A Close Look at the Proposed St. Louis Streetcar in the CBD

Much of the talk about the proposed Downtown to CWE modern streetcar line has been focused on:

1. The use of streetcar vs bus
2. The east-west corridor vs investment in north & south St. Louis
3. How the proposed route mirrors the 1993 MetroLink route
4. How to end the line in the CWE, see post from yesterday here.

All valid topics, but today I want to zoom in to look at the route in the downtown central business district (CBD).

At this point in the streetcar process it isn’t known if the #99 Downtown Trolley bus route would remain, change or be eliminated completely. The draft report does note that operational savings could be realized through the elimination of a couple of bus routes. Eliminating the #99 would mean greater walking distances for service workers using transit since the proposed streetcar route has a more compact footprint, not a good thing for them.

East of 14th Street objectives that drove decisions regarding downtown alignments included:

• Get as close as possible to the center of the employment concentration.
• Minimize distance, physical and psychological, to major attractions, including the Arch Grounds.
• Reduce capital and operating costs.
• Minimize the number of curves to reduce noise and
• increase speed.
• Minimize the distance between tracks on one-way pairs. (The narrowness of the downtowtreets precludes double-track operation.)
• Eliminate impacts to MetroLink from streetcar construction.
• Lessen traffic impacts.

Application of those principles resulted, first, in the elimination of several options. Impacts to MetroLink during construction eliminated 8th Street and Washington Avenue. Traffic impacts, as cited by the City of St. Louis and the Missouri Department of Transportation, caused Broadway and 4th Street to be dropped, and the cost of extending the alignment from the downtown employment core to Memorial Drive eliminated that option.

This screening process resulted in a set of east-west streets that generally satisfied the evaluation criteria listed above. These included Chestnut, Pine, Olive and Locust Streets. North-south options were more limited and included 6th-7th Street and 9th-10th Street pairs. The former set was selected because it is closer to the heart of the downtown employment concentration and provides better proximity to major destinations. Olive Street is the logical eastbound half of an east-west one-way pair as it is a no-turn continuation of the alignment west of 14th Street. This results in a decision between Locust and Pine for the westbound segment. Locust was selected because of its centrality to the employment core, and because of its more pedestrian friendly first-floor uses, i.e., retail. Finally, the alignment south to Kiener Plaza addressed the strong desire from many stakeholders to provide direct and very visible pedestrian access to the Arch Grounds. (The plaza also provides a non-street layover point for streetcars.) In the next phase future coordination with the CityArchRiver 2015 project (draft study p14)

At Kiener Plaza a “layover point” is shown off street. This doesn’t fit with the latest concept for rebuilding Kiener Plaza. Such a change would need to be reviewed by the Gateway Mall Advisory Board, of which I’m a member.

Also not addressed is the use of 14th Street where it crosses the Gateway Mall (Market to Pine). Currently that is part of the “Civic Room” in the Master Plan. Currently 14th Street is frequently closed to traffic during major events like Taste of St. Louis and the Komen Race for the Cure. During these times the many bus routes that utilize 14th are rerouted on other streets but if 14th Street is used for the streetcar that means auto traffic may be rerouted but the streetcar needs to get through. This has major implications on the final design of the Civic Room and on event planning.

It was the relocation of the Saint Louis Law School that started all this, if Pine was used instead of Locust, that would be adjacent to the school. That said, I agree with the selection of Locust St. Yes, I live on Locust but at 16th so I won’t have a streetcar line directly in front of my building regardless.

It’s still early in the process but there’s lots to think about if this streetcar moves forward.

– Steve Patterson

Readers Split On Proposed Streetcar Route

Readers in the poll last week didn’t select any one option by a majority. The three routes presented as options, two being considered and another I’ve been advocating for years, each received a similar number of votes.

