improve the health of the River Des Peres in Forest Park,

So this is critical. If we focus our energies on the two feeder greenways that connect north and west county to Forest Park, we'll have a cleaner and more connected center. Then we can take some clues from Mr. Allen's essay which points out that the River Des Peres and Mill Creek (aka the Chouteau Greenway) are the main trunks of the St. Louis sewer system.

Two greenways from the county pump water in. Two greenways in the city carry it out. We can start upstream, and work our way down.

In a city prone to flooding and stormwater overflows, getting two healthy streams to flow into our core, and two healthy streams to drain out of it seems like vital infrastructure worth investing in.

The Rolling Stop

2010-10-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

While out and about today, I saw three different representatives of the spandex side of the bike commuting world blow right through stop signs without pausing or looking in either direction. I also saw two guys make turns without the slightest warning for the people behind them.

This is bad.

If you are on a bike, and you'd like to be respected by drivers, then you need to be respectful towards them.

There's a big difference between cars and bikes in terms of mass, momentum, acceleration, and visibility. Yes, people on bikes can see better. Yes, they take a while to gain speed. Yes, a rolling stop in a car is very different from a rolling stop on a bike.

I'm not advocating that bike riders come to a complete stop at every stop sign. I'm saying they should slow down and look in all directions before proceeding. If there's a car, then they should make sure that car is stopping. If there is a car, and that car is already stopped, then they should stop, yield, and wait for that car to pass. Look at the driver, not the car. Has the driver turned his head to notice? Nod in recognition before proceeding. That's what civil and reasonable people do.

Bicycles turn faster and more easily than cars. They turn very abruptly and almost without warning, especially when the turn happens without a decrease in speed. Who needs to know you're turning? Everyone. The guy behind you, the guy in front of you, the guy across the street. That's why cars have turn signals in the front and back. That's why people on bicycles should point in the direction they're going.

This is a really easy thing to do, and it makes a huge difference to the nervous drivers nearby.

Don't use that weird right turn hand signal that nobody understands. Helmetless (yet safer) Europeans have a far more logical idea of what that universal army signal means.

If a person can invest hundreds of dollars in gadgets, outrageous headgear, full-body tights, and blinding headlights, then they probably have the skill required to ride a bike one-handed (especially if they're turning slowly). The other hand can be used to indicate where they're going.

Left and right is a really easy thing to point out... unless you're hunched over trying to see how far into your front tire you can put your face...

That's a lot less chic, and probably a lot harder to do.

Regardless: See and be seen. Respect and be respected.

Fire Station 35

2010-10-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

In addition to safety, I believe every bicycle commuter has two objectives when on the road.

1) Be respectful to motorists, and be respected by them. Following traffic laws cheerfully and steadfastly forces drivers to obey them too. Be sure to see the driver, not the vehicle. Look them in the eye and nod in recognition before going through stop signs and lights. Signal elaborately so that people in all directions know exactly where you are turning.

2) Make biking look attractive and easy. When biking I make an effort to appear like a normal person in normal clothes. I sit upright. I smile when I know people are looking at me. I pretend not to be breathing heavy. I use designated facilities when available. I try to add myself to the Bike St. Louis network instead of the regular streets because I want those corridors to be percieved as major bikeways that anybody can use.

I think it it is really important that people use the Bike St. Louis routes in order to give them a sense of legitimacy, to advertise them, and to make them safer. However the Bike St. Louis routes are not always sensible.

In order to get from Shaw and Macklind to anywhere south on Sublette, Bike St. Louis suggest taking Arsenal. This means going up a really big hill and facing a really confusing intersection.

If I ask google maps to get me from Shaw and Macklind to Sublette and Fyler, I'm told to not use Macklind at all.

If I tell google that I must take Macklind as far as Magnolia, I'm again told that I shouldn't take the Bike St. Louis route.

Google is right. Bike St. Louis is wrong, and that's unfortunate.

Fire Station 35 is at the corner of Arsenal and Sublette, and it has its very own stop light.

To make a left turn off of Arsenal onto Sublette, it is necessary that bike riders stop with the cars far short of the intersection. There are two stop lights, one for the intersection and one for the fire house, and they are timed more or less the same. Cars accelerate quickly and have no problem getting up to the intersection and turning, but bikes accelerate slowly and not only risk missing the light but also irritating drivers with their slow merging and turning.

