The Rock Road MetroLink station was designed in the early 1990s as a drive-to station with 183 parking spaces. For twenty years now pedestrians have endured horrible conditions to reach the train platforms and MetroBus lines.
On Sunday I joined a Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT) Ten Toes walking group as it did a walk audit in the neighborhood to the south.
We started at the ticket machines, our first stop was the entry point. Half did a straight shot through the parking lot, the rest of us went the long way on the sidewalk. Photo: CMTIn April 2012 I noted: The parking was placed between the entry off St. Charles Rock Rd. and the station itself, pedestrians must either go out of their way to stay on the sidewalk or schlep through the parking lot. Click image to view April 2012 post on the Wellston & Rock Road stationsApproaching from the west pedestrians have worn a strong path to reach the station. April 2012We went south on Kingsland to Page, most of the way we had to use the road since no sidewalks exist. Photo CMTAt Page we headed west to Ferguson, click image for mapAt Ferguson I had to split off since I forgot to charge my chair the night before. I caught a #94 back downtown. Click image for map.Ferguson surprised me with cute houses and a decent, but narrow, sidewalk. The only issue is many people park on the curb. St. Charles Rock Road can be seen at the end of FergusonWhen you reach St. Charles Rock Road there’s no easy or safe way to cross to the north side. So I decided to stay on the south side and cross at the entry to the station. Click image for map.I was in the upper left and had to get to the lower right to cross the street and enter the station property.My destination is marked by the red arrow, but traveling the short distance looks problematic20 years of pedestrians have worn a pathI had to use the shoulder because my chair can’t jump curbs, a worn path is visible.
Again, it baffles me that we could spend hundreds of millions to build transit infrastructure and, after two decades, not do what it takes to make it accessible nearby to pedestrians. No wonder we’ve not seen any new development around this busy station.
Jefferson Ave has been a major 6-lane roadway for decades, but with substantially fewer residents and interstate highways, it has been excessively wide. Recent work along Jefferson between Chouteau and Market have reduced the number of travel lanes to four, with plus bike lanes added to the mix. Unfortunately, the road is still too wide.
The new-ish viaduct over the railroad tracks has four wide high-speed lanes. Yes, the bus stop here gets used. Note the faded markings in the bike lane.Left over road width, as wide as the sidewalk, is just paintedAt the new bridge over I-64 the unused roadway width is wider than the sidewalk!
This was the perfect opportunity to place the curb in a position to give excess width to the sidewalk, giving room for street trees to separate pedestrians from passing cars.
Imagine residents in your ward coming together to suggest ideas on how to ward spend capital improvement funds. Dream on, right? People are apathetic and don’t participate, according to the usual narrative. Well, residents of the 6th ward don’t have to imagine, they just need to show up with ideas — and they have been. On Wednesday I got to witness the 2nd participatory budgeting assembly in the 6th ward, a very reaffirming experience at a time when democracy is breaking down nationally. Watch this brief video for an overview and go to pbstl.com.
Briefly Zac (left) and Michelle (center) introduced the process to the 15 participantsEveryone broke into two groups, with trained volunteers getting participants to open up and share what they’d like to see the money be used forExtensive outreach through various methods, including door knocking, resulting in a diverse group of participantsAt the end each participant got three dots to vote on their favorite ideasAt the end everyone came together as a representative from each group explained their topics.
If you’re a resident of the 6th ward and want to participate, you’ve got a few more opportunities this week:
Have an idea but can’t attend? No problem, email your idea.
Once all the ideas are collected, volunteer budget delegates will work with city departments to turn them into projects, with real budgets. Then, in April 2014, 6th ward residents will get a chance to vote to see what gets funded. Will they pick one $100,000 or five $20,000 projects?
No matter what gets funded, citizens are participating in their community.
Today cul-de-sac subdivisions are designed exclusively for the automobile. For example, my brother’s gated subdivision in Oklahoma City has internal sidewalks that don’t lead you outside the gates. A major grocery store occupies one corner on the outside, but you need a car to get there.
My brother’s house “A” is so close to a large grocery store, but you can’t walk there. One of the two gates is in the upper right corner. Source: Google maps
My parents built a new custom home in 1965-66, moving in just months before I was born. I was told the streets of the new subdivision in the former farm field were still getting paved as our house was being built. Unlike where my brother lives now, we could at least reach a convenience store from a street connected to our subdivision. Had more commercial been built on land set aside by the developers we would’ve had many more options.
I grew up in a 1960s subdivision that lacked sidewalks, but there was a small store I could walk/bike to (upper left), and room for more commercial development that has never materialized.
However, many in the St. Louis region grew up in a 1950s subdivision that planned for walking, with sidewalks and a shopping center connected to the housing. I posted yesterday about the Carrollton subdivision decimated for runway expansion at Lambert International Airport, today is a look at the thought and planning that went into it.
The following is from page 547 of the 1970 book This is Our Saint Louis by Harry M. Hagen:
Ground breaking for the Carrollton Shopping Plaza in 1959, click image for map
When “Johnny Came Marching Home” at the close of World War II, he found one thing to his advantage, prosperity and jobs, and one disadvantage, a tremendous shortage of housing. For many returning GI’s and their prides, their first home was a rented room or shared quarters with their in-laws.
The building industry, stopped by the priorities of war, was turned loose, and developers looked to the suburbs for the land they needed to build homes. There was land, lots of land, and many home builders built square little box-like homes marching in soldierly fashion down square little streets. These houses sold as fast as they could be completed since young marrieds and young families were desperate for adequate housing.
