Town & Country Crossing: Getting To/From On Public Transit; The Shopping Center Itself

My last visit to Town & Country Crossing shopping center was in July 2008, the Whole Foods* had just opened, the Target wasn’t quite open yet (current aerial via Google Maps). This was just over a month after coming home from my stroke, I drove there because I wasn’t familiar with our transit system. see: Town & Country Crossing A Marked Improvement Over The Typical Strip Center in Our Region. * Full disclosure: we currently have Whole Foods shares in our portfolio.

Now I’m very familiar with our public transit system and my husband uses our shared car to get to work. So I took public transit from downtown way out to Town & Country to see the shopping center 6+ years later.

Public Transit:

From our loft Google Maps says the drive  to Town & Country Crossing, located at Clayton Rd & Woods Mill Rd., is just over 19 miles, taking 23 minutes via I-64 or 56 minutes if you avoid highways. The 57x is the MetroBus route that runs along Clayton Rd in far west county. How long does it take? From my loft it takes 68- 87 minutes, depending upon departure time and route. The 57x usually heads west from the Brentwood MetroLink station, but a few trips per day leave from the Central West End MetroBus center adjacent to the CWE MetroLink. Interestingly, catching the #10 MetroBus a block from our loft can get me to Town & Country Crossing in 77 minutes, less than some combinations involving MetroLink light rail!

The latest morning arrival weekdays is 7:34am. The next arrival? Not until 2:32pm. Clearly Metro wisely caters to worker’s schedules rather than run buses throughout the day. The 57x also serves Chesterfield.

I went out three weeks ago, Monday October 6th. I took MetroLink to the Brentwood station to catch the first afternoon trip 57x westbound.

For the return trip I had three choices; one across Clayton Rd from where I got off the 57x, and two along the north edge of Town & Country Crossing. Here are the two next to my destination.

The 57x I took back to the east stopped at Brentwood MetroLink then continued east to the Central West End MetroBus Center, where I caught the #10 that dropped me off at 16th & Olive, a block from my loft. Because the #57 uses I-64 from Brentwood to Mason Rd the trip is relatively quick.

Woods Mill Plaza:

I’d never been to Woods Mill Plaza, located just east of Town & Country Crossing, so I thought I’d take a look while I was in the area. The main anchor is a Schnucks.

From property records I learned Woods Mill Plaza was built in 1986, the 2-story office building on the site was built in 1991.  If you think this site is somehow “grandfathered” you’d be very wrong:

Because barrier removal under the ADA is a continuing obligation, an accessible route may need to be provided at a later date, if a route for the general public develops or is created, and the provision of an accessible route is readily achievable. For instance, if a new bus stop is established near a site, an accessible route may have to be provided if pedestrians commonly walk between the new bus stop and the entrance to the facility. Similarly, if a sidewalk or walkway is provided between the facility and the new bus stop, an accessible route may be required. (Dept of Justice)

Moving on…

 Town & Country Crossing:

As I said at the opening, my only other visit was in July 2008. I’d been impressed with what I saw then but I wanted to return in my wheelchair to see the completed shopping center. I remain impressed but did note some problems in maintenance and design.

Closing Thoughts:

Town & Country Crossing isn’t perfect, someone dropped the ball when the storefront building & bank was built in the northwest corner. Still, this remains the best example in the St. Louis region of a well connected shopping center. It still largely caters to motorists while being mostly ADA-compliant. They’re not mutually exclusive.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Rate Prosecutor McCulloch’s Handling of the Case of Darren Wilson Killing Michael Brown

It has been nearly three months since Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown. Despite community calls for a special prosecutor, St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch has handled the case. It’s important to understand how the law works:

How Does a Grand Jury Differ from a Preliminary Hearing?

While all states have provisions in their laws that allow for grand juries, roughly half of the states don’t use them. Courts often use preliminary hearings prior to criminal trials, instead of grand juries, which are adversarial in nature. As with grand juries, preliminary hearings are meant to determine whether there is enough evidence, or probable cause, to indict a criminal suspect.