My second rule says I should use this route, but it requires me to break my first rule. Blocking the intersection as I pedal at 2 mph irritates people, and they honk, and they don't respect me or my right to use the road. It doesn't promote the kind of relationship I want.

It makes far more sense to not take Arsenal at all and just get on Sublette a few blocks north. I've tried several different routes, and all of them are superior to the confusing Bike St. Louis route.

I want to make the Bike St. Louis routes successful, and so I still take this intersection when I'm heading north. I'd still like to know though why it was chosen to begin with. I'm also curious to know what ideas are out there for making the intersection a bit more bike friendly.

Why are we not planning a Dogtown Greenway?

2010-07-30T04:24:00.000-07:00

Forest Park is the most important cultural asset St. Louis has. Forest Park Forever is currently updating the trail system, and Great Rivers Greenway is ever so slowly connecting trails to it in three directions.

To the west, the Centennial Greenway will eventually connect to the Katy Trail. For whatever reason it goes along Heman Park and not Clayton.

To the north, the St. Vincent Greenway will eventually connect to UMSL. It ought to be a shared research corridor between Wash U and UMSL. It runs next to the loop trolley and the 'red line' of the MetroLink.

To the east, the Chouteau Greenway will eventually connect to downtown. It may or may not one day recieve a magical federal grant.

To the south, I-64 cuts off the park from south city and is connected by a few bridges and tunnels.

On the map above, I drew a blue line where I think another greenway should be created. Forest Park Forever should figure out how to get their bike path across I-64 and onto McCauseland, a mere 500 feet away.

McCauseland should somehow be reworked to allow for a 'Dogtown Greenway' to connect the corner of Forest Park by the Hi-Point to the River Des Peres and the Shrewsbury MetroLink station.

Then at some point, the area around the river should be made into a beautiful linear park similar to yangjaecheon.

It should also be extended to the Patch neighborhood.

It would be nice to be able to bike from the mouth of the River Des Peres up to Forest Park.

Dogtown Greenway? Anybody? Let's do it!

Jump on the Bixi...

2010-07-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

I wish St. Louis had a bike sharing program, similar to Montreal's Bixi program, but where would we find three guys in St. Louis Browns jackets to sing for us?

Bike Forsyth

2010-06-17T00:25:00.000-07:00

We all know and love the Katy Trail.

That's the giant bike trail that will eventually run from downtown Kansas City to downtown St. Louis. The map above shows a bike trail around Creve Coeur Lake and a little spur heading off south. That'll eventually be this,

This is the Centennial Greenway, and which is supposed to connect Creve Coeur Lake to Forest Park. From there the Chouteau Greenway should take people to downtown St. Louis.

This is all well and nice, but it leaves out the giant fact that the St. Louis region has two downtowns. Looking over the final plan for the Centennial Greenway the flaw is obvious. Downtown Clayton isn't given its due. It and Shaw Park are on a side trail off the main stem. Ruth Park and Heman Park are both lovely, but they're not the same as the economic powerhouse that is Clayton.

It wouldn't be hard to reorient the greenway through Clayton to Wash U to the park. In fact, it would only be a short jaunt along Forsyth. The rest of the greenway is fine, but it just lacks a small portion along Forsyth. It doesn't need to be a designated bikes-only area, a Bike St. Louis corridor would do. I've added it here.

Downtown Clayton is working on putting together its master plan. Reading through their many pdfs, it is hard to find that much mention of bikes or greenways. They recognize the Forsyth MetroLink station as an important gateway and recognize Forsyth Blvd itself as the 'Central Downtown Connection,'

Forsyth Blvd, with its wonderful Shaw Park connection, is central to the master plan's pedestrian oriented theme. They want to make it human-scale with plazas and wayfinding kiosks. Everything between Shaw Park and Forsyth Station seem due for an upgrade.

Why, oh why, does the Centennial Greenway and Bike St. Louis seem to want people to bike down Jackson Road to Wydown? How can you see Clayton's human-scale wonders like that? Clayton's master plan should incorporate bike planning from Shaw Park heading east.

The quiet residential section of Forsyth between Forest Park Parkway and Big Bend is only 0.7 miles.

Then it's Wash U until Lagoon Drive in Forest Park.

It's silly to bike from Jackson to Wydown, when a direct path between the two parks is so much better.

