Parking Meter Study on South Grand

South Grand is undergoing a transformation of sorts, new parking meters. These are not just an update on the traditional meters. No sir, these are the latest in parking technology.

From the Suburban Journal:

The city is studying two devices, one by Duncan Parking Technologies and another by Parkeon. Both handle about five to 10 parking spaces.

In the Duncan machine, a person enters the number of his parking space when feeding coins or using a credit or debit card. A meter reader pushes a button on the device and then learns which spaces have time on them and which are expired. Then he writes his tickets on cars parked in expired spaces.

In the Parkeon machine, a motorist parking his car doesn’t enter a space number when purchasing time. Instead, he gets a receipt which he puts on his dashboard for the meter reader to see when he walks through the area.

So let’s take a look at both systems and see what we think. These are generally referred to as Pay-Per-Space (the Duncan system, PPS for short) and Pay-N-Display (the Parkeon system, PND for short).

Pay-Per-Space (PPS):

The PPS units are quite small & short, especially when compared to considerably taller PND units. They’ve put up signs to help you find the units but in this block the sign is a good distance from the unit. In other cities they don’t have the signs, you just know to look for the meters mid-block.

The units are pretty straight forward. With these you make note of your parking space (see below for how they are marked) and add money after indicating the space number. You can add coins or credit card but not bills. I guess if I had to make a trade off between bills or credit card I’d go with the latter. There are plenty of times I’ve had no change and only $5 or bigger bills but with a credit card I can still pay. Visa/MC logo debit cards also work.

The former polls for the traditional parking meters are capped with numbers indicating the number of the space in which you are parked. If this system is accepted, the number of polls can be reduced roughly in half as they don’t mark both ends of each space. Depending upon where you park, your number will be at the front of your car or the rear.

With the PPS system once you pay your time you are free to go — no need to run back to the car to display a paid receipt as with the other system.

I’m not sure what the Suburban Journal article was saying about the enforcement person pushing a button to know who is paid and who is not — the street-side of the unit displays a big red circle for those spaces that are unpaid. This makes it easy for parking enforcement to go down the street to see who is paid and who is not.

The PPS system does have some shortcomings. Basically, it offers credit card payment where regular meters do not. Otherwise, you are still working with conventional spaces — the ‘one size fits all approach’ even though a Chevy Suburban is nearly 6ft longer than my Scion (222.4″ vs. 154″, respectively). What does this mean? It means you’ll still get folks that want to squeeze in on the no-parking end and block the crosswalk like this SUV did by the Post Office on Grand. Without fixed spaces on this block, this SUV may have been able to fit.

Pay-N-Display (PND):

The Parkeon PND unit is much taller than the Duncan PPS unit. Does size matter? Well, perhaps this extra height might make it more visible to people trying to locate the unit on the sidewalk. The solar panel on the top gives a decidedly “green” factor which adds a certain hip factor in addition to being very effective by not running solely off of batteries. Jim Merkel of the Suburban Journal indicated these units cost roughly $12,000 each, quite a bit more than the other units.

As you can see from the graphic you are supposed to place the receipt on the dash on the driver’s side. Well, it doesn’t say driver’s side but that is what it shows on the image. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, that means that after paying for the time we must return on the street-side to place the receipt. If it gets blown out of our hand or off the dash it will blow into traffic. These put people at greater risk than if we put them on the passenger side as is the case in places like Seattle. The other issue with driver’s side placement is enforcement —- there is no way an officer can safely check for expired receipts via car or even scooter on the driver’s side. They really need to be on foot to check these, especially if the time is expired (or not displayed at all) and they need to issue a ticket.

Here is a close-up of the main information section of the PND unit. I just used my credit card to purchase a 2-hour receipt for $1. I went ahead and did the buck even though I was not going to be staying 2 hours, even with lunch.

The buttons are located just below the screen and information section.

Here is my receipt showing I am paid through 1:53pm. If we had these all over the city I could drive to my next stop and park as long as I was done before the time expired. However, some cities recognize this and discourage it by printing the name of the street on the receipt. Thus, a Grand receipt would not be valid on say Chippewa. Still, being able to take your time with you is very customer friendly. Besides, it is better to allow someone to take their unused time with them rather than leaving it on a conventional meter. As it is, I left Grand with over a hour remaining on my receipt but the next person that parked in my space had to pay rather than using my left-over time.