With the convenience of the automobile, no location in St. Louis County was too distant. Sub-division after sub-division sprung up and was quickly populated.
Out of this building frenzy, one team emerged with a visionary approach to suburbia. Ed and John Fischer, along with brother-in-law Lawrence Frichtel added a dimension to home building that won national acclaim for their firm, Fischer and Frichtel. Instead of building several blocks of homes in in regimented manner, they built a community.
The firm amassed a large tract of land in northwest St. Louis County and in 1956 opened Carrolton, a planned community with gently curving streets, cup-de-sacs and open space. Instead of one or two home models, they offered a variety so that every other home would not look the same. They did not utilize every square foot for homes –they planned areas for churches, schools and parks that were built and used as the population grew. To make the community as self-sufficient as possible, they constructed a small shopping center so that necessities of living could be purchased within walking distance. And to complete their community, they built a swimming pool and a large recreation building, bringing free-time activities practically to the front door of residents.
Carrollton had a mixture of award-winning homes–and it was a community that offered residents more than any other single housing development in the area at that time. It was planned to make living in the suburbs enjoyable for the entire family — and its departure from the conventional set the standards followed by other developers.
Fisher and Frichtel was probably the number one home-building firm of the post-war era — and the reason for its success was simply that it gave the grass-cutting, snow-shoveling, house-painting, leaf-burning, tree-pruning public a product that was both excellent in quality and different in setting. The firm has been recognized and published in every major magazine and newspaper relating to homes, neighborhoods and conventional living throughout the country. Unquestionably, these men and their organization represent and give tribute to the great spirit of St. Louis.
Self-sustaining? Walking distance to necessities? Yes, single-family homes on cul-de-sacs can be walkable. Well, at least they tried in 1956.
The original Carrollton Shopping Plaza has had face lifts since the early 60s and the neighborhood it served is now vacantThis bowling alley & retail space (now a pizza parlor) was built at the same time as the original Carrollton Shopping PlazaA couple of years later a Schnucks grocery store was added to the shopping centerThe sidewalks connecting the houses to the commercial remain. Though not ideal, or ADA-compliant, this was way better than most subdivisions of the 1950sIn 2005 Schnucks closed the Carrollton store and opened a bigger store on St. Charles Rock Rd at Lindbergh
However, decade after decade since Carrollton was platted, subdivisions have gotten progressively more hostile to pedestrians. I’m not sure how this happened, my guess is each subsequent generation got used to their environment and eventually only grandpa remembered walking to the store for milk.
Last month I went down street after street, passing vacant lots where homes once stood, all owned by the City of St. Louis. It was depressing to think a once lively neighborhood has been erased, except for roads & sidewalks. You’re probably thinking I was somewhere in north St. Louis, but I was actually in St. Louis County. At one point I even crossed over I-270! Yes, because of the Lambert runway expansion the City of St. Louis owns hundreds of acres in the City of Bridgeton: the former Carrollton subdivision.
A gate blocks access to Celburne Ln from Woodford Way Dr on the west side of I-270. Click image for map.Some homes were razed for the runway itself, most were cleared for noise mitigation.The fence and a former Dupage Dr at the end of the rarely used billion dollar runwaySt. Louis County parcel map over aerial of newest runway
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Woodford Way Drive crossing over I-270 connects the east & west sections of the former Carrollton subdivisionVacant street & sidewalk on the east side of I-270, Grundy Dr looking north from Woodford Way
St. Louis is responsible for maintaing the properties, cutting acres of grass basically. Not only does St. Louis have too much property in St. Louis, they also have too much in Bridgeton!
The land can’t be used for residential purposes, but office/retail/industrial is apparently fine. The problem is St. Louis must repay the FAA if it sells the property, making it very costly to develop based on the amount the FAA paid.
And that runway? From a 2007 MIT-student analysis:
The need for runway 11-29 was actually delay-driven, not demand-driven. Although the levels of demand from the forecast never materialized, the new runway did provide the capability to perform dual independent IFR approaches at Lambert. Again, although the delay cost savings are less than initially projected, there are nonetheless savings that can be directly attributed to the new runway. Thus despite the over-optimistic demand forecast, the construction new runway does seem to have been justified.
With regard to flexible planning, the Lambert officials were indeed responsive to the lower actual passenger traffic than was originally projected. The terminal expansion plans were abandoned after the traffic collapse. Although it is still possible to implement the terminal expansion plans in the future, it would have been wasteful to do so once demand levels dropped. Thus, the part of the Lambert expansion project that was demand-driven was indeed responsive to the drop in demand.
The new runway was probably cheaper to build when it was than it would have been in the future. It is likely that property acquisition costs as well as construction costs would have increased, and so delaying the runway construction would probably have cost more than proceeding as scheduled. Once traffic returns to St. Louis, runway 11-29 will be an invaluable asset. In fact, it may even provide the competitive advantage needed to draw traffic to Lambert. Thus, it seems that despite the strong-armed actions and swift construction in the face of the dramatic downturn in passenger traffic, the new runway at Lambert- St. Louis International Airport was in fact beneficial.
The runway is built and not going anywhere. Now we just need to figure out what to do to remove hundreds of acres from St. Louis ownership, so that it can again produce tax revenue for St. Louis County & the City of Bridgeton.
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