Downtown Fiat Display Closed

Last month the downtown display-only showroom for Lou Fusz Fiat closed.

The store was not a licensed dealership — a costly process that involves permission from the auto manufacturer, in this case Chrysler, and usually a sizable investment — but rather a display not unlike what you might find in a shopping mall. It also enlivened a storefront downtown that had sat empty for several years, so much so that the building’s owner let Fusz occupy the space rent-free. (stltoday)

Indeed the cars inside the corner space of 1015 Locust more interesting. Once again, it is empty.

I wrote If It Sounds Too Good To Be True… in January 2012 when others were splitting hairs between “dealership” and “full-service dealership.” With a staff person and availability of test drives this was more than a simple display, though well short of a full dealership. The Missouri legislature must have thought it was too close to being a dealership and tightened up laws to clarify displays.

Of course, Lou Fusz could build an actual dealership. I could picture an urban dealership at Tucker & Cass, easily reached by downtown residents/workers and visible to the thousands that’ll come into downtown on the new I-70 bridge when it opens next year.

— Steve Patterson

Readers Split On Chief Dotson’s Proposed Use Of Drones By St. Louis Police

For much of the early voting last week the “good idea” crowd outnumbered the “too big brother” folks regarding the proposed use of drones by the St. Louis Police. See the introductory post for the poll here.

Q: How Do You Feel About Police Chief Dotson’s Vision For Using Drones?

1. Too ‘Big Brother’ for me 38 [44.19%]
2. For surveillance in public, it is a good idea 36 [41.86%]
3. Sounds ok now, but it’s a slippery slope 10 [11.63%]
4. Other: 2 [2.33%]
5. Unsure/No Opinion 0 [0%]

I remain conflicted; while it is big brother I also think it might catch those who are up to no good, but I see it expanding bit by bit — the slippery slope.

The two “other” answers provided by readers were:

1. I put on a better show when I know someone is looking!Add as a poll answer
2. stupid idea, waste of money

— Steve Patterson

How To Use An Inverted-U Bike Rack

Bike racks come in all shapes and sizes, but my preference is the basic “inverted-U” rack. Very simple, easy to use.

Here’s a perfect example:

And here’s how to NOT use an inverted-u bike rack:

So if you’re a cyclist and you use an inverted-u rack please place your bike so it is centered on the rack, using two locks so it doesn’t get stolen.

Bonus tip: If I can see your forehead when you’re wearing a bike helmet it won’t help you if you crash, cover your forehead.  Click here for pictures on the right & wrong ways to wear a helmet.

— Steve Patterson

St. Louis Not Enforcing Short-Term Parking Limits

As I posted last month, St. Louis will began charging to park at meters downtown on July 1, 2013.  For the first two Saturdays warning notices will be placed on vehicles. Because of this change of policy, those who wish to park at meters all day on Saturdays will go out and feed the meters every two like they have been Monday-Friday from 8am-7pm. In most cities re-feeding the meter to extend the time is illegal, presumably it is in St. Louis too — it just wasn’t enforced by the previous treasurer for 3 decades.

In the interest of trying to determine St. Louis’ policy regarding short-term parking I sent the following questions to Treasurer Tishaura Jones & her Chief of Staff Jared Boyd on the morning of June 20th:

1. Is re-feeding the parking meter after the posted time limit is reached allowed or illegal in St. Louis?
2. If illegal, what is the amount of the ticket? If allowed, why not set the meters to accept payment for more than 2 hours?
3. What methodology is used to ensure a vehicle isn’t parked in a short-term space all day? If none, when might we expect expect enforcement to begin?
4. Does your office enforce the 15 minute limit in front of Culinaria on 9th Street? (see photo attached) This is free parking daily but only for 15 minutes. If you don’t, does anyone?

An hour later I received the following reply from Jones:

Mr. Boyd and I appreciate your interest in urban affairs related to parking. However, we think it might be appropriate to direct your questions to those who have the day-to-day responsibility for parking administration. Please direct your future inquiries to either Carl Phillips or Lenny Freeman. They have been copied on this message.

Ok, that made sense. Jones ran on a platform of not wanting to be a “parking czar”, let the parking staff deal with these issues so she can handle more important matters. Within 10 minutes I emailed both Phillips & Freeman and reaffirmed the questions I wanted answered.

That afternoon Phillips replied with:

I want to address all of your questions properly. I’m out of town right now and won’t be back until Tuesday. We are researching your questions thoroughly and will have some answers for you Tuesday afternoon. 