Q: My preferred route for a streetcar line is…

1. Option 2: Olive/Lindell>Euclid>Forest Park Blvd>Taylor>Lindell 35 [29.66%]
2. Option 1: Olive/Lindell>Taylor>Children’s Place/CWE MetroLink 31 [26.27%]
3. New option: Olive/Lindell to Vandeventer to Delmar to Loop Trolley 29 [24.58%]
4. None, don’t built a streetcar line 12 [10.17%]
5. Other: 10 [8.47%
6. Unsure/No Opinion 1 [0.85%]

The ten other answers were:

1. Use the old Hodiamont Streetcar right of way
2. grand blvd
3. Olive/Lindell>Euclid>Forest Park Blvd>Vanderventerr>Lindell/Olive
4. Street cars are a joke. They are a waste. Busses offer far more flexibility.
5. Use the old Hodiamont street car right of way.
6. Continue on Lindell to Debaliviere/Loop Trolley connection.
7. Middle-upper income routes to replace cars.
8. Link “downtown” only by s.cars: riverfrt. to Jeff Ave,, Delmar to Soulard.
9. free, downtown loop, between Tucker & Broadway
10. Option 1 but utilize Market and Forest park instead of Olive/Lindell

When streetcars were first installed it was a private effort by real estate developers to make it easier for buyers to reach new development:

The Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb Historic District is located within the boundaries of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. The -715-acre District is a triangular area generally bounded by the intersection of Gravois and South Jefferson Avenues at the north, South Jefferson Avenue and South Broadway Street (south of Chippewa Street) on the east, Meramec Street on the south, South Grand Boulevard on the west, and Gravois Avenue on the northwest.’ Gravois Avenue is a major arterial street and historically served as a wagon, streetcar, and vehicular transit corridor. South Jefferson Avenue also was and is a major transportation corridor. Meramec Street is a major collector street. Mixed commercial, institutional, and residential use along these major city thoroughfares visually and historically defines the survey area. (National Register nomination PDF)

Today funding streetcars in developed urban areas takes more than available right-of-way, it takes enough demand to justify the investment in infrastructure. Often this means connecting some big dots, the in between will fill in over time with proper land use controls. The problem in St. Louis is our big dots are generally east-west between downtown and Clayton.  What big dots exist north & south to guarantee ridership on a daily basis?

Grand has a few dots:

• VA Hospital
• Grand Center/SLU
• Grand MetroLink
• SLU Hospital

Okay, suppose you connect these via streetcar — that’s a mile and a half length. Not bad, but you’d still have to run the #70 (Grand) MetroBus to reach areas north and south — an additional 7.5 miles. Even my longtime preferred route of Olive/Lindell to Vandeventer to Delmar doesn’t have enough dots to get funding.

But between the Option 1 & 2 being considered I have a strong preference for #1 —  the double track on Taylor Ave option rather than the Euclid/Forest Park/Taylor loop.Establishing a double track on Taylor Ave sets up a perfect scenario for north-south expansion. Below is one concept:

The dots aren’t there for an initial north-south line but extending a couple of miles here and there every few years would eventually build a system. The current proposal calls for a north-south piece at 14th Street, going up to St. Louis Avenue. The double track on Taylor of Option 1 provides an ideal spot for a second north-south line further west. Expansion could happen to reach new development projects.

Yes, what I’ve shown above would take decades to construct. That’s how long-term planning works. For further reading on streetcars please see a 65-page literature review of Relationships Between Streetcars and the Built Environment.

— Steve Patterson

SLU’s Sculpture Garden Not Accessible To All

The northeast corner of Grand & Lindell, once an urban corner, is Saint Louis University’s Ellen Clark Sculpture Park. This large open site contains a number of sculptures that apparently please SLU President Lawrence Biondi.

I’ve only seen the colorful sculptures from the public sidewalk surrounding the fenced space. It is open to the public but the design isn’t accessible to those of us using wheelchairs.

I can walk with my cane if there was a way to get my chair inside the gates so I don’t have to leave it out on the sidewalk to risk being stolen.  I’d think this sculpture garden should comply with the ADA due to #9 below:

Under the ADA public accommodations are private entities that own, lease, lease to or operate a place of public accommodation. This means that both a landlord who leases space in a building to a tenant and the tenant who operates a place of public accommodation have responsibilities to remove barriers.

