Taxis Still Blocking Pedestrian Sidewalk at St. Louis’ Convention Center

This past January I had a post about the taxi situation in front of America’s Center, St. Louis’ convention center. Two things were happening. The main issue was the St. Louis Taxi Commission (which covers St. Louis City & County) set up a taxi stand in the direct path of pedestrians walking along Washington Ave. The second thing, as a result taxis were exiting the stand via the pedestrian crossing at 8th Street.

Above is a good overall view looking east along Washington Avenue with the convention center entrance on the left and the convention hotel on the right, across the street. In the direct line of pedestrians walking along Washington are various planters, bollards, and a taxi. In the next block is access to a light rail station. Pedestrians are forced to either share the space with the taxis or walk in the driveway off to the left. Either way pedestrians are placed in the direct path of cars or buses. You’d think, in the interest of getting more activity downtown, we’d try to make the sidewalks as friendly as possible.

The image above showed the pedestrian crossing at 8th street. Taxis leaving their designated stand would make a quick left through the ramp/crossing area to get onto Washington, go down 8th or head over to the hotel. For video of this in action see my prior post.

As of yesterday two additional bollards had been placed to help prevent the taxis from leaving the stand through the pedestrian crossing. The other bollards shown were already in place back in January. While I am glad these were added it does not address the fact the sidewalk along one of our more important roads is being consumed by auto uses. This is all next to a wide road (4 lanes plus center).

What does this image say about the priorities of St. Louis’ leaders?

In January I suggested the taxi stand be moved to the outside lane of Washington Ave. Here is what I wrote:

Set up the taxi stand on Washington Ave between 7th and 8th, moving the existing bus stop to the West of 8th but still in front of the convention center. Also allow parking on the opposite side of Washington next to the Renaissance Grand Hotel. A few spaces could be short-term spaces (15-30 minutes) for those running into Starbucks or Kinkos). The rest would serve the general area. At the end of that block An American Place restaurant could have 60ft or so for valet. Back at 7th and Washington I’d set up a single short-term space immediately adjacet to the visitor’s center.

Traffic, in my view, just isn’t that heavy to justify all the open lanes. Sure, we’ve got that 15 minute period in the morning and afternoon where traffic backs up for a block — maybe a block and a half. This section of Washington prohibits parking 24/7 while just up the street between 10th and Tucker (aka 12th) parking is allowed except for 7am-9am and 4pm-6pm. We simply do not have massive two hour rush periods on Washington Ave.

The solution is this, allow parking on Washington Ave. with a couple of exceptions. On the westbound lane (north side of street) prohibit morning parking from say 7:30am to 8:30am. This keeps the two westbound lanes open in the AM when it is needed most. Conversely, allow parking on the eastbound lane (south side of street) prohibit afternoon parking from 4:30pm to 5:30pm. The same logic applies, afternoon traffic is predominently eastbound in the afternoon so keep the parking lane open for an hour. There is absolutely no logic in prohibiting parking in both directions both in the morning and afternoon.

We want those who work downtown but don’t live downtown to stick around after they leave the office. They should want to stay to walk around, have a drink, grab dinner and do some shopping. Instead of providing a pleasant place for this to happen we have Washington Ave configured as a thoroughfare to make vacating the city easy. Where the lead taxi is shown above should be a vendor cart selling hot dogs, soft drinks and bottled water (so long as the cart doesn’t block the sidewalk). This would leave a far better impression on visitors/workers than a couple of taxis sitting on the sidewalk.

St. Louis’ leaders need to wake up and realize they can give away millions in TIFs but if we don’t attend to the details of people where it matters most we will not have the type of downtown we seek.

Cardinals Parking by Permit Only

Last night I was scootering home along 8th street (one-way south) during the baseball game. As you may have seen before, people park along 8th between Walnut and Clark. They also park along the curved part of 7th — both areas adjacent to the Bowling Hall of Fame. The signs indicate permit parking only. Permit parking only?