I thought my questions were rather basic, not something worthy of prolonged research.  Tomorrow will be 2 weeks after the time I was told I’d get answers. Here’s what I believe is happening:

1. Someone thought the 2 hour limit meant Saturdays were supposed to be free for the first two hours you park, and that you should pay after that. Thus, the decision was made to stop these “violations” from continuing by charging on Saturday. 
2. Meanwhile I’ve already shown in the prior post the policy was in fact no charge for meters between 7pm Friday until 8am on Monday morning. This is confirmed the parking meters themselves, the downtown parking guide, and everyone who has spent time in downtown.  
3. The concept of a time limit (meaning the car must physically be moved) remains a mystery to those in charge of parking in St. Louis.
4. The Parking Commission solved a non-existant problem while ignoring a very real and ongoing problem.

I support charging on Saturdays, but more importantly we need smarter short-term parking policies. In some high-demand areas the time limit might be as short as 15-30 minutes, and up to 8-10 hours in areas less in demand. Though not popular with motorists who don’t want to park in an off-street lot all day, merchants need the on-street spaces to have time limits enforced so customers coming to their establishment can park for the duration of their visit (shopping, lunch, etc).

Here are some examples of such a policy from other cities:

Pasadena, CA:

In Pasadena, time limits are used to manage on-street parking in two general types of areas.  In residential areas adjacent to commercial areas, parking time limits are used to discourage long-term parking by employees of the businesses in the commercial areas.  The City allows a provision for daytime permits to residents in these time-limited areas who need to park on-street near their homes during the hours the time limits are in effect.  In commercial areas, generally by petition of the business/property owners, time limits are used to encourage the turnover of parking spaces to provide short-term parking for visitors to the commercial areas. (source)

Lenox, MA:

At a special meeting this past week, the Select Board voted 4-0 to authorize $3,000 for a 10-week program based on random, selectively scheduled ticketing by a Police Department parking enforcement officer, beginning around July 1. Warnings will be issued at first.

The immediate purpose is to free up on-street spaces for residents and visitors during the busy summer season. Because of the lack of enforcement, some of those spots are being occupied all day by employees or owners of local businesses, the Selectmen have said.

“Be warned, this is not popular,” declared Selectman Kenneth Fowler, a major proponent of the enforcement decision. “You’re going to hear a hue and cry. The biggest problem is that we had that lapse of so many years when we weren’t enforcing the parking.”

“No matter who gets the ticket, right or wrong, doesn’t matter, they’re angry about it and they yell,” observed Selectman John McNinch, noting that the parking officer is bound to be confronted by upset people.

The board directed Town Manager Gregory Federspiel to send a letter to downtown business owners advising them of the enforcement policy. The town bylaw limits downtown parking to two hours between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., seven days a week. (source)

Berkeley, CA:

Time Limits May Not Be Extended

Time limits are strictly enforced and may not be extended by adding more money after time has expired.  This applies to both single space and multi-space meters per BMC 14.52.060. (source)

New Brunswick, NJ:

On-street parking at meters and time-limit areas is designed and regulated to promote turnover for commercial and retail use. If someone parks in a space all day, it is not available for other users – and this hurts local businesses who rely on having some amount of on-street parking available.

Meter feeding is prohibited! At all on-street metered parking, adding more money to the meter past the designated time limit is not allowed and violators are subject to a ticket. Also, in areas with time limit restrictions it is illegal to park beyond the posted time limit. (source)

When you obey the time limits on short-term parking spaces, you help make valuable parking spaces available to you when you need them. (source)

Portland, OR:

Overtime:

Leave the blockface when the time limit of a short-term meter is over. A short-term meter has a time limit of less than 4 hours.  Also see Re-parking below.

Re-parking:

At a short-term meter (less than 4 hours), do not return sooner than 3 hours to the same blockface. (source)

Madison, WI:

Parking meters are intended for short-term parking.

• The purpose of time limits on parking meters is to ensure that parking spaces regularly become available for customers of area businesses and visitors to the area.
• It is illegal to deposit additional coins in the meter after the time limit has been reached.
• You must leave a parking space when the time limit posted on the meter has been reached.
• Vehicles parked longer than the posted time limit are subject to citation. (source)

Champaign, IL:

How long can I park?

Before 5 p.m., see the rate/time limit sticker on the meter. After 5 p.m., at meters with Blue labels, you can pay for up to 4 hours at one time.

Color coded meter labels help you determine where to park depending on your length of stay:

• Red = 30 minutes or less to grab lunch or a cup of coffee to go
• Blue = 2 hour maximum for lunch or some light shopping
• Orange = 3 or 4 hour maximum for a movie or museum visit
• Green = 10 hour maximum for a day-long meeting or outing downtown (source)

Note that in downtown Champaign IL you must 8am-9pm (2 hours longer than St. Louis, with a 2 hour maximum time 8am-5pm. Someone can stay parked in the same spot from 5pm to 9pm as long as they pay the meter.

