The City of St. Louis Parking Division operated by the Treasurer’s office recently built a surface parking lot at 3019-35 Olive Street to serve Midtown Alley businesses, including Hamburger Mary’s next door. The parking fee must be paid 24 hours per day.
ABOVE: Sign alerts drivers of conditions of parking in this public lot.ABOVE: It is a short distance from the disabled parking spaces to the area with the central point of payment.ABOVE: However, those disabled drivers that use a wheelchair are unable to reach the payment machine because no ramp up was provided.
I’ll be interested to find out if the Board of Public Service designed this for the Treasurer or if it was done separately. Regardless, it must be changed to comply with the ADA.
Larry Williams, the current Treasurer, is in his last month in office. Tishaura Jones will be sworn in as Treasurer on New Year’s Day. Jones indicated during the primary she’d work to remove parking as a responsibility of the office.
The event will be held on Thursday, November 29, 2012 starting with a 6 PM reception followed by a 6:30 PM lecture and discussion. Event will be held at Steinberg Hall Auditorium at Washington University at Forsyth Blvd and N Skinker Blvd, St. Louis, MO. The nearest Metrolink Station is Skinker.
Streets can be our greatest asset for building and connecting community. On Thursday, November 29, 2012, John Norquist will discuss how flexible street design can build economic value and enhance quality of life. Norquist will talk about the value of designing streets for people and the implications in the case of I-70 and the proposed South County Connector. He will also discuss CNU and ITE’s Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares manual and how to apply sustainable transportation policies in St. Louis. (CNU)
Other mentions of the event said it wasn’t necessary to RSVP. This CNU event is locally supported by City to River and Trailnet.
I first heard John Norquist speak in 2006, he’d only recently completed four terms as the mayor of Milwaukee (1988-2004) at that point. I was fortunate enough to sit next to him on a bus trip to New Town that day. I heard him again later that year at the 2006 Rail-Volution conference in Chicago, there he argued with architect Jan Gehl about pedestrian malls in North America.
On the evening of Friday October 5th a tragedy happened:
A boy has died and another is in critical condition after a pickup truck hit them and left the scene in Pagedale Friday evening.
The incident happened at about 7:30 p.m. in the 7300 block of St. Charles Rock Road in Pagedale at Salerno Drive, just east of Pennsylvania Avenue. (stltoday.com)
His 10 year-old brother survived, with serious injuries. Earlier this month I visited the accident site, well I got as close as I could.
ABOVE: The boys crossed St. Charles Rock Road to reach the gas station/convenience store on the right.ABOVE: A power pole pays tribute to 4 year-old Traye-shon Williams killed at the scene.
I couldn’t reach the convenience store or cross the street in my wheelchair due to a lack of sidewalks and crosswalks. The distance between signalized crossings is more than a quarter mile, as a result pedestrians regularly cross the street where it is convenient to do so.
ABOVE: A woman crossing St. Charles Rock Road just east of the accident location.
Media reports focussed solely on the driver’s record:
In the last 30 years, he has been arrested about 150 times, almost always while driving in north St. Louis County. Six of his 11 DWI arrests resulted in convictions: four times on misdemeanors and two on felonies. He has served fewer than two years total in prison on the DWI charges. (He also has served time in prison on gun charges.) (stltoday.com)
Yes, those who drink & drive are a problem, but only part of it. The other part of the problem is this area, just a short distance from the Rock Road MetroBus/MetroLink center isn’t designed for use by pedestrians.
A week ago today the Urban Land Institute (ULI) presentation by their Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) regarding transit-oriented development (TOD) at the Grand MetroLink light rail station. The real estate experts from the ULI were asked by Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT) to consider short and long-term solutions.
ABOVE: Gwen Knight led the CMT/ULI Grand MetroLink presentation on November 13, 2012. Click image for info on the presentation, including a link to the slides.
The long-term section included three bold ideas that would evoke an “audible gasp”. First, look again at the Chouteau Greenway concept linking downtown to Forest Park. Second was a high speed rail station at Grand since plenty of room exists.
ABOVE: Concept from ULI presentation shows development along the bridge/viaduct as well as the Chouteau Greenway
The final bold idea generated was to move from focusing on the station which sits below grade to building above the station – a platform development at street level. Some of the merits of this type of develoopment included:
Place parking on first 2-3 stories, easily fitting below bridge
Place commercial, retail and/or residential on top of parking, level with the bridge platform
Embraces light rail and bus connectivity
Builds connection between SLU campuses
Enhances travel along Grand and encourages pedestrian use
In addition to building structured parking the area could have office and condo uses to compliment the street-level retail. The office space could include high-tech bio-med facilities as part of the CORTEX plan.
This bridge turned retail street could serve as a needed campus hangout area for both SLU campuses. It could include a coffee house (or two) as well as a copy center like a Kinko’s.
With plenty of structured parking, on-street parking, bus routes and MetroLink this could be a happening spot! With land on each side of the tracks and highway we’d be building not bridges but buildings that happen to have a floor that aligns with the bridge sidewalks.
Before all the naysayers try to explain why we cannot be urban let me try to address a few points. The area has already been blighted and is going to be redeveloped. Building new buildings up to the existing bridge is feasible, perhaps more so than the plan to add width and medians to the current structure. Also, we can be urban and what better place to create an urban street than at a location with a MetroLink light rail stop and between two major university campuses.
ABOVE: Underused land is adjacent to the viaduct, the tracks are contained to a small area.ABOVE: The ULI panel specifically mentioned relocating this gas company to another location so this land could be developed.ABOVE: Looking south from a lookout pointABOVE: At the south end the grade difference disappears.ABOVE: One possible problem is the curb on both sides would prevent accessible entrances unless it could be cut away as needed.
If only the viaduct/bridge had been designed to facilitate development at the edges, simply by removing sections of railing. Still, as ULI’s experts how shown, it is still a viable bold idea worth considering.
In 2016 the nearly identical parking garages known as “Stadium East” and “Stadium West” will turn 50 years old. Despite the milestone, I don’t expect preservationists to give tours, or oppose the alterations I propose below.
ABOVE: The 8th Street face of the Stadium West garage. The pedestrian ramp to the street crossing isn’t ADA-compliant, Stadium East doesn’t have a similar ramp.ABOVE: The first thing is repaint the structure to something other than white, or red. White is so bright, it demands attention. Bright colors advance, dark colors recede.ABOVE: Remove inaccessible walkway, freeing up space for small storefront spaces to be used during games or other special events.ABOVE: A sidewalk vendor during one of the last Cardinals home games is the type of vender that could occupy a tiny storefront space.ABOVE: Filling in the center recess with glass-friont retail will help lesson the visual impact of the massive garages facing the future “Ballpark Village”.ABOVE: The garages will never disappear but they can’t be toned down considerably.
I’ve written before that I’d like to see these garages razed but they’re in good condition and fill a need. They just need to fade into the background, a color change will accomplish that.
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