They don’t have all the kinks worked out of the PND system being tested yet. For example, an old meter pole was used to indicate paying at the meter with an arrow pointing mid-block leaving it unclear is someone can park in the 20+ feet between the yellow curb and the sign.

Nearly a year ago I talked with St. Louis’ director of Planning and Urban Design, Rollin Stanley, about these systems. He indicated he has been trying to get a test going here since he arrived several years ago — talking to anyone that will listen. In February, when parking was finally permitted on part of the two blocks on Washington Ave between 10th and Tucker, I had hoped this was going to be the test area (see post). But, the Treasurer’s office began installing conventional meters shortly after putting up the parking allowed signs. I called Rollin Stanley again today to get some current feedback.

First, Stanley was unaware the test units had been installed, although he knew it was going to happen on Grand. Second, he was unaware they were testing two different types of units. I don’t get overly confident about St. Louis when our director of Planning and Urban Design is not consulted on these things. I just hope he is involved in helping to evaluate the systems which the Suburban Journal indicated will happen at the end of the trial run at the end of February 2007.

Stanley is pretty clear, he strongly prefers the latter Pay-N-Display system indicating it is “more sensible” than other systems precisely because it gives you more spaces and helps increase revenues. Stanley indicated the small town where his parents live (and where he grew up), 200 miles north of Toronto, uses similar systems. He points this out because that town has a population of only 50,000 or so. The point? This is not necessarily a big-city type of solution. Indeed, I have used a pay-per-space system in downtown Tulsa.

Stanley didn’t have an answer for how to use the Pay-N-Display system with motorcycles, scooters or convertibles where it is not possible to display a paid receipt without it blowing away. He suggested I call Parkeon, which I did. I talked with Bob in technical services and he wasn’t much more helpful. He did suggest in higher traffic areas having designated motorcycle/scooter parking which could be metered on a pay-per-space basis. He indicated some cities have a small pouch that can be placed on the bike to insert the receipt. He indicated that many cities in lower demand areas simply ignore motorcycles and scooters as they take up so little space — that it is not enough to worry about. He didn’t have a good answer on the convertible issue.

I called my friend in Seattle and he said their PND system has a removable strip on the receipt that makes it like a post-it note, where it can be stuck to the inside of a windshield or a motorcycle windscreen. I suppose those types of receipts cost more than the basic paper ones being tested here.

These tests are being conducted on both sides of Grand in the 15th Ward (west side) and the 8th Ward (east side). I personally favor the Pay-N-Display type as it eliminates the need for numbered fixed-length spaces. This will allow more cars to be parked on-street which will lesson the perceived or real need for additional off-street parking. The increased revenues from this type of system and the lower operating costs (solar powered) should offset the additional up-front capital expense.

What do you think?

Normal: Razing Indoor Mall for Outdoor Shopping

Yesterday I stopped in the greater Bloomington-Normal area along I-55 while returning to St. Louis from Chicago. I happened upon something quite interesting, a former mall that was razed to create an outdoor shopping area. Nobody is going to confuse the ‘Shoppes at College Station’ with say the outstanding Country Club Plaza in Kansas City but it is clear some attention was paid to pedestrian connections.

Let’s start with the original mall (image at right). The mall had three anchor stores — a Target (upper left with light roof), a Von Maur department store (upper right) and a Hobby Lobby (bottom, center). In the remake, all three of those remained but the middle mall section was removed entirely. This is a highly suburban and auto-centric section of Bloomington-Normal with Veteran’s Parkway serving as the Business Loop for I-55. I passed another mall not 3 miles down the road and just about every chain you can imagine in countless conventional strip centers. The headquarters for State Farm Insurance was maybe a mile or so away. (See map of mall)

The remaking of suburban mall sites is increasing of the last say 10 years, making it more and more “normal.” Sadly they did not go far enough in Bloomington-Normal as an upscale strip center basically replaced the old mall. In many other places, the former mall sites get parceled out with real streets (aka public streets) and a mix of uses including office and residential. These will often connect to adjacent residential areas.

But they did one thing right (sort of) in Bloomington-Normal: internal pedestrian connections.