A place of public accommodation is a facility whose operations affect commerce and fall within at least one of the following 12 categories:

1. Places of lodging (e.g., inns, hotels, motels, except for owner-occupied establishments renting fewer than six rooms)
2. Establishments serving food or drink (e.g. , restaurants and bars)
3. Places of exhibition or entertainment (e.g. , motion picture houses, theaters, concert halls, stadiums)
4. Places of public gathering (e.g. , auditoriums, convention centers, lecture halls)
5. Sales or rental establishments (e.g. , bakeries, grocery stores, hardware stores, shopping centers)
6. Service establishments (e.g. , laundromats, dry-cleaners, banks, barber shops, beauty shops, travel services, shoe repair services, funeral parlors, gas stations, offices of accountants or lawyers, pharmacies, insurance offices, professional offices of health care providers, hospitals)
7. Public transportation terminals, depots, or stations (not including facilities relating to air transportation)
8. Places of public display or collection (e.g. , museums, libraries, galleries)
9. Places of recreation (e.g. , parks, zoos, amusement parks)
10. Places of education (e.g. , nursery schools, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private schools)
11. Social service center establishments (e.g. , day care centers, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, food banks, adoption agencies)
12. Places of exercise or recreation (e.g. , gymnasiums, health spas, bowling alleys, golf courses) (source)

b

SLU installed a bag dispenser so dog owners can clean up and Biondi likes seeing dogs there.

“I am a dog lover,” said Biondi, who has an 8-year-old golden retriever named Iggy, in honor of St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuit order. “But even if I didn’t love dogs, I’d still want the dogs in the park. It’s a nice opportunity for the community to get together and come to the campus and form friendships.” (stltoday.com)

Even as a dog park it has issues. If I were to try to enter the park there’s a risk someone’s dog might escape since no vestibule is provided.

Officially the entire corner is temporary, the university sought development  proposals when the recession hit. Rather than make the park accessible I’d much prefer to see it get redeveloped. SLU has tons of open land, plenty of space exists to create another dog park nearby.

The historic Marina Building was only two stories high but a new building could be many more floors given the height of others in the area. I’d love to see a Trader Joe’s in the ground floor of a new building.

Here’s an interesting tidbit I ran across researching this post:

This year [2011] marks the sesquicentennial of the Camp Jackson massacre at this site, then known as Lindell Grove on the western edge of the city. On May 10, 1861, federal troops — already on edge and spooked by the sound of gunfire — fired into the crowd, killing 28 civilians, including several children, and wounding nearly 100 more. From 1929 to 1959 a monument to the event stood nearby, but it was banished when a descendant of Daniel M. Frost, general of the pro-Confederate Missouri militia, donated funds for Saint Louis University to purchase the midtown Frost Campus. Today, the site houses the Ellen Clark Sculpture Park, which is full of colorful abstractions reflective of Saint Louis University president Lawrence Biondi’s taste in art. Not even a small plaque commemorates the historic event or the two dozen-plus civilians who died here. (RFT Best Hidden Historical Site – 2011)

– Steve Patterson

Urban Planning and Generational Differences

Our life experiences shape our decisions and outlook on life. My parents, born in 1929 & 1931, were raised  poor on the fringes of the worst part of the Dust Bowl in western Oklahoma. Their upbringing, by fathers born in the late 19th century, and moms from the early 20th century, was radically different than my childhood in a 1960s suburban subdivision.

A couple born in the same years as my parents, but raised affluent in Ladue, are still going to have shared characteristics with my poor rural folks just as I will with their child born the year I was, even if s/he has a trust fund. Because of these shared characteristics demographers make generalizations of each generation based on the study of millions over time. Do these generalizations fit every individual from a given generation? Of course not, they are summations of tens of millions.

