Missouri Botanical Garden’s New Parking Lot Not Pedestrian Friendly
The Missouri Botanical Garden is putting the finishing touches on two new parking lots at the corner of Shaw & Vandeventer. These lots will serve as overflow lots for the gardens which are two short blocks to the East (along Shaw). Events such as the upcoming Whitaker Music Festival attract thousands of people with most arriving by car.
A number of years ago the gardens attempted to raze a couple of blocks of houses in between them and the highway. Thankfully, that plan was scraped after they received complaints. So, they looked to the West at a corner with very marginal buildings. They were neither urban or worth fighting to save. But, when starting anew I like to think we’d build back in an urban fashion. Not here.
It would have been great if they had built parking garages with street level retail at these corners. It would have been urban in scale, would have provided more business opportunities and made the sidewalks interesting. Some will argue the costs of a garage couldn’t be justified. Probably true. Of course, that just means the land isn’t worth building up rather than out.
Leaving one corner of the parking the view is great. The buildings across the street have wonderful scale and detailing. As with anything at the gardens, the plantings are inspiring.
What is not inspiring is the view when walking along the sidewalks on Vandeventer or Shaw. Pedestrians are subjected to boring sidewalks with only street lamps between them and the passing cars, trucks and buses.
Plantings along the sidewalk is limited to “monkey grass” (liriope). No street trees are provided. Yes, a botanical garden didn’t provide street trees.
The parking lot project is not without trees. They are just on the parking side of the fence. These trees, when mature, will do little to shade the sidewalk. Never will they make the pedestrian feel protected from passing cars.
The picture along Shaw is even worse. Here we are looking West toward Kingshighway. The garden’s Monsanto research center is on the other side of Shaw and is also lacking street trees.
What baffles me is they have all the elements. A sidewalk, row of urban trees, and a planting strip. Why couldn’t they have just rearranged them a bit? They have the space.
Lining the street with trees would have created a great canopy over the street and sidewalk. Street trees would have helped with traffic calming.
One of the oddest details is on Vandeventer where the right turn lane begins. The pedestrian crosswalk at the lot exit/entry is also where the turn lane begins. From the patterns on the pavement I could see that cars are not following the concrete vs. asphalt designation.
In a small section along Vandeventer the trees have graduated from being behind the fence to being between the fence and sidewalk. Not quite in the right spot but better.
I can already see the need to paint crossing markings on this sidewalk so that cars entering and exiting the parking lot will know to watch for pedestrians. But will people be walking along this sidewalk?
Just North of the entry/exit in the last picture the sidewalk comes to an end. Between me and the highway is an off-ramp. A sidewalk does run under the highway. Like most of our public sidewalks, not the most pleasant place to be. I’m not sure why the sidewalk wasn’t connected here. Maybe this section falls to the city or state to complete? Hopefully it will be done soon enough.
I can say a couple of positives about the lots. They didn’t fill it with paving. Ample planting areas soften the impact. Those parking here and taking a shuttle bus to the gardens are greeted with a generous sidewalk taking them to the shelter. Bringing a sidewalk out to the parking lot is a nice touch. People shouldn’t have to walk through rows of parking to get where they are going.
Unfortunately, those walking to the garden rather than taking the shuttle aren’t afforded such consideration.
I can see an opportunity here to do something interesting. Rather than typical shuttle buses it would be interesting if the garden employed some pedicabs to get visitors from the parking lot to the gardens.
– Steve
I have to admit, I drove by there on saturday and I was like… Woah, where did all these cars and people come from? People driving down vandeventer will see the cars too and hopefully be intrigued to stop and wander around. There were alot of people walking when we went by. So it isnt the most pedestrian friendly, but at least it does something in an area that was in really bad shape. I have many of the same design issues with the thing as you, but the alternative is what was there before, which wasnt much. If I had one thing to add, I thought the parking on the far side of Vandeventer was for an event at the Monsanto building. It would be nice to have some monument signage or something to welcome people to the garden district.
