Metro Introduces TripFinder beta for St. Louis Mass Transit

One of the more challenging things for a new transit rider is trying to figure out how to get from A to B on the bus or light rail. I know the #40 Broadway bus route well enough now to get from my house to downtown with ease but beyond that I’m pretty much in the dark.

Metro now has the TripFinder service available in beta form on their site (click here). I tried out a few different places originating from my house and it worked pretty well. In each case it gave me several choices and showed me in detail how much I’d be walking and the total time spent traveling.

The system lets you change assumptions about walking speed so if you are faster walker you can adjust this to your own rate. If you do as I have done and bike to the bus and take your bike with you then you can simply adjust the walking rate to be something closer to what you’d bicycle.

You can also save locations that you frequent. I’m glad this is available as I think it will help people transition away from auto dependence. I’ve added this link to my links on the right side under ‘St. Louis Area Resources’. Now if only it existed in some kiosks at the bus stops…

– Steve

Appeal on Variance for Drive-Thru… Tabled.

After sitting through a four hour long meeting we are not any closer to an answer on residents’ appeal of the variance for a McDonald’s Drive-Thru.

The Board of Adjustment, based on their questions, was not impressed with the Florida/Pyramid/McDonald’s proposal. It seems this group is also caving from pressure for more urban design in the area.

Between testimony Jennifer Florida approached me indicating they were willing to build the building up to the street rather than set back as designed. While it helps it does not mitigate all the other valid concerns about noise, trash and traffic.

The Board of Adjustment will likely reopen the hearing after Pyramid/McDonald’s has submitted a new site plan showing the layout with a building up to the street. I think Florida indicated they’d build to the street in the hopes the Board of Adjustment would deny the appeal. This would leave room for them to say the plans that were approved were not up to the street.

If the city is going to continue to ignore sound planning by allowing a drive-thru at this location I’d rather it be built up to the street. But I want this to be perfectly clear, I believe the various fast food establishments in the area are undermining the true potential of the area. If the McDonald’s closed in October as Florida suggests would happen, I think that in the long term we’d be better off.

– Steve

Audio From First Drive-Thru Hearing Online

To help establish a record of the testimony from the first hearing on the McDonald’s Drive-Thru conditional use hearing I have posted a series of 15 MP3 files. These files are the complete recording from the hearing in the order in which it was held on February 16, 2006.

You can hear for yourself how Jennifer Florida describes the quite suburban McDonald’s as “urban-style” and how franchise owner James Proctor indicates the new location will be open from 5:30am to 11:00pm.

Due to the size of the files I have placed these on a separate server. Click here to visit the site and take a listen.

– Steve

NoDrive-Thru.com Launched Over McDonald’s On Grand

I’ve written so much about the poorly designed anti-urban McDonald’s proposed for South Grand that it is all running together. If you are just finding this information it may be a bit overwhelming. To help facilitate finding the articles I created a “McDonald’s on Grand” category some time ago. Articles are posted with the latest at the top so if you need to catch up start at the bottom.

To make it even easier to communicate the message I’ve registered NoDrive-Thru.com (as well as without the hyphen, nodrivethru.com). Both domains will lead people to this site and my category on McDonald’s.

As this controversy continues NoDrive-Thru.com will branch out from here and become a full-fledged website as we continue to spread the message of aldermanic abuse, anti-urban planning, deep pocketed developers, and a questionable fast food establishment. In the meantime be sure to tell people to visit nodrive-thru.com for all the latest.

– Steve

Selling Shirts to Pay Legal Fund?

Ideas are pouring in to Urban Review from citizens upset about Ald. Florida’s tactics to please her campaign contributors over the wishes of constituents. If only I was talented in Illustrator & Photoshop.

This one came in tonight in response to my last post on McDonald’s.

I was thinking we get these printed up and sell them to raise money to pay an attorney to challenge the city’s drive-thru variance and spot zoning attempt.

– Steve