Taxi Cabs Block Sidewalk at Convention Center, Exit Via Crosswalk

Today I was walking up and down Washington Avenue this morning checking out the parking situation and ran across another of those problems that I’d seen myself, and been reminded of by a reader, but never got around to documenting: Taxi cabs blocking the sidewalkl in front of our convention center.

Above is the Westbound view along Washington Avenue at 8th street. Other convention center entrances I’ve seen often have street vendors selling hot dogs and bottled water but not in St. Louis, we have cars!

Here is the same area seen from the opposite perspective, note the yellow taxi in the direct path of pedestrians. The wide area to the left is a circle driveway for dropping off people at the convention center, not a place we should expect pedestrians to be walking.

The taxis wait here as part of a designated taxi stand until called over by an attendant at the Renaissance Grand hotel show above, right. How do they get there? Yes, they exit via the pedestrian crossing shown above. Don’t believe me? Watch the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRusfBYJ-_8[/youtube]

This is how visitors to our city are treated. No place to buy a snack or newspaper, US Bank’s ugly parking garage immediately across the street, taxi’s running you down in the crosswalk. And yet we wonder why this section of Washington Ave is not more lively.

The solution is rather simple actually. 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.

As you might expect, I will be bringing this matter to the attention of the St. Louis Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, the Downtown St. Louis Partnership, 7th Ward Alderman Phyllis Young and the Slay administration.

Update 1/12/07 – 12:15pm — for those that don’t know, I’m a big country music fan.  This situation and the one from last week with city employees parking on the sidewalk along 14th (see post) reminds me of the recent hit song by Jason Aldean, “Hicktown”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4_hCdNwvO0[/youtube]

Welcome to St. Louis, a hicktown on the Mississippi.

Valet Zones Established on Washington Avenue

Finally! My first mention of valet parking was on December 6, 2005. Today, just over a year later, the problem was basically solved — the city’s Street Department installed signs marking valets zones in the 1100 and 1200 blocks of Washington Ave.

The West end of Lucas Park Grille’s valet zone (in the 1200 block) is basically at the end of their restaurant, as it should be.  [Update 1/12/07 10:45am – I measured their space from sign to sign this morning and it is a reasonable 88ft.]

The real confusing thing here has nothing to do with valet parking — from the signs to my back is no parking as this is both a bus stop and the intersection with 13th Street (although part does not have through traffic) yet a parking meter is attached to the post (mostly hidden in this view). So the signs say no parking from the sign back yet a parking meter exists as though it would be OK.  [Update 1/12/07 10:45am – I missed this last night but saw it this morning and a commenter also pointed it out — some of the meters in this area are located at the back of the spaces rather than the front.  That is the case here — the meter is for the space where the BMW is parked above.]

This sign is the opposite end of the Lucas Park Grille valet zone. Again, they’ve got the full space in front of their restaurant for people to drop off and pick up their cars. The remainder of the spaces they had been taking, roughly 7-10 are now available for the general public.

Moving to the East we get to the 1100 block of Washington Ave where Copia has been taking the entire block for a year. I took this picture during the no-parking on street time of 4pm-6pm, another subject I will get to later in this post. I returned later after 6pm and the valet company had covered this meter with one of their no-parking covers and saying the space where I am standing to take this picture was also for valet. As you can see, the restaurant is up ahead and they have the zone up to the white car in the background. The sign is clearly pointing that direction but I didn’t bother arguing with him. There will be an education and adjustment period and I have faith in the new acting Director of Streets to do what it takes keep the streets in order.

[Update 1/12/07 @ 10:45am — I went down there this morning and did some measuring.  From the sign shown below at the east end of their zone to the sign shown above it is a huge 129ft — too long.  Plus they were thinking they got the space that the sign is attached to — that total length is 151ft.  In reality they should have one less space for a total of 106ft, still a reasonable length in my view. ] 

This image is the eastern end of the Copia valet zone. Again, they have a reasonable amount of space to conduct their business while everyone else has public parking to be shared. This small change will have a significant impact on the visual appearance of the street, including the perception of how happening the street is. No longer will we see big dead zones due to valets co-opting all the available spaces. Good common sense has prevailed.