Clayton's master plan is pretty great. It seems to encourage the growth of dense urban village tied to transit and walkability, but has failed to include really obvious plans for bikes. All along the Katy Trail, bike-oriented-development has become profitable. Downtown St. Louis needs a bike station, and so does Clayton. The central corridor needs good connections and good planning.

If you read this and agree that Forsyth should be a major bike corridor, do get yourself to Clayton City Hall's Council Chambers on Monday, June 21st, from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm for the Sasaki Downtown Master Plan Presentation. It's never too late to push a common sense agenda.

Chouteau Greenway in Forest Park

2010-06-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

There used to be a very large lake in the middle of St. Louis. Chouteau Lake was filled in, and most people have no idea it ever existed at all. Yet there are plans, questionable plans, to rip out the railyard south of Union Station and make an artificial lake, which would be called Chouteau Lake as a simulacra of the original. It isn't a very green plan or even that great economically. I-64 would remain...

It has been suggested in order to solve the problem of the undeveloped lots south of 64 near downtown. It would extend to Grand metrolink station where that fancy new plaza is being built,

Past Grand Station there would be a nice little park that sort of ends at the Grove.

From there perhaps development along Clayton Avenue would continue into Forest Park.

Forest Park and the Botanical Gardens would be connected to the arch downtown. With a bit more vision, perhaps more could be done though. UrbanSTL recently noted that Forest Park Forever might be giving a parcel of land cut off from the park to the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.

That parcel of land is identified in blue above to the right of Kingshighway. To the left is another unused parcel that currently has access issues. Clayton Avenue is shown in yellow, and Chouteau, in green, is show deadending at the parcel in question. It seems sensible that the greenway could continue along Chouteau into this section of the park. Perhaps there could be a tunnel under Kingshighway. These large, grassy fields could be connected and called a greenway. All that's missing is a bike path and a connection across Kingshighway. There's already a tunnel under I-64 and that fancy new tunnel near the zoo. Two or three more and we'd be set.

If we biked from downtown to Forest Park and ended up at that tunnel under 64, we could go into the park or onto SLCC's campus and continue biking west. eventually we'd run into some turtles.

Turtle Park is really great, but it's also kind of disconnected from everything. It's in another parcel of the park cut off by I-64.

Again, looking at the map, it looks like all those cut off grassy fields could be connected into one greenway somehow. Clayton Avenue is shown again in yellow, and can be seen coming to an end at the Hi-Pointe. The Katy Trail, perhaps starting in downtown Kansas City, reaches Creve Couer Lake in St. Louis County and joins the Centennial Greenway which reaches the campus of Washington University. Wash U is on Skinker north of the H-Pointe and has a north-south bike path running along it in Forest Park. The Hi-Pointe can be the place where the Katy Trail and Chouteau Greenway meet. With Clayton Road added in, it seems fair to say that Dogtown could have more than just a giant Amoco sign.

It is this blog's advice to Forest Park Forever that they keep those parcels of land and attempt to join them into a greenway. Perhaps Great Rivers Greenway could help financially. If this greenway is called Chouteau Greenway, then it will be conceptually blended with the planned Chouteau Greenway in midtown and downtown. It would connect the Hi-Pointe to the Grove. Instead of working from downtown to the park, development could start in the park and work towards downtown. The Grove is an up-and-coming neighborhood. If Forest Park could put a greenway together, then the wonderful people of FPSE could probably figure out a way to connect it to the Sarah or Grant metrolink stations. Greenways are supposed to make connections. Why not put one in the most disconnected area of the park?

Doing this would then lend credibility to any future project along the proposed greenway downtown. Ripping out an active railyard is a controversy. Connecting isolated pieces of parkland is a no-brainer.

The Need for a St. Vincent Greenway Conservancy

2010-05-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

The St. Vincent Greenway is one of the most important corridors for St. Louis that nobody ever talks about. It will run from UMSL's South Campus to Wellston Station and south to Forest Park and Washington University.

A non-profit conservancy created to maintain and enhance the greenway would do best focusing its funds on interdisciplinary academics. This greenway should be viewed most properly as a research corridor shared between UMSL, Wash U, and the institutions in Forest Park. With a solid research base, economic development would obviously follow from the two ends towards the middle.

