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Citygarden is great, but not perfect

July 26, 2010 Accessibility, Downtown 10 Comments

Citygarden has impressed everyone in ~~it’s~~ its first year open in St. Louis.Â The two-block sculpture garden is, in most respects, outstanding in design and construction.

ABOVE: curb ramp at 10th & Chestnut

ABOVE: curb ramp at 10th & Chestnut

The two curb ramps along 10th Street (at Chestnut and at Market) both hold water following a rain.

ABOVE: curb ramp at 10th & Market

ABOVE: curb ramp at 10th & Market

Numerous ramps downtown have the same problem, but few were built as part of an otherwise high quality project. The mini lake at top is probably the worst downtown. Naturally, that is the one I use most often.Â Even when dry I must use the side of the ramp — my wheelchair’s footrest gets caught if I go straight in.

ABOVE:

ABOVE: water doesn't drain into the rain garden as it should

And the environmentally friendly rain garden isn’t getting all the rain water it is supposed to receive.Â Hopefully these three areas will be redone someday.Â The problem at 10th & Market will be corrected when the wide “hallway” is extended to the west.Â Had Citygarden built it’s side planning for the future hallway the current issue wouldn’t exist.

ABOVE: hallway crossing 9th street

ABOVE: hallway crossing 9th street

As a member of the Gateway Mall Advisory Board I can assure you I will bring up water retention at curb ramps and planning future projects so the hallway concept is easier to complete.

- Steve Patterson

Jim

See this everywhere – often the streets have been built-up too high and really require re-grading.

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

That is the case in some places. In this case the street grade has not changed in years. These curb ramps were poorly designed and/or built.

JZ71

Drainage is not rocket science – water flows downhill. Even when done correctly, initially, repaving and patching can and do change flows. Unfortunately, it's cheaper to just add another layer of asphalt than it is to remove / “rotomill” the old layers before doing so, so drivers win and pedestrians lose.

As for the rain garden, it's both a design and a maintenance issue. By design, their whole concept is to slow down the water. Unfortunately, slow water results in a quicker build up of debris, be it trash or leaves, and requires ongoing maintenance to function properly. That'll be the challenge with seeing rain gardens used, properly, in other installations – maintenance is always a matter of budget and priorities.

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

Agreed, but in the case of Citygarden the two curb ramps were not done correctly.

http://www.gatewaystreets.org/ Herbie

You should also ask why there curb extensions were not built along the Chestnut side of City Garden. The draft Gateway Mall Master Plan from June 2009 clearly shows plans for curb extensions along Chestnut on page 24. Then again, page 36 of the same document shows City Garden as built.

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

Agreed!

http://sidburgess.com Sid Burgess

As silly as this sounds, it is examples like this and people sharing them (like you) that helps to keep the 'obvious' fresh in our mind. There are so many complexities to our infrastructure, mistakes like this are simply going to happen. I hope it gets fixed soon!
Jim Schmidt

The areas around the flooded curb cuts present a perfect spot for permeable pavers: bricks of a sort, under which a proper bed of layered rocks, gravel, sand, drink the rainwater not unlike a rain garden.
Phil

Steve, FYI, the word “it's” (with an apostrophe) is not possessive. It stands for “it is”. If it doesn't make sense as “it is” then it's incorrect. When the sentence is: “…has been popular since its inception…” the its does not have apostrophe. Don't mean to be the grammar police on you but it might help polish up your entries a bit.

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

Thanks. One of those things I know and try to watch for but still slip by.

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