I want to thank Ald. Lyda Krewson (D-28th Ward) for her many hours of working on this issue. I know it has been hours because she and I have literally spent hours talking and emailing over this subject for a good six months or more. Plus I gather she has had numerous conversations with valet company owners, other aldermen and so on. In the past I’ve said 8 years was plenty for an alderman, that after that many years they nothing else to give and it was time to move on. Well, I think I was wrong — despite the 9 years Ald. Krewson has been on the Board of Aldermen it is clear to me now Ald. Krewson has plenty of drive to tackle issues and can be open to suggestions and alternate views. Click here to send an email to Ald. Krewson thanking her for taking the time to pursue this issue.
Also deserving attention is the new acting Director of Streets, Todd Waeltermann. Having just started the job in December he has rolled up his sleeves and got down to work with Ald. Krewson on this issue. Like Krewson, he has gotten very involved and applied some very sensible common sense to the issue. I also hear the folks in the Slay administration were very supportive so thank you Room 200!

The other people that deserve credit are the many of you that sent emails and made phone calls regarding this issue. I have a big mouth but I think it took the efforts of more voices to get things rolling. Citizens standing up on an issue can be heard, persistence will eventually pay off. Of course the work is not complete. The city apparently had about 16 valet permits/areas so it will take some time for the zones to be established throughout the city to the other 14. The good thing is once that is done the companies that supposedly operate reguarly without a permit will become far more obvious. Short-term permits (1 or 2 days) will still be issued without any signs being installed.

So despite being quite pleased with the action taken today I want to point out a few issues that need to be looked at in the near future. The main one is the obnoxious 4pm-6pm no parking rule on Washington Ave from Tucker East. It really only applies to two blocks (1000 & 1100) because the remainder of the blocks to the river are no-parking 24/7. As I said a year ago, I think we should allow parking along Washington all the way to the river — with the possible exception of the spaces immediately in front of American’s Center. Those spaces, in front of the convention center, should be reserved for cabs.

The concern, of course, is how do we allow for workers to quickly flee the city at 5pm. By allowing parking on-street in the morning & evening rush it will take them a bit longer. Well, I say time the lights better along Washington so some is not having to stop at every signal. Also, encourage East-West traffic to use the much wider Cole Ave to the North of the convention center. We’ve literally invested millions of dollars in Washington Ave and visitors coming and going between the convention center and the hotel across the street currently get the impression the street is dead. All they can see from 8th street is an empty street with little to no activity. The only real activity they see are four lanes of traffic going by but not stopping.

Back in the 1000 and 1100 blocks of Washington Ave I am concerned the lack of on-street parking between 5pm and 6pm is negatively affecting the happy hour business at Kitchen K, Dubliner and even Copia. I’d like to see the city do a test of allowing on-street parking from at least 9th street to Tucker throughout the day at it is to the West. At the same time push back the start time for Copia’s valet to 5pm or 5:30pm from 6pm so they can capture that after work crowd. To make this work it would be good to perhaps put up some signs on Tucker and other places where traffic is originating to direct them to alternate routes such as Cole along with reworking the timing on the traffic lights. Tonight I go to bed feeling better about St. Louis. I leave you with a well known quote:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Mead

Questionaires for Local Candidates

At the end of last week filing closed for candidates in local elections in the City of St. Louis for the Board of Aldermen and for the city-wide election of the President of the Board of Aldermen. Independent candidates can still file a petition (signatures required) by February 12th to run in the April general election, although I don’t see that happening.

Eight of the 14 even-numbered aldermanic seats are contested: the 4th, 6th, 12th, 18th, 20th, 22nd, 24th and 26th. I would have liked to have seen more of the seats be contested but this is better than in years past. I’m not going to focus on the remaining wards that are not contested as a questionaire to them it rather pointless I think, simply by paying a $328 filing fee they are guaranteed the seat for another four years.

So the idea is to send out a list of questions to all 20 candidates and then post their responses for everyone to review. I belive there are questions general enough for all the contested aldermanic seats as well as for the President of the Board of Aldermen. Of course, machine politicians traditionally avoid real issues and instead focus on individual constituent service (stop signs, dumpsters, etc) but we’ll see how it goes.

