Repairs underway at Citygarden

Cities are very good about finding money for capital projects. Money for operations and ongoing maintenance, however, is often scarce.

But when a leak was discovered under a portion of the splash fountain at the new Citygarden downtown there was no cause for panic to find the funds for repairs.

Citygarden was generously built by the Gateway Foundation.  But they didn’t just build it and hand the keys to the city, they are responsible for maintenance on the two downtown blocks.  The fountain repair is probably covered under warranty but it is nice to know this garden will not fall into disrepair like so much of our public infrastructure.   At the end of Summer crews were busy replacing quite a bit of the grass that got worn out due to the huge crowds of people that visited the new spot.

I say new but the use of these two blocks as public park space goes back to 1993 when we had two blocks of… grass.  Yawn.

Watching Citygarden change from Summer into Fall have been a pleasure.

Any infrastructure we have (highways, bridges, transit, etc) we need a plan to pay for the operations and maintenance once built. Some of our existing MetroLink light rail stations are looking a bit shabby — rusty railings and such.  Maybe each station needs a corporate sponsor to help with maintenance?

Kiener Plaza & the Morton May Amphitheater, just East of Citygarden, are in disrepair as is much of the Gateway Mall.  When any project is new it has decent maintenance.  But a decade or so later, and two or three administrations later, existing infrastructure takes a back seat to ribbon cuttings on the next big thing.  We don’t have enough generous foundations in town to build and maintain our infrastructure.  We must figure out how to do it ourselves.  Part of the solution is in building less infrastructure.

The Cross County MetroLink extension cost far more than originally planned  — miles of tunnels rather than at-grade service will drive up the capital budget. But in 20 years those miles of tunnels and flyover structures will require far more maintenance than the simpler original designs.

This is not to say we should never again build expensive infrastructure.  I think we need a system of streetcars to pull together city neighborhoods and the inner-ring suburbs.  Property taxes along the routes should help fund long-term operations and repairs.   So build what we need just have a means to fund it through its lifespan.  In the meantime I’m going to keep enjoying the well-maintained Citygarden.

– Steve Patterson