Wikipedia has a good summary of the seven most recent generations:

1. The Lost Generation, also known as the Generation of 1914 in Europe, is a term originating with Gertrude Stein to describe those who fought in World War I. The members of the lost generation were typically born between 1883 and 1900.
2. The Greatest Generation, also known as the G.I. Generation, is the generation that includes the veterans who fought in World War II. They were born from around 1901 through 1924, coming of age during the Great Depression. Journalist Tom Brokaw dubbed this the Greatest Generation in a book of the same name.
3. The Silent Generation, also known as the “Lucky Few” were born 1925 through 1945, is the generation that includes those who were too young to join the service during World War II. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War. Many had fathers who served in World War I. Generally recognized as the children of the Great Depression, this event during their formative years had a profound impact on them.
4. The Baby Boomers are the generation that was born following World War II, generally from 1946 up to 1964, a time that was marked by an increase in birth rates. The term “baby boomer” is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise date definition. The baby boom has been described variously as a “shockwave” and as “the pig in the python.” In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence. One of the features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before them. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about.
5. Generation X is generally defined as those born after the baby boom ended. Demographers, historians and commentators use beginning birth dates from the early 1960s to the early 1980s The term has also been used in different times and places for a number of different subcultures or countercultures since the 1950s.
6. Generation Y, also called Millennials, describes the generation following Generation X. There are no precise dates for when the Millennial generation starts and ends. Commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the latter 1970s or from the early 1980s to the early 2000s (decade).
7. Generation Z is a name used (although other terms exist) for the cohort of people born from the early 2000s to the present day who are distinct from the preceding Millennial Generation. (Wikipedia) 

Why bother, do the differences matter? Yes, yes they do matter. St. Louis’ first planner was Harland Bartholomew, born in 1889, was part of the Lost Generation where many died in WWI:

Those who came home were profoundly affected by their war experience. Feeling cynical about humanity’s prospects, they rebelled against the values of their elders, seeking debauchery instead of decency, and hedonism instead of ideology. (source)

It was this generation that sought to improve upon cities through massive urban renewal projects and expansive highways though Bartholomew’s New York contemporary Robert Moses (b18888) and President Dwight D. Eisenhauer (b1890), respectively.

Bartholomew, blinded by his views, missed generational change taking place during his tenure. Despite a drop in population from 1930-1940, the City Plan from 1947 said:

The Plan Commission confidently predicts that by 1970 barely a generation hence-the city proper can have 900,000 population. This would be an increase of only slightly more than 10 per cent since the 1940 census, but such a growth of 84,000 calls for making proper room for the new roofs, adequate traffic ways for the added automobiles, economical plans for all the additional public and semi-public facilities to be required. Furthermore, there must be a catching-up with all the improvements perforce neglected during the long war period. (Comprehensive City Plan 1947)

Bartholomew didn’t see that the middle class of the two generation after his, the Greatest Generation & Silent Generation, were leaving the urban core for the new suburbs. Or he thought that they’d return/stay if we just rebuilt the urban core to emulate suburban development. He was wrong, his generation was in charge at all levels of local, state and federal government.

Just as not all agree on the years for defining a generation, there isn’t agreement on how many people of each generation are with us today.

The Millennial generation, also known as Generation Y or the “Echo Boomers,” is three times bigger than Generation X and even bigger than the Baby Boom generation. The dates of the Millennial generation are not precisely defined, but depending on what measure you use, their birth dates typically stretch from the late 1980 to 2000. (source)

Other sources indicate about 50 million Gen X and 75-80 million Gen Y. What’s not disputed is Gen Y outnumbers the Baby Boomers and both outnumber Gen X.

We’re familiar with talk about how Vietnam permanently shaped the baby boomers. But if you grew up in or near an American city in the 1970s, you grew up with crime (and divorce), and this disorder was bound to leave a permanent mark. It was bound to shape the people, now in their 40s and early-50s, reaching the pinnacles of power.