New meets old with the new Ann Taylor connecting to the old Target store which appears to have received a face-lift. You’ll note the large sidewalks and pedestrian crossings as well as the city bus in front of Target. Many private properties like this, especially those with more upscale stores like Ann Taylor, don’t like public transportation within their borders so that was a pleasant surprise. I guess this also prevented them from having to make connections to non-existant sidewalks on the main public streets.

The “brick” pedestrian crossings are in fact just stamped concrete, but these provide a nice visual clue to motorists as well as a strong suggestion to shoppers to consider walking from store to store rather than get in the car to drive within the property.

The center of the former mall contains a large planting area with sidewalks on both sides — this helps you cross the large parking area without having to walk in the auto drives. While this has many flaws, it is certainly better access than most of our suburban style shopping centers such as Loughborough Commons, Gravois Plaza, and Southtowne Center in the city and a mile-long list in the suburbs themselves.

What are the flaws you ask? Well, the landscaping is treated as a decorative element rather providing shade. I personally would have created a strong allee of trees to provide shade for the pedestrian as well as a major visual element. As it is you feel a bit exposed out in the middle and I doubt we’ll see anyone sitting on the benches in the middle of the area despite the attractive “public” art that is provided.

In this view you can see how the pedestrian areas are clearly delineated. These were not an afterthought but planned as part of the project.

I don’t want to give them too much credit as the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) requires connections between buildings:

4.3.2 Location.

(1) At least one accessible route within the boundary of the site shall be provided from public transportation stops, accessible parking, and accessible passenger loading zones, and public streets or sidewalks to the accessible building entrance they serve. The accessible route shall, to the maximum extent feasible, coincide with the route for the general public.

(2) At least one accessible route shall connect accessible buildings, facilities, elements, and spaces that are on the same site.

So clearly the mandate from the feds is to connect buildings via accessible routes, so the above may not be out of great concern for creating a good environment but simply a desire to comply with ADA requirements. Yet when I look at the shopping centers mentioned above I do not see attempts for compliance with the standards.

At the Rail-Volution conference in Chicago I met a “Transportation Accessibility Specialist” who works for the U.S. Government in helping to write the ADA guidelines. I will be corresponding with him in the future to determine if some of our recently constructed shopping areas past muster or not. Enforcement of the ADA requirements does not fall to the local jurisdictions such as the City of St. Louis which is why projects may get built that do not meet the standards. No, the enforcement falls to the U.S. Department of Justice. I will seek out accessible advocacy groups to help file complaints against local projects that appear to fail to comply with the accessible route requirement of the ADA.

This image is the opposite view of the one above, again showing how the path is clearly marked. This is beneficial to pedestrians of all types — those on foot and those in wheelchairs. My visit was prior to 10am yesterday morning so many of the stores were not yet open but I did see a number of people already walking between buildings that did have open stores.

We can make pedestrian connections even in highly suburban contexts and especially in our urbanized neighborhoods and commercial streets. The car is not banished to provide for a walkable route. The lesson is that if you provide a clear path people will use it and the better the path the more traffic you will see.

Railvolution Speakers Comment on St. Louis

The 2006 Railvolution Conference continues today in Chicago. Here are a few more short videos from national experts commenting on St. Louis:

Todd Litman:

Executive Director of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute and author of the new book Parking Management Best Practices. Litman led an intense 4-hour symposium on Sunday afternoon at the headquarters of the American Planning Association.

M. David Lee, FAIA:

Mr. Lee has been one of the most dynamic speakers so far in this conference. He brings to the table an impressive resume: a partner in the architecture & planning firm Stull and Lee as well as an Adjunct Professor at Harvard. He has been doing work this summer in New Orleans:

Harriet Tregoning:

Ms. Tregoning is the Executive Director of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute in Washington D.C., but is originally from the St. Louis region.

The conference includes a session this morning looking at over 30 funding initiatives that were on ballots around the country yesterday. This will be interesting to see as we in the St. Louis region (at least city & county) will be asked in the near future for a tax increase to help fund operations & expansion for Metro (light rail & bus operations).

[Note: The videos stop before the end credits but you can see all of each commenter. I will fix this tomorrow as well as the spelling of Harriet Tregoning’s first name on the open credits. But, today I’m heading back to the conference and then driving back to St. Louis. Yes, I drove my car because it was a last minute decision to attend this conference plus I am picking up stuff at Ikea — I get nearly 40mpg so it is not so bad.]

