Follow Up: ADA Access at St. Louis Hills Medical Center

Last month I posted how the St. Louis Hills Medical Center violates the ADA. In short, the building’s original design predated the ADA by a few decades and the 2008 renovations didn’t fix the problem. Here are a few photos from that post:

Since that post I met with a representative of the building owner as well as Eddie Roth, Director of Operations in the mayor’s office.

During the construction work a few years ago someone made a decision to not follow the architect’s design, resulting in lack of ADA-compliance.

The owner’s representative indicated the building remains vacant, and they aren’t interested in making changes. If only they’d followed the architect’s plans there would be no problems gaining access into the building from the public sidewalk.

— Steve Patterson

Metered Parking: Downtown To Be Treated The Same As The Rest Of St. Louis Starting July 1st

The free ride downtown will soon be over. Effective July 1st metered parking downtown will no longer be free, the Treasurer’s press release:

The facts got a bit twisted in the local media:

For decades, flashing “expired” signs went unenforced in downtown parking meters on Saturdays. But City Treasurer Tishaura Jones announced on Tuesday that the city will end the long-standing policy and start requiring people to pay for street parking on Saturdays.

Starting on July 1, Jones said, downtown motorists will be required to pay for using parking meters on Saturdays, from 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. To help ease the change, violators will be issued warnings on the first two weekends of July. (stltoday)

7am? Went unenforced? To be fair to the paper this “violations” view came from the treasurer website:

Effective July 1, 2013, the Parking Division will begin enforcing parking violations, including expired meters, in Downtown St. Louis on Saturdays.  

Yesterday Jones replied to my email inquiry, indicating:  “The previous policy was the first two hours were free.”  However, Jones’ statement doesn’t jive with with the current meters:

Jones indicated these “tags will be updated shortly. They be replaced before July 1.” Over downtown 3,275 meters need changing with only 7 business days remain before July 1st. As indicated, this decision was made on May 9th so it is reasonable to expect all to be updated in 7 weeks time. Still, I’m bothered by the apparent confusion as to what the policy has been.

Maggie Campbell, who recently resigned as President of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, was an advocate for free parking seven days a week. I sat on a downtown parking committee with her a few years ago and we disagreed on this issue. I agree with parking experts like The High Cost of Free Parking author Donald Shoup (video) and Parking Management Best Practices author Todd Litman that pricing should not be free, but set to create turnover.

I think Jones may be confusing the 2-hour limit with free saturday parking. In theory the limit for most downtown spaces is two hours, after which the enforcement officials would drive around putting a chalk mark on tires and ticketing vehicles that hadn’t moved in two hours — regardless if the meter had been paid. It is this time limit that has never been enforced anywhere in the city. Two very different issues a banker might get confused.

A puzzling part of this change is who has authority to set policy, her or the Board of Aldermen. Jones directed me to Missouri statute RsMO 82.485:

It shall be the duty of the supervisor of parking meters to install parking meters, collect all parking meter fees, supervise the expenditures for repairs and maintenance, establish and supervise a parking enforcement division and a parking meter division to enforce any statute or ordinances now or hereafter established pertaining to the parking of motor vehicles, including automated zone parking and all other parking functions, and to make all disbursements on any parking contracts, including employment, consulting, legal services, capital improvement and purchase of equipment and real property which may hereafter be made by such cities, subject to audit in the manner provided by state statute.

The treasurer’s website also references RsMO 82.487, relating to the duties of the parking commission. Who is this parking commission anyway?

The Parking Commission consists of the following:

• Tishaura Jones (Treasurer)
• Carl Phillips (Parking Administrator)
• Todd Waeltermann (Director of Streets)
• Ald. Freeman Bosley, Sr (Chair of Streets Committee)
• Elaine Spearmon (Comptroller’s Office representative)

Meetings of the CITY OF SAINT LOUIS PARKING COMMISSION are open to the general public and held every second Thursday of each month at 10:00 a.m. in Room 220 City Hall, 1200 Market Street, St. Louis, MO 63103.  Please call 314-622-4700 for more information.

Yet the Board of Aldermen has passed numerous ordinances related to parking, such as Parking in the Third Ward or Parking Meter Division Employees relating to pay scale of employees.   Hopefully Tishaura Jones will be successful in doing what she campaigned on, removing parking from the Treasurer’s office. Bankers should not determine parking policy.

— Steve Patterson

Be Patient…Still Rebuilding From Malware

My programmer is still rebuilding my blog, somehow malware got into the theme files, please be patient as we work to return to normal.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: How Should We Address Auto Congestion In Forest Park

Last week Loop businessman & Loop Trolley backer, Joe Edwards, said he thinks we’ll eventually see cars banned in Forest Park. He’d like to see an electric powered trolley (aka vintage streetcar) on tracks circulating within the park. I know weekend traffic in the park can be so bad the #95 (Hampton) MetroBus reroutes to avoid going through the park. Cars are banned/limited at times — like the annual Ballon Glow.

Traffic can be obnoxious in Forest Park, ruining the pleasure of being outdoors to some. I recall flying back to St. Louis one night a few years ago and lighting in the parking lots stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise dark park.

Currently the Forest Park Trolley does a decent job for those of us who enter the park without a car.

Still, the vast majority drive into the park rather than use public transportation. This has prompted the St. Louis Zoo to buy the former hospital site across I-64/Highway 40 for additional parking with plans for a gondola to transport patrons back and forth. By eliminating some, or all, of the surface parking between the zoo and the highway the zoo can expand to the south with more exhibits.

So what are some of the options for dealing with congestion?

• Bans cars at peak times or all the time
• Construction of a electric trolley on a track, as Edwards suggested
• Construction of an electric bus system with overhead wires like the trolley but no track
• Run the existing trolley bus more frequently

Some will object to overhead wires and/or tracks, but others object to all the cars.

So this is the poll topic this week, the exact question is: How should we address auto congestion in Forest Park? I’m allowing you to pick up to 3 choices from the list. The poll is in the right sidebar.

Please take a moment to vote in the poll then share your thoughts in the comments below.
— Steve Patterson

W1W May Payoff Someday

I haven’t spent much time around the airport since the latest runway opened in 2006. Planned years earlier, it opened as flights at Lambert had been dropping. By 2008 the thought was get cargo flights:

The RCGA’s Susan Strauder, vice president for infrastructure and public policy, said the $1 billion W1W runway, considered a boondoggle by some in light of the drop in passengers, offers increased opportunities for the airport for expanded service. (stlbeacon)

But that hasn’t materialized either.

Last week at lunch at India Palace overlooking the airport I saw one small jet take off on the new runway. A few larger jets, mostly Southwest Airlines, took off from an older runway. Sad to have all that concrete without the flights.

Also, old streets in the area no longer connect. I compared 1958 to 2007 on HistoricAerials.com, massive changes. In 10-20 years we’ll know if the $1 billion dollar W1W runway was a good investment, right now it doesn’t look like it was.

— Steve Patterson