It has clearly influenced parenting. The people who grew up afraid to go in parks at night now supervise their own children with fanatical attention, even though crime rates have plummeted. It’s as if they’re responding to the sense of menace they felt while young, not the actual conditions of today.

The crime wave killed off the hippie movement. The hippies celebrated disorder, mayhem and the whole Dionysian personal agenda. By the 1970s, the menacing results of that agenda were all around. The crime wave made it hard to think that social problems would be solved strictly by changing the material circumstances. Shiny new public housing blocks replaced rancid old tenements, but in some cases the disorder actually got worse. (NYTimes – Children of the ’70s)

Gen X moved to the suburbs in droves either as kids or young adults. In my case, my parents built a new suburban house while my mom was carrying me. Gen Y largely grew up in suburbia.

One area where generations vary is employment:

Relative to older generations, Gen Y is the most optimistic about the future and is willing to do whatever it takes to build a career, including going back to school, starting a business or moving back in with their parents. Despite a tough jobs market and the strong likelihood that they have student loan debt, 88 percent of millennial job seekers say they are optimistic about finding a new job. After all, they do have their whole working lives ahead of them. The fact that, overall, members of Gen Y are finding work faster than older generations surveyed may also have something to do with their optimism. The jobs millennials are getting may not be ideal — lots in retail and categories that don’t require a college degree — but at least the job hunt isn’t being dragged out forever.

Nearly half of Gen Y has considered going back to school instead of continuing their job search (35% of Gen X and 23% of Boomers), and nearly one-third are being forced to move back in with their parents (31% of Gen Y, 24% of Gen X and 13% of Boomers). One more difference about millennials is that, naturally enough for a generation that came of age with Twitter and Facebook, they’re more likely to use social media in the course of the job hunt. Before interviewing, Gen Y members are more likely to follow and interact with the company’s social media profiles over older generations (24% of Gen Y, vs. 19% of Gen X and 16% of Boomers). (Time.com – How Different Generations of Americans Try to Find Work)

Once hired, Gen Y are very different in the workplace than older workers:

Right now, there are about 80 million millennials and 76 million boomers in America. Half of all millennials are already in the workforce, and millions are added every year. Approximately 10,000 millennials turn 21 every day in America, and by the year 2025, three out of every four workers globally will be Gen Y. “This generation is reshaping today’s consumer and media markets, and even MTV itself,” says Nick Shore, a senior vice president at MTV involved in the “No Collar Workers” study.

Gen Y will also reshape the workplace—sooner than later, if they have their way. Among other characteristics that stand out, millennials, who have come of age with the text message and social media, are an impatient bunch: They’re hyper-connected, tech savvy, entrepreneurial, and collaborative. They also favor fast-paced work environments, want quick promotions, and aren’t fans of traditional office rules and hierarchies. (Time.com – Millennials vs. Baby Boomers: Who Would You Rather Hire?)

Where Gen Y works is different too:

Gen Y workers don’t tend to have jobs inside the biggest U.S. companies, especially if those companies are not in high tech. Most members of Gen Y prefer to work for smaller firms that offer more flexibility and the chance to do social networking at work without strict corporate guidelines. The survey showed that the highest concentration of Gen Y workers, 47%, work for companies with fewer than 100 employees, followed by medium-sized companies with between 100 and 1,500 employees (30%). The fewest, 23%, work in companies with more than 1,500 employees. Of those companies, the top five are all tech firms: Qualcomm, Google, Medtronic, Intel and Microsoft. (Forbes – The Best Cities For Gen Y Jobs)

Considerable attention was paid to housing as Boomers sought suburban housing when they were raising families. Now developers are focusing on housing Gen Y.

Given their large numbers and potential to consume, Generation Y, most of whom are in their 20s and early 30s, are a major focus of real estate investors and developers. Prominent researchers have investigated and analyzed how this generation will consume, live, work and play.

The quote above is from the description of an upcoming ULI (Urban Land Institute) St. Louis event: Generation Y: What Kind of Real Estate Do They Really Want?