Unlike a grand jury, a preliminary hearing is usually open to the public and involves lawyers and a judge (not so with grand juries, other than the prosecutor). Sometimes, a preliminary hearing proceeds a grand jury. One of the biggest differences between the two is the requirement that a defendant request a preliminary hearing, although the court may decline a request.
Grand Jury Proceedings

Grand jury proceedings are much more relaxed than normal court room proceedings. There is no judge present and frequently there are no lawyers except for the prosecutor. The prosecutor will explain the law to the jury and work with them to gather evidence and hear testimony. Under normal courtroom rules of evidence, exhibits and other testimony must adhere to strict rules before admission. However, a grand jury has broad power to see and hear almost anything they would like.

However, unlike the vast majority of trials, grand jury proceedings are kept in strict confidence. This serves two purposes:

It encourages witnesses to speak freely and without fear of retaliation.
It protects the potential defendant’s reputation in case the jury does not decide to indict. (FindLaw)

And “probable cause”?

Probable cause refers to the amount and quality of information required to arrest someone, to search or seize private property in many cases, or to charge someone with a crime. (FindLaw)

From last month:

The prosecutor’s office is also presenting evidence to the grand jury as soon as it receives it, rather than waiting until the St. Louis County Police Department and the FBI have completed their investigations. Police probes are typically completed before a case is presented to a grand jury, county officials said.

As a result, jurors in the Wilson case are hearing from every eyewitness, seeing every telling photo, viewing every relevant video, and reviewing all DNA, ballistics and other test results from county and FBI labs, said Ed Magee, a spokesman for county prosecutor Robert McCulloch. They will hear testimony from Dorian Johnson, the friend who was with Brown when he died, but it is unclear yet whether they will hear testimony from Wilson.

“Normally they hear from a detective or a main witness or two. That’s it,” Magee said. “This gives us an opportunity to present all of the evidence to jurors who represent St. Louis County. They will make the decision.” (In atypical approach, grand jury in Ferguson shooting receives full measure of case)

I don’t want to sway readers one way or another before they get a chance to take the poll this week. rating McCulloch’s handling of the case. The poll is in the right sidebar.

— Steve Patterson

Some Thoughts On The November 4th Midterm General Election

The television commercials before the August primaries were constant; especially Steve Stenger vs Charlie Dooley and Bruce Rauner attacking Pat Quinn, rather than his primary opponents. I’d hoped for a little relief between the primary and the general election, three weeks from today. It seems like right after the primary ended the election commercials continued, except for St. Louis County Executive, those only picked up again recently.

Illinois

Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of Enyart and Bost. And one of the worst-kept secrets in national politics is that when those committees get involved in a contest, the messaging becomes largely indistinguishable from other hotly contested races throughout the country. (St. Louis Public Radio)

It’s clear from both sides that Bost is a Tea Party conservative, the type that shut down the federal government a year ago:

In a truly misguided display of chutzpah, some members of the Tea Party are congratulating themselves over a supposed “historic victory” in the government shutdown debacle. Yet the shutdown gang led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas extracted no concessions and instead hurt the GOP’s nationwide reputation and shaved GDP growth. (Forbes)

Bost wouldn’t change Congress at all, he’d have no impact on spending other than adding to it by refusing to extend the debt limit. Vote Enyart!

Republican Bruce Rauner falsely claims in a TV ad that Illinois leads the Midwest in “job losses” under Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. In fact, Illinois has experienced job growth — albeit small — since Quinn took office. (FactCheck.org)

Rauner’s big push is taxes — cuts for billionaires like himself. You think Illinois has fiscal problems now, it’d be far worse if Rauner got his way:

Once again we are testing the question: Can tax cuts pay for themselves? The answer– yet again– is a resounding no.

We’ve tried this experiment time and again. And tax cut proponents such as economist Art Laffer continue to insist they can turn fiscal dross to gold: Cut taxes deeply enough and the resultant boom in economic activity will boost revenues. Magic. Painless. Everything a politician would ever want.

Except this is fiscal snake oil. Over the past few years, Brownback and the Kansas legislature have gone all-in on this theory. The good news: They have left little room for ambiguity (though Brownback and his defenders are scrambling to find some, given the dismal results of their ambitious experiment). (Forbes)

Bruce Rauner reminds me of embattled Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.

Kansas suffered by far the largest decline in overall year-over-year receipts — a fall of 21.9 percent. The U.S. average drop was only 1.7 percent.