Jason
The sidewalk and plantings abruptly end just southwest of I-44 and Vandeventer due to a future, wider right turn only lane coming off the eastbound exit ramp. It was MOBOT’s vision to have their new parking lot on the northwestern corner of Shaw and Vandeventer also serve as a MetroBus transfer center. Express buses traveling I-44 are planned to exit the highway swing through the park’n’ride lot with other bus connections and get back on. The wider right turn lane will facilitate right-turning buses, but will also allow motorists to drive faster.
As for the marginal buildings that once sat where the lots now are, the two corners were very different. Southwest Neighborhood Housing Corporation had bought buildings along Shaw to prevent MOBOT from tearing down these flats between the Garden and Vandeventer, but ultimately sold two of their buildings along Vandeventer (but retained three on Shaw) as a compromise location for surface parking. The Southwest Garden neighborhood had battled MOBOT previously to prevent surface parking across from the Garden’s entrance, so this sale plus a newly improved Castleman Circle green space and neighborhood signs were seen as peace offerings to rebuild the Garden’s relationship with its surrounding neighborhood.
On the western corner, REACT Environmental Engineers’ buildings and an old drive-up greasy spoon diner were the buildings lost. Not very urban, but folks would walk up to the diner, just as they do to World’s Fair Donuts.
Jason wrote: “I have to admit, I drove by there on saturday and I was like… Woah, where did all these cars and people come from?”
The people were all there for the Chinese Festival. When I was by there last Saturady morning when I went to the garden it was empty as a ghost town.
As Steve points out, it is just a matter of arranging the parts a little differently (oh, and not eliminating the street parking — arghh).
I’ve tried to walk past those very lots before when I was walking home from errands one day, and I share your criticisms of the design there. I felt pushed towards the busy street on that narrow strip of sidewalk, with no division between me and the cars. Also, I was angry that the sidewalk abruptly cut off before reaching the highway. It had rained recently, but I was stuck between a fence and people speeding onto the highway, so I was forced to walk in the mud. MOBOT’s attempts at grabbing land from the residents of surrounding communities (attempted parking lot in Shaw, & the ongoing Garden District Commission landbank and demolition) have already made it evident what they think of the neighborhoods nearby, but still, being forced to walk through mud to get back to my apartment sent me a clear message about what they think of my community.
The thing that really bugs me about this is the lovely jail effect that you now have on BOTH sides of Shaw. Better site planning with a tree lawn and street trees as Steve noted would at least do something to mitigate this, although I question the need and purpose for a 6 foot fence all around, when the entrances and pedestrian walk are not secured by gates. Also I am curious if MOBOT did any grass paving in these new lots like they did very sucsessfully across the street at the Monsanto Center, where the parking spaces at the back area of the lot that are only used for special events are grass (there is a mesh material in the ground that allows the weight of cars to roll over it and the grass to grow through). I would think that most of the spaces in these lots which I would guess are not used on an everyday basis could have been done in this manner. This make the lots more attractive, reduces run-off, reduces the heat island effect, etc.
[REPLY 5/26 – Unfortunately MoBot used solid concrete for all the paving – none of the environmentally friendly grass paving blocks. They have most of the right elements and spent quite a bit of money – they just didn’t arrange them in the best order. – Steve]
Just so everyone knows, MODOT has started work on the new lane off the exit ramp, where the sidewalk was missing. The whole corner is dug up. We’ll see how that turns out.
Yes, you all have valid points. However, as a resident with only 7 years experience living in the region obviously what we have now in this location is much better than before. The garage/street level commercial space is a nobel ideal however, as Steve alluded to, is not a viable solution. A parking garage is many times an oft used solution in many people’s eyes, however once thoroughly analyzed is not an economic nor a sociological viable solution. Nontheless, stop the complaining and enjoy what progress has been made.