The Great Connection
UMSL lacks any sort of retail development on or near campus. The UMSL-Loop connection is already firm. The south campus residential population has a metrolink station and easy access. Most people view the Delmar Loop as an outgrowth of Wash U student vitality, but the residential population at UMSL surely supplements it. When UMSL students ultimately move out of their residence halls, many end up living in the Loop and commuting to UMSL.

A bike trail between UMSL and the Loop further cements the connection for UMSL students, faculty, and staff. Students apartments could spring up anywhere along the greenway. The trail would also be used by those already using Forest Park's recreational bike trails.

Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research
The Pierre Laclede Honors College at UMSL is supposed to take the top 5% of the student body and expose them to interdisciplinary classes that promote collaboration and critical thinking and address the problems associated with information silos that naturally occur at major universities. To do this, the college uses big themes like CHERP, which stands for Campus Honors Environmental Research Program. The idea is that every department at the university can fit into a general environmental theme and create a balanced multi-faceted understanding of St. Vincent Park, a large county park adjacent to UMSL. The English department can do a nature writing and poetry class. The biology department can do urban ecology. Student sculptures might have a place as well. There are many education majors in the honors college, so naturally the life science programs at the neighboring Normandy-Wellston schools get to be involved as well. No matter what a student's major is, there should be some sort of class that they can take in the CHERP program.

CHERP is a very interesting because it invests students and the university in the caretaking of a public good, which certainly fits UMSL mission. In the fall of 2009, students from a CHERP ecology class submitted a plan to UMSL's chancellor to convert the campus to a "wildflower meadow [that] would help prevent soil erosion, [and] save $5000 a year by not having to [be mowed or landscaped]." By investing students in a place and filling them with sound ecological thinking, the students turned around and offered a way for the campus to save money.

As UMSL has adopted St. Vincent Park, and St. Vincent Greenway continues south from that park to Forest Park where a major wetland restoration project took place in the last decade, it seems natural that CHERP could be expanded over the entire greenway. Graduate programs could be added in like public policy, transportation studies, and civil engineering.

If Wash U made the same investments as UMSL in the greenway, then the green research potential would be easily doubled. Add the institutions in Forest Park and the partnerships just keep expanding. A conservancy that acts as steward of the greenway should also be a body for facilitating these partnerships. Grants for undergraduate research can be a lot smaller and numerous than those needed for grad students and professors.

With enough research investment, green jobs and real estate investment would follow.

Development
The federal Department of Transportation has an interesting grant program called TIGER that tries to fund urban transportation projects. In the first round of grants, money was not secured for the Loop Trolley.

The Loop Trolley would not only put a streetcar in the Loop, but conceptually expand it to Debaliviere and the History Museum in Forest Park. It is worth noting that another, sadly separate, applicant for the same TIGER grant was transit-oriented-development around the Forest Park Metrolink Station. The TOD would be next to the trolley, and their applications might have done better in the review if they were bundled as one. The development along Debaliviere is also part of the St. Vincent Greenway.

That short section of DeBaliviere should apply for the next round of TIGER grants as TOD, a streetcar, AND a greenway. Though short, such a complete street is ambitious enough to stand out from other applicants. Add Wash U and UMSL as backers in some form and it surely must happen.

When the Loop is expanded to DeBaliviere, it will also be expanded to the St. Vincent Greenway. Delmar Blvd is the traditional dividing line in the city between the wealthy white south and the poor black north. The greenway transcends this divide and could potentially help move wealth north into the Ruth Porter Mall in the West End neighborhood and on to Wellston.

Perhaps most interesting to some is that giant building visible from the Metrolink between St. Charles Rock Road and UMSL South. It used to be called St. Vincent's Hospital, but is now a silly apartment complex called 'Castle Park.' St. Vincent's is very much part of the Daughters of Charity property collection that UMSL has partial dominion over.

St. Vincent's is a massive structure with a huge estate. It would make a great museum or residence hall. It seems like too beautiful of a gem to sit next to UMSL untouched far into the future. It will surely be purchased eventually. If indeed that happens, it would make UMSL a sprawling campus connected by park space. SIUE, the other sprawling campus in the region has introduced a bike sharing program for students to get around. A St. Vincent Greenway Conservancy could be the steward of a similar program for UMSL, Wash U, and Forest Park.