Any city or metropolitan region that cannot provide affordable, walkable, and attractive neighborhoods in which gen-Yers can afford to live will simply lose the best of them to those regions that have such neighborhoods. If they have to “drive ’til they qualify,” as the workforce before them has had to do, gen-Yers are more likely to simply fly off to another city or region.

Simply put, generation Y represents the future of every region’s economy. Attracting and keeping this group requires careful planning and a commitment to develop new mixed-income housing in mixed-use neighborhoods close to the central city and to the surrounding suburban town centers. The time to do this is now, while gen-Yers are still living at home, because when jobs for them do come back, the pent-up demand they represent will move quickly to those regions that are ready for them. (ULI – Housing Gen Y: The Next Challenge for Cities)

Boomers and Gen X did the “drive until you qualify” routine to find affordable new housing.  Thankfully Gen Y isn’t interested in driving out from the core to reach affordable housing. In fact, they’re not too interested in driving in general.

From 2001 to 2009, the average annual number of vehicle-miles traveled by people ages 16-34 dropped 23 percent, from 10,300 to 7,900, the survey found. Gen Y-ers, also known as Millennials, tend to ride bicycles, take public transit and rely on virtual media.

More than a quarter of Millennials – 26 percent – lacked a driver’s license in 2010, up 5 percentage points from 2000, the Federal Highway Administration reported. (Reuters – America’s Generation Y not driven to drive)

Cynical Boomers will say this is simply because they’re unemployed or underemployed in large numbers. “Get them jobs and they’ll be driving like we have” is the viewpoint.  This is how older generations misunderstand later generations, failing to see emerging trends early on. In February 2008, pre-recession, a NY Times piece

In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third, according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.

Reasons vary, including tighter state laws governing when teenagers can drive, higher insurance costs and a shift from school-run driver education to expensive private driving academies.

To that mix, experts also add parents who are willing to chauffeur their children to activities, and pastimes like surfing the Web that keep them indoors and glued to computers. (NY Times – Fewer Youths Jump Behind the Wheel at 16)

Certainly lack of work is part of the reason but so is the fact Gen Y grew up being driven everywhere by their parents.

The cities/regions that understand Gen Y will be able to attract them and the employers that want to hire them. Some of these employers will be run by members of Gen Y. The sheer numbers entering the workforce, moving out of mom & dad’s safe suburban home, and willingness to relocate means a migration is on. Will the St. Louis region capitalize on this by making the entire core (ie: city) the type of walkable place they seek? Right now I’d say no, we won’t capitalize on the chance to retain and attract significant numbers of Gen Y.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Support 3/16th Cent Sales Tax For Arch Grounds & City/County Parks?

In two weeks voters in St. Louis City & St. Louis County will be asked to approve a 3/16th of a cent sales tax. The ballot language reads:

For the purpose of increasing safety, security, and public accessibility for the Gateway Arch grounds and local, county, and regional parks and trails for families and disabled and elderly visitors, and for providing expanded activities and improvements of such areas, shall St. Louis County join such other of St. Charles County and the City of St. Louis to impose a three sixteenths (3/16) of one cent sales tax in addition to the existing one-tenth (1/10) of one cent sales tax applied to such purposes, with sixty percent of the revenues derived from the added tax allocated to the Metropolitan Park and Recreation District for Gateway Arch grounds and other regional park and trail improvements, and the remaining forty percent allocated to St. Louis County for local and county park improvements as authorized by the County Council of St. Louis County, with such tax not to include the sale of food and prescription drugs and to be subject to an independent annual public audit? (source) 

Originally the tax proposal was also supposed to be on the St. Charles County ballot but they didn’t add it. The measure must pass in both St. Louis County and St. Louis City to take affect. For more information on Prop P see yesonpropp.com.

For the poll this week I’d like to see how readers feel about this proposed tax increase. The poll, as always, is in the right sidebar.

— Steve Patterson