As you can see from these examples the idea of on-street spaces as being short-term is pretty common. They recognize the need to keep cars on the street moving. I shared the Champaign IL examples with the other members of the parking task force because we agreed the lack of enforcement was detrimental to downtown.

Even looking at our neighbor to the west, Clayton, we see they too enforce time limits:

Question :

When are the parking time limits enforced on parking meters?

Answer:

 The parking meter time limits are enforced between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. They are not enforced on weekends and on these holidays: the first (1st) day of January, the last Monday in May, the fourth (4th) day of July, the first (1st) Monday in September, the fourth (4th) Thursday in November and the twenty-fifth (25th) day of December. (source) 

In Clayton, and the other cities listed, you’ll see parking enforcement putting a small chalk mark on car tires so when they come around again after the time limit those cars still parked in the same spot will be ticketed. This is likely why my simple questions from weeks ago had to be researched, because the answers are very likely:

1. Gee, we don’t have a clue if refeeding the meters is illegal. We don’t care if someone parks all day long at a metered spot as long as they have an endless supply of quarters.
2. We only ticket for not feeding the meter, that’s $10.
3. Uh, huh?
4. There’re no meters on that block of 9th so we have no way to enforce the 15 minute limit.

In 2009 the Treasurer’s office under Larry Williams commissioned a downtown study. Serving on the Downtown Parking Task Force in 2010 I had a draft copy of the report from September 2009. I dug through my archives and uploaded it to Scribd, you can read it here. One of the findings:

St. Louis’ current downtown parking enforcement program has several opportunities for improvement. The parking violation rates are low, thereby discouraging compliance. Enforcement coverage is limited to regular business hours, regardless of need. Enforcement is concentrated on traditional issues (e.g., expired meters), perhaps at the expense of more pressing compliance issues (e.g., overtime parking). Finally, this traditional focus has a real opportunity cost—by limiting enforcement to parking tickets, the CBD may miss opportunities to satisfy other stakeholder needs (e.g., patron assistance, merchant surveys and district security).

The next meeting of the parking commission is 10am Thursday in Room 220 of City Hall, weather permitting I’ll be there.

— Steve Patterson

Polls: How Would You Expand Modern Streetcar Lines From Proposed Route Into North & South City?

I’m excited about the proposed St. Louis Streetcar, I’m a streetcar fan and the idea of living just a block away from the line has be overjoyed. Like out 20 year old light rail line, the streetcar primarily serves the city’s central corridor — downtown and parts west. North & south St. Louis wouldn’t benefit with the original route. I’ve lived 16 of my 23 years in St. Louis in north (3) and south (13) city, I know what it’s like to see millions spent on transit infrastructure with little personal benefit.

Even living downtown now I use MetroBus way more often than MetroLink, the bus is closer to me and my frequent destinations than light rail.

For the purposes of this post/poll I’ve made the following assumptions:

• The initial streetcar line will open in 2017, aligned as proposed. 
• The #70 MetroBus line on Grand will get longer articulated buses.
• In-street light rail to quickly get north & south county suburbanites to ballgames won’t move forward
• Modern streetcars are as much about economic development as transportation.

The poll this week is broken into two questions: 1) how would you expand the proposed streetcar line further into north St. Louis from the spur at N. Florissant @ St. Louis Ave. and 2) how would you expand the proposed streetcar into south St. Louis from 14th @ Clark.

The north options I’ve listed in the poll are:

• Cass to MLK to the St. Charles Rock Rd MetroLink station. This goes though areas in need of development, investment, & jobs, but doesn’t go very far north
• West on St. Louis Ave to Goodfellow. This goes through areas also needing the above but runs through primarily residential areas while crossing major commercial streets.
• N. Florissant to Natural Bridge, eventually out to UMSL south MetroLink. Natural Bridge is a wide right-of-way, plenty of room for a streetcar in the center.
• N. Florissant past the cemeteries to Goodfellow. This goes farther north than the other options, possible connections to north county bus/streetcar

The south options listed all start by going south on 14th from Clark:

• Chouteau to Broadway to River Des Peres
• Chouteau to Jefferson to Chippewa to Lansdowne to Shrewsbury MetroLink
• Lafayette to Tucker to Gravois to Hampton
• Chouteau to Vandeventer to Southwest to Hampton

Poll questions for both north & south are in the right sidebar. As you can see these vary and cover different parts of the city. Variations in the street network between north & south city plays a role as well.

Please share your ideas for local modern streetcar routes in north & south S. Louis in the comments below.

— Steve Patterson