While I have not developed specific questions, here are some general topics for all candidates, in no particular order:

• Charter Reform
• Non-partisan elections
• City rejoining St. Louis County
• Regional planning agency
• Mississippi River Bridge
• Mass Transit (funding of, expansion of, types)
• Education (St. Louis Public Schools, Charter Schools, Vouchers)
• State Control of St. Louis Police
• Aldermanic Courtesy
• Use of eminent domain
• Tax credits, TIFs and tax abatement
• City’s zoning code
• Patronage jobs, machine politics
• Environment, U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement
• Campaign contribution limits
• Constituent communication
• Valet parking/Parking Management
• Role of the Planning & Urban Design Agency
• Preservation/Demolition Policy
• Parking for two-wheel vehicles (bikes, scooters, motorcycles)
• 22nd Street Interchange (located in 6th Ward)

My thought is to use a 1-5 format with say #1 representing “strongly agree” and 5 representing “strongly disagree.” I’d form statements slanted one way or another soliciting a 1-5 response from each. I’d also allow candidates to submit additional explainations for each topic — I have no space limitations.

I’d like to open this up to your feedback on general topic areas or if you have specific questions/statements you’d like to see posed to all the candidates. I want to keep this issued-focused and not personality focused. Still, questions relating to record are valid as these speak to policy perspectives.

City Sidewalk Parking on KMOX Radio Tonight, 11pm

Following on the excellent report by KMOV Channel 4 TV earlier tonight (see post), I will be a brief guest on the Mark Reardon show on KMOX radio, AM 1120 talking about the same issue.  That will be in the 11 o’clock hour.

City Sidewalk Parking on Channel 4 at 6pm Tonight

KMOV News (Channel 4) will be airing a story tonight on their 6pm news about city employees parking on the public sidewalk along 14th Street (see prior post). I met with KMOV’s Russell Kinsaul this afternoon on 14th to discuss the issue. He gave me a copy of a statement received from Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce. You will recall that I emailed her Friday afternoon prior to posting my story on this subject a couple of hours later. To date, I have not heard back from Ms. Joyce.

I will post a copy of the statement and some additional thoughts after the story airs tonight on the 6pm news, KMOV Channel 4.

UPDATE 1/8/2007 – 6:20pm

This story was Channel 4’s leading story if you don’t count the breaking news of a double stabbing in North St. Louis. As mentioned in their story, and referenced above, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce issued a statement about this issue:

Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention, as I was unaware that vehicles from this office were parking in this manner.

The Circuit Attorney’s Office has historically been assigned parking spots along 14th Street. My staff has informed me that the parking spots allocated to the Circuit Attorney’s Office on 14th Street are occassionally occupied by other city vehicles. To correct the situation, I will do the following:

• I have directed my staff to never, under any circumstances, park on the sidewalk, even if our spots are illegally occupied by someone else; and
• I have asked and will continue to ask the city police to ticket and tow unauthorized vehicles in our parking spots or on the sidewalk; and
• I will speak to other city agency leaders to request their staff members don’t park in our parking spots on 14th Street.
  

Click here to view the statement in PDF format, with thanks to Channel 4 for providing me a copy of the statement even though I made such a request Friday afternoon. All in all this is a good statement, it says she was unaware of the issue and then lists specific steps that are being taken to address the oversight.

But I want to look at the bigger picture here for a moment. Their office has “historically been assigned parking spots along 14th Street.” Ok, that is nice. Assigned by whom? Does the Treasurer’s office who runs the City’s parking garages and members have authority over all on-street parking? When the Circuit Attorney’s Office moved two blocks East to the other side of Tucker was the parking situation not evaluated?

I love the fact that an elected official must inform her staff that it is not OK to park their cars and SUVs on a sidewalk. This would seem to be common sense in my book. And finally Joyce is going to speak with other leaders and ask them not to park in their spots. This goes back to the question about numbers of spaces, who assigns them and how often this is evaluated. Yet another example of poor parking management downtown.

UPDATE 1/8/07 @ 10pm – link to KMOV story & video.