The institute said Kansas’ decline was “mostly attributable to legislated tax changes.” The state had a stunning 42.9 percent reduction in individual income tax revenue in the April-June period compared with a year earlier. The national decline was just 7.1 percent. (Kansas City Star)

Please don’t vote for Rauner!

St. Louis County

The August 9th shooting of Michael Brown, just four days after the primary, is affecting the general election for St. Louis County Executive:

The schism among St. Louis County Democrats split wide open Wednesday with the endorsement of the Republican nominee for county executive — Rick Stream — by a coalition of black officials angered over what they characterized as “years and years of disrespect” by party leaders. (Post-Dispatch)

For those unfamiliar, Democratic nominee Steve Stenger is close with Prosecutor Robert McCullough, whom many think should’ve recused himself in the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson case.

I personally don’t care for Stenger or Stream. The race includes Libertarian Theo (Ted) Brown, Sr and Constitution party candidate Joe Passanise.

Missouri voters also have to decide on some constitutional amendments, I’ll post on those before the election.

— Steve Patterson

ADA Violation: Mini of St. Louis Doesn’t Have Required Pedestrian Access They Said They Would

Back in 2011 Mini of St. Louis announced they would relocate from Clayton to a large site adjacent to the Sunnen MetroLink light rail station (blue line).  I took the opportunity to remind them they needed to provide an accessible pedestrian route.

They said ” Oh, of course!!! That’s a non-issue. We have all that in place already…” but I knew the dismal record of their architects on pedestrian accessibility.  In October 2012 I blogged about what I was seeing happening at this station, see Transit-Ignored Development (TID) At Sunnen MetroLink Station

Earlier this month I visited again to see if it turned out as I’d predicted. Unfortunately, it did.

It’s very simple folks, if you’re building on a site that has public sidewalks, transit stops (bus or rail), or another way for a pedestrian to reach the building you need to provide an accessible route. The Dept of Justice, in a 1993 letter, gave an example of when an accessible route isn’t required:

For example, the Standards would not require that a developer provide an accessible route between an accessible entrance to a retail store and a major highway bordering the site, if customers only have access to the store by driving to the parking lot. (US DOJ — recommended reading)

In urbanized areas (non-rural) even sites next to highways can be accessed by pedestrians because of other streets & sidewalks. This type of anti-pedestrian development isn’t tolerable anywhere in the region, especially next to a light rail station that had such potential. Crossing the street at the station can be retrofitted as can an accessible route to Mini of St. Louis.

For once I’d like it if our new construction included planning for pedestrians.

— Steve Patterson

The St. Louis County Municipal Court Racket

Since Michael Brown was shot & killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on August 9th, the entire country has learned a dirty little secret: some of our municipalities make big money ticketing & arresting our residents, often minorities. Just as corporations that operate  for-profit prisons seek more prisoners, some of the 90 unsustainable municipalities within St. Louis County need to stop people driving through their tiny municipal borders to keep the municipal coffers full:

Unfortunately, for many of the poorest citizens of the region, the municipal courts and police departments inflict a kind of low level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines, and the threat of jail for failure to pay without a meaningful inquiry into whether an individual has the means to pay. (ArchCity Defenders: Municipal Courts White Paper)

I recommend reading all 37 pages of the ArchCity Defenders: Municipal Courts White Paper, it’s an eye-opener! They looked at 60 courts and found “approximately thirty of those courts did engage in at least one of these [illegal and harmful] practices.” The report focuses on the three “chronic offenders”: Bel-Ridge, Florissant, and…Ferguson.

A personal friend has two citations from Vinita Park, population 1880, but the fine amounts aren’t on the citations he was issued. Neither of his citations were for speeding.

Logging online and entering your citation number doesn’t bring up the fine amount either, you must know it to enter and pay it. Late fees, of an unknown amount, are added. A bench warrant is issued if you miss the court date.  My friend finally reached a person by phone at Vinita Park City Hall that could tell him the amounts. Earlier calls went unanswered.

Yesterday I posted about the Flordell Hills, pop 822, city website which doesn’t list the elected officials, but has a detailed court section accepting online payments.  Their new police force begins October 1st.

More affluent municipalities, such as Chesterfield, don’t need to use such tactics to survive financially.  Their residents & visitors would never tolerate the injustices.

The poor in the region live in or drive through these predatory municipalities daily. Ferguson is taking steps toward change.

— Steve Patterson