Pyramid’s South Grand Land Swap Fiasco is Dead

John Steffen’s Pyramid Companies has thankfully been thwarted in their pursuit of mediocrity in areas outside of downtown. The plan, hatched long ago with the full support of Ald. Jennifer Florida, was to allow McDonald’s to construct a suburban-ish drive-thru restaurant on the site of the former Sears store on South Grand. In turn, Pyramid would get to build some senior housing on the current McDonald’s site.

A long battle ensued with a strong and effective grassroots campaign to halt the drive-thru from encroaching into the Gravois Park Neighborhood. On June 21, 2006, however, it looked as though the campaign had lost — the city’s Board of Adjustment denied the neighbors appeal on the variance for the drive-thru. Steffen’s lackeys from Pyramid had a smug look on their face as the ruling went in their favor. Ald. Florida, wisely, wasn’t present. But it seems the whole deal unraveled after that.

The blame is on the deed restriction on the property which reads:

Grantee, by the acceptance of this Deed, agrees, as a covenant running with the land, that the Property shall not be used for retail sales purposes, except that, notwithstanding the foregoing, a portion of the Property may be used for retail sales purposes provided that in no event shall more than fifteen thousand (15,000) square feet of floor area in the aggregate on the Property be used for retail sales purposes and in no event shall any single store, business or other commercial occupant on the Property use more than two thousand (2,000) square feet of floor area on the Property for retail sales purposes. This foregoing use restriction shall be binding on the Grantee and the successors and assigns of Grantee forever.

This restriction on the property has been in place since Pyramid acquired it as part of the Keystone Place project. Such restrictions are typical for stores such as Sears to place on property so a competitor could not take over the building. When the area was in Craig Schmid’s ward, the decision was made to raze the store. This, in hindsight, was a major mistake. But back to the restriction, this was fully known to Pyramid and likely Florida and McDonald’s as they worked on this plan at least since late 2004. Pyramid and McDonald’s are far to experienced in development to have not known and considered the restriction. Most likely, they assumed they’d be able to get away with building it and Sears likely would not have pressed any issue or even known about it. But, it was the adjacent residents that are part of the Keystone Place development, also on former Sears land, that may have had a leg to stand on in court to enforce the restriction. They — Pyramid, Florida and McDonald’s — knew a legal challenge was possible.

So today we have a closed McDonald’s down the street from a closed Burger King. Over on Kingshighway we’ve got a closed Wendy’s and over at Gravois & Jefferson another closed Burger King. Doesn’t look like the city should bank on these high-debt franchises for our future. It is unfortunate the individuals working in these establishments are likely unemployed now. Tax wise things will go on. The city residents that ate at all of these establishments will not stop eating all of a sudden. They will visit other restaurants like Arby’s, Subway or Taco Bell. Or perhaps one of our fine locally owned restaurants. We will still collect the sales tax — it will just come from different places. And hopefully those that worked at the closed places can find work at the others that will handle the additional customers.

Lucas Hudson writes for the ACC about the owner of the McDonald’s franchise that just closed:

He was demonstrative in pointing out what kind of businesses are taking over the area– across the street there are a couple of no-name markets, a non-descript car detaling place that used to be a licensed Firestone branch, and the omnipresent legalized theivery of Rent a Center.

Interesting. Perhaps he is unaware of the condos going into the former Southside National Bank? And while the street has some “no-name” markets what is wrong with that? If you are not a chain place your name is worthless? Conversely, the German-chain Aldi’s next door to McDonald’s isn’t exactly small potatoes. And did the McDonald’s franchise owner (or Lucas for that matter) stop to think that just maybe the McDonald’s chain itself has contributed to the decline of the area since it opened in 1974? For over 30 years a highly auto oriented fast food chain has dominated the corner and now the owner is being critical of other businesses that follow! One of my arguments all along was that we are not going to attract good urban design if we build a new suburban drive-thru.

The Lawrence Group’s renovation of the SSNB is great but it is still needs our help. They need retailers for the base and future urban buildings along Grand & Gravois. They are also taking on the smaller building across Grand with a need for street level retailers. Ald. Florida does deserve kudos for her continued efforts to save and renovate the SSNB but it is not in isolation. Retailers need to see more than simply the footprint of the property in which their store might be located. We must revitalize the street and return it to being a pedestrian-friendly and urban corridor that it once was before the McDonald’s entered the picture in the early 70’s and changed all that. Now that it is closed we have a fighting chance of actually turning this street around.