Restaurant Incubator

2010-05-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

St. Louis has several incubators, but they're mostly for medical and biotech start-ups. There's nothing as far as I know for restaurants. Restaurants need a safety net too. Too often they open and quickly fail, wasting a lot of energy, money, and passion. It doesn't have to be that way. The potential owner can work towards it slowly and part-time at first until they feel they know what they're getting into. There should be a way for the restaurant to go through all the difficult growing pains before risking a $50,000 loan.

I imagine a non-profit space with maybe two full-service kitchens, a large seating area, and a display space. It would work like this.

The Customer

Walking past the incubator on the street, the customer sees two renderings of possible restaurant interiors and exteriors along with their proposed names and a brief descriptions. Intrigued, she goes in and sits down at a table. The host brings over a menu, smiles and explains how the incubator works and what the restaurants working that day happen to be. The host walks off and the customer begins studying the menu. There are four simple pages. The first is instructions, then two simple one-page menus, then a calender of restaurants scheduled to work later in the month.

A staff waiter comes by and takes the order, then gives the first feedback form. What do you think you ordered. Draw a picture of what it might look like. Have you ever eaten it before? Tell us about your best experience. Tell us about your worst.

The food comes to the table by a waiter from the restaurant serving the food. It is eaten, then that waiter cleans the table and gives the bill, then comes the second survey. How was your meal? Do you have any suggestions for the cook? How was your service? Do you have any suggestions for your server?

After filling out the second survey, the customer gets up and starts looking at the display area and looking over the plans for the potential restaurant, where it will probably be located, what the interior will probably look like, etc. Again a survey is filled out. Where would you like to see this restaurant? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Would you like to make a donation? If it launches, the owner will keep the money, if it doesn't the incubator will.

The customer grabs a copy of the month's calender on his way out and thinks about when he'll be back. If he likes what he ate, he is sure to note when it is scheduled again and come back with more friends.

Potential New Restaurant Owner
1. Walk in, talk to a staff member, and fill out an application detailing the kind of restaurant you hope to run and leave some contact information.

2. Meet with a mentor who will help you schedule a time to make a presentation to the board, and to put that presentation together.

3. Give the presentation along with menu samples and a few pre-prepared food samples (your expense), and receive feedback.

4. Sign a contract/waiver

5. With the mentor, schedule an observation day to come in and observe a more advanced restaurant-to-be at work in the kitchen. Give and receive feedback.

6. When deemed ready to go, the mentor schedules a date for you to showcase your restaurant.

7. On that day, show up at the incubator with your bare-bones staff and all appropriate materials: menu, food, displays (your expense) and begin prepping kitchen. Work all day. At the end of day, you get 50% of the profits, 25% goes into your account with the incubator, and 25% goes to the incubator's coffers.

8. Work through customer feedback with mentor and schedule another work day.

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8, improving every time until deemed ready to launch.

10. The Incubator provides a real estate agent, a lawyer, an accountant, interior decorator, and all other people needed in the building and business starting process. The paid-up capital for the new business is the 25% collected from previous work days plus donations from happy customers and a grant from the incubator. If a loan is needed, then the incubator helps facilitate that as well. Steps 7 and 8 are repeated more frequently at this point.

11. On the first day of business, the incubator staff and customers show up for an opening day party along with every food critic in town.

12. Competently run and enjoy your restaurant without going under and appreciate all the loyal customers that created you.

The Incubator
The staff would be in charge of coordinating all the potential new restaurants and scheduling them. They would be in charge of guiding the potential owners though the 12-step process above. When their clients are not working, then they would be either hosts or waiters.

The incubator's expenses would be staff salaries, utilities, and rent/property taxes. Unlike a regular restaurant, the incubator would not need to pay for the food being served nor for the cooks and servers. All of that would be on the clients. All fees for professional services would be taken from the 25% in the client accounts. The incubator would operate on the 25% that is theirs and draw interest off the 25% that belongs to the clients. If the restaurant never launches, then that restaurant's account becomes part of the incubators endowment. From that endowment, grants would be created for restaurants graduating from the incubator.

The incubator would partner with magazines like Sauce and play and maybe provide monetary prizes for the RFT's best of St. Louis restaurant awards. If the organization is flush with money, then maybe they hire their own food critics, food historians, etc.

The incubator should probably be partnered with the Culinary Arts program at Forest Park Community College. The logical location then would be nearby in the Grove.