I asked one of the police officers working the area what it took to get a permit, he was unsure. Is it city officials parking in these spaces? Or friends of the Cardinals? Who issues the permits and how long are they valid? What is the cost of a permit and can just anyone buy one? Where will these people park once the Ballpark Village is under way and complete? Does the city get any revenue from this parking on the public street? Who pays for the police to make sure those who park there have valid permits?

I’m long on questions and short on answers.

Election Results – City of St. Louis

The results are in and only 6.85% of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot today. Sad, very sad. All the more reason we need to switch to non-partisan elections so that we have a single election rather than a primary and general.

Most of the ballot was simply a formality, with only a single candidate per seat.

In the 12th ward incumbent Republican Fred Heitert was re-elected with nearly 70% of the vote. This ward turned out 14.7% of their voters for this rate partisan contest.  Look for this to be Heitert’s last term.
As expected, the two school board candidates backed by the teacher’s union walked away winners.  The question is if the students will be winners as a result, I’m not so convinced.

And with nearly 70% of the vote, Proposition P requiring voter approval to sell or lease public land, including parks, passed big time.  This, I believe, is a clear message to big business & city hall — listen to the voters or will we will power away from you.  Look for lawsuits challenging the charter amendment.

You can find more information at stlelections.com

Big & Small Changes at City Hall

As you probably already know: Jim Shrewsbury is out as President of the Board of Aldermen, Lewis Reed will be the next to hold that city-wide office.  Besides the obvious, we’ll see new staff in the President’s office.  I want to wish Mr. Shrewsbury and his out-going staff best wishes.  To Reed and his incoming staff, I want to wish you the best as well — the city has many issues facing it and we all need to get on or near the same page to move forward.  And yes, you’ll hear from me often about what I think it takes to move forward.

Kacie Starr Triplett worked her way to the top of a 3-way race to replace Lewis Reed as 6th ward alderman.  Some said he was too young, others said she was not next in line.   On the campaign trail, she proved how tenacious she can be.  Although I endorsed 3rd place Christian Saller I am content that voters selected Triplett over Cacchione.

Craig Schmid will be returned to the Board of Aldermen for another four years after defeating challenger Galen Gondolfi in one of the most heated races this season.  Schmid needs to take this election as a wake-up call and to be a bit more open minded about alternate approaches to problems in the ward.  Schmid was a Shrewsbury supporter so we will see how he does with committee assignments under Reed’s leadership.

Republican Fred Heitert easily defeated ex-cop Matthew Browning in the 12th ward but now faces a challenger in the general election.  Will this seat go Democrat for the first time in a generation?

In the 4th Ward incumbent OL Shelton was sent packing in big numbers, receiving less than 30% of the vote.  Shelton was just elected in the summer of 2005 after the previous alderman was recalled.  We’ll see if newly elected alderman Sam Moore will have any better luck bringing the factions together in this ward.

Two other northside aldermen, Boyd (22nd) and Williamson (26th) soundly defeated their repeat rivals.  In the 24th former alderman Tom Bauer was again defeated by voters although he managed more than 40% of the vote.  Bill Waterhouse, the winner, was also a Shrewsbury supporter.
I stopped by the Reed HQ just as License Collector Mike McMillan was about to announce Reed had won the race.  Most certainly, the mood was very upbeat.  I didn’t make it to the Shrewsbury event and by the time I was ready to head there I had already heard the news he had lost so I figured the crowd would quickly disappait.
Now begins that period where we will see if Reed’s actions match his words.  The first test will be to see if he is less vindictive than he claimed Shrewsbury to be.  That is, how will aldermen such as Wessels, Villa, Young, Ortmann, Jones-King and others who backed Shrewsbury be treated?  What about those that sat on the fence, such as Dorothy Kirner?

‘Roger & Me’ Raises Old Questions That Are Still With Us.

In class on Saturday we watched the classic Michael Moore documentary, Roger & Me. You may recall this was Moore’s first film and it focused on his hometown of Flint Michigan. The topics covered are wide-ranging from corporate greed (GM was making a big profit in those days), outsourcing jobs, a community’s heavy reliance on a single employer, and the costs to lure tourists to town.  A short sequel, called Pets or Meat, is online.
Flint, located an hour or so from Detroit, was the auto capital of the world at one time and was closely tied with General Motors. Between GM and associated suppliers the auto industry was the employment base. The town, like so many, had a downtown that had seen better days. Hoping to bring new life, in 1981 they opened a luxury Hyatt Regency Hotel w/convention center and a “festival marketplace” known as Water Street Pavilion. In 1984 they opened a theme park called AutoWorld which, I kid you not, had a reproduction of their old main street. All were intended to bring in droves of tourists.