Back to the ACC:

The ACC just talked to Jennifer Florida about the closing, and she does not currently have plans for the site, but mantains that she wants to go through a “community based planning process”, and used Lafayette Square as a model of successful design.

Now she wants to plan. Great. Let’s see, how long did it take? Ald. Florida was sworn into office on April 17, 2001, nearly six years ago. Where was the “community based planning process” in all the years prior to this controversy? Non-existant! Before this she was in her “you can’t get everything you want” mode of thinking, no doubt instilled in her by old timers like Ald. Fred Wessels. But maybe she has now seen the light, or at least the power of a small & determined group with internet access, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Not you Fred, just her…

My friend Steve Wilke-Shapiro has been taking the lead of late on looking at this section of Grand on his excellent 15thWardSTL blog. Click here to read his initial take on the new plan by Pyramid to build senior housing on the old Sears site (as well as the section past the alley to Arkansas St.). You can check out Ald. Florida’s comment-limited blog here. To get an appreciation for Pyramid’s experience at senior housing in a St. Louis neighborhood see my post on Sullivan Place.

Here is what we need to do on South Grand from Utah to a point somewhere south of Chippewa, quite possibly it should match the blighted area which continues to Meramec. First, a community based planning process not driven by the current needs of a particular developer or single property owner. This needs to be followed up with a “zoning overlay” for the district. This overlay would replace the current zoning for that district and would allow us to have greater control over what could be proposed and built within the area. Requirements, such as any surface parking being located behind the building, could be enacted (think Kinkos/Bread Co at Grand & Arsenal). By having quality zoning, something from the 21st century, it will be less important for citizens to scrutinize each and every new project. With new urban-focused zoning for the street this will actually free up Ald. Florida and the developers to plan accordingly and be relatively assured that what they propose will not meet with strong resistance from the community. Citizens, rather than having to waste countless hours tracking down details of every project on every parcel, can hopefully move on to doing comprehensive planning in other parts of their neighborhoods and even work with the developers along Grand on finding tenants.

After all this we do have the potential to make something great happen on South Grand. Actions speak louder than words and right now the ball is in Ald. Florida’s court.

Rehabber’s Club Class Tonight: Patterson & Wilke-Shapiro on Design

Architect and blogger Steve Wilke-Shapiro and I will be co-presenting a class tonight as part of the St. Louis Rehabber’s Club Fall educational series:

How to decide what you will and won’t do? Where do you start? How should it look? Creating your design and solving design issues. What is worth doing and what is not? Where to spend your money? How much will it all cost? How to plan out a timeline and stick to it! Steve Wilke-Shapiro and Steve Patterson will speak on these subjects and more!

The Rehabber’s Club Classes are $15 which goes to help the programs of the Rehabber’s Club and its sponsoring organization ReVitalize St. Louis. None of the fee goes to speakers, all are volunteers.

Now some of you might be wondering what I know about residential rehab. Well, my bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture is in “Environmental Design” which is a sorta fancy catch all for a combination of education in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, construction science, historic preservation and city planning. I’ve spent most of my adult life doing design work for residential projects here in the St. Louis area. These included projects as simple as a small bathroom to a couple of homes where we tore off the roof and turned one story houses into two story houses.

The kitchen at right is part of a project I designed during my five years at Mosby Building Arts (some of you may know Scott Mosby from his Saturday morning home improvement show on KMOX). This suburban house was a dog and sat on the market until our clients purchased the home. My design called for a new garage to be added on one side and use the old 3-car garage for the new master suite. The central part of the house was opened up, giving it a more modern & spacious feeling.

Tonight I’ll talk about renovation of city houses touching on issues such as how to reconfigure the floor plan, material selection, lighting, appliances as well as a provide a detailed do’s and don’ts list. Achieving good design on a budget will also be addressed as most of us don’t have hundreds of thousands to spend on renovations. Steve Wilke-Shapiro will touch on some of this from his experience as well as talk about some of the timelines and such for a successful project.

The class starts tonight at 7pm at the Central Reform Congregation located at the corner of Waterman & Kingshighway (map). No need to pre-register, just come a bit before 7pm, pay your $15 and enjoy the class. See you tonight!