The $100 million AutoWorld theme park wasn’t even open a year. The hotel & marketplace both eneded up closing within a decade. All three were internally focused projects with little relationship to each other or the real city. Instead of returning their main street (Saginaw St. btw) to its former glory they went for the big splash projects popular in the times.

Around this same time St. Louis had followed much of the same formula. We already had our convention center in place in the 1970s but we’d see new hotel projects and expansions of the center on the boards in the 80s. We also went crazy with two competing shopping destinations downtown; St. Louis Union Station and St. Louis Centre.

Each time our convention facilities failed to produce the desired revenue, the answer was to expand. Either we needed more floor space to attract larger and larger conventions or the answer was a dedicated convention hotel. Many conventions I have seen both in town and in other cities fit comfortably within the context of a hotel — the days of the mega convention are coming to an end. In reality, the convention route for tourist dollars may never have been as hyped. Here is the executive summary from a 2005 Brookings report titled ‘Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy:’

To cities the lure of the convention business has long been the prospect of visitors emptying their wallets on meals, lodging, and entertainment, helping to rejuvenate ailing downtowns.

However, an examination of the convention business and city and state spending on host venues finds that:

• The overall convention marketplace is declining in a manner that suggests that a recovery or turnaround is unlikely to yield much increased business for any given community, contrary to repeated industry projections. Moreover this decline began prior to the disruptions of 9-11 and is exacerbated by advances in communications technology. Currently, overall attendance at the 200 largest tradeshow events languishes at 1993 levels.

• Nonetheless, localities, sometimes with state assistance, have continued a type of arms race with competing cities to host these events, investing massive amounts of capital in new convention center construction and expansion of existing facilities. Over the past decade alone, public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, increasing convention space by over 50 percent since 1990. Nationwide, 44 new or expanded convention centers are now in planning or construction.

• Faced with increased competition, many cities spend more money on additional convention amenities, like publicly-financed hotels to serve as convention “headquarters.” Another competitive response has been to offer deep discounts to tradeshow groups. Despite dedicated taxes to pay off the public bonds issued to build convention centers, many—including Washington, D.C and St. Louis—operate at a loss.

This analysis should give local leaders pause as they consider calls for ever more public investment into the convention business, while weighing simultaneously where else scarce public funds could be spent to boost the urban economy.

The full report is worth the read because several pages focuses on St. Louis as a case study. It goes through all the history from the 1970s through to a few years ago. Concluding with:

St. Louis used the vast bulk of its $130 million in federal empowerment bonds authorization, fully 75 percent, in pursuit of its convention hotel dream. It also took on the obligation to repay another $50 million backed by its HUD community development block
grant funds. The commitment to the hotel, rather than some other form of job creation or economic development, thus represents a substantial opportunity cost. Now, with the hotel failing to meet its operating costs or debt service, the city of St. Louis will be forced to use $500,000 in federal aid to meet the debt service cost this year.

But the bill for the convention center and headquarters hotel in a highly competitive market does not stop there. The Moody’s assessment of the hotel’s financial prospects argued that its future success “will depend in part on continued redevelopment of down-
town,” with the city seeking to “fast track certain downtown redevelopment efforts.” The likelihood is that St. Louis and the state of Missouri will continue to pour public capital investment and tax subsidies into the downtown area and convention competition, despite
the limited returns. The city is thus regularly subsidizing the convention center at the expense of other public services or other revitalization strategies.

So when you are wondering why we don’t have money to maintain Forest Park just keep failed projects like the $90 million St. Louis Centre (now with a new round of funding backed by the city), St. Louis Marketplace (costing us $1 million a year) and the convention center fiasco. Elected officials continue to pour money into mega projects with promises of big returns.