Saint Louis University places event parking sign within bike lane

Bike lanes in St. Louis just are not respected.  I’ve written before about valet signs being placed in them (Valets at Lush Block Bike Lane w/Sign) and about them getting re-striped to the point where it is useless (World’s Narrowest Bike Lane Located in St. Louis).  Now we have a major university joining others in ignoring the point of bike lanes: safety.

I spotted the sign after leaving a campus meeting last week. Two fellow students had biked to campus.

We need everyone to realize bike lanes are not wasted space you are free to block.  They are used. Placing a sign in the lane presents a challenge to the cyclist.  The sign is off center so one might go to the street side to go around.  However, this places the cyclist close to passing vehicles. Going around the other direction is more off center but safer.  Cyclists often face last minute decisions about obstacles, but our institutions shouldn’t add to the list.

– Steve Patterson

Poll results: reader’s bus ridership high

I was pleasantly surprised by the results of last week’s poll:

Q: Have you ever ridden a municipal bus?

1. Yes in St. Louis and other cities 181 [ 67%]
2. Yes but not in St. Louis 50 [19%]
3. Yes in St. Louis only 18 [7%]
4. No and I have no plans to ride a bus ever 13 [5%]
5. Not yet but I plan to do so 4 [1%]
6. Other answer… 3 [1%]

The three other answers were:

1. Rode in STL; vacationed in San Antonio
2. I certainly have and I was born in West County, went to public school
3. Yes, but never riding again

Only 5% had no plans to ride a bus for the first time.  Hopefully these folks will reconsider at some point.  I’m curious if they have ridden our light rail?

Nearly 20% hadn’t ridden a bus elsewhere but not in St. Louis.

– Steve Patterson

Seeing our downtown disconnect first hand

On Saturday I participated in the City to River walking tour from Busch Stadium to Laclede’s Landing.

Of course we could have walked North up Broadway and then used the Lumiere Link to go under the highway to reach Laclede’s Landing.  But we have this large urban park that is supposed to be an asset so including the Arch grounds on the route makes sense.

Some say Memorial Drive is the problem, not the depressed lanes of the highway. But it is the highway that makes Memorial Drive such a dead street. Get rid of the highway and we can begin the process of transforming the street.

Much of the problem is buildings adjacent to Memorial Drive present blank walls to the sidewalk. The Arch is the biggest attraction in town but the buildings on the edge don’t connect to the sidewalk!

Parked cars occupy what should be some of the best real estate. Of course tunneling the highway here would solve the problem in a few blocks.

But North of Washington Ave the highway is an overhead obstacle.  We are building a new highway in Illinois to replace the stretch of I-70.  Now is the time to place to eliminate the redundant lanes after the bridge opens in February 2014.

– Steve Patterson

Before the highway cut off downtown from the river

The razing of 40 blocks of St. Louis along the riverfront began on October 10, 1939. There was no plan at that time, a design competition wasn’t held until 1947.  So St. Louis created the biggest surface parking lot on what was the original village.

Ground breaking for construction of the Arch was held nearly 20 years later, on June 23, 1959.  For 20 years the only reason to connect with this location was to get to your car in a sea of cars.

Two years after the ground breaking we see that all that had changed was the reduction in the amount of land for surface parking.  By this point the city’s leaders saw this site as a wasteland, nothing we’d ever want easy pedestrian access to.

Future mayor Raymond Tucker was 43 (my current age) when the city razed these blocks.  One of his first duties as mayor would have been the ribbon cutting at the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex.  He was 68 when the depressed highway lanes created a permanent divide between the central business district and what would become the Jefferson Nation Expansion Memorial we know today.  He and others leaders at the time must have thought they were making good decisions for the future of our city.

But to them the site was simply parking.  They worked hard to get the Arch funded and built.  Tucker saw the Arch completed but not the landscaping, he died in 1970. This generation of men had experience with a very different St. Louis than us today.

Thank you to to Tom Bradley & Jennifer Clark of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial for the use of the above images.

– Steve Patterson

Have you ever ridden a municipal bus?

In the last week it came to my attention that I know many people, including some supporting Proposition A, have never once ridden a city bus.  That was me well into my 30s. So my poll this week is trying to see if readers here have actually ridden a bus or not. The poll is in the right column.

I’m still no daily rider but I’ve ridden the bus in several cities so I feel I know enough to give a general overview.  Hopefully more experienced riders will add their tips in the comments below. The route number for the bus is show at the top and on the sides, #13 in the above example.  Where you have more than one bus using the same stop this is helpful so you get on the correct bus.  All our buses here have bike racks on the front. I was very nervous the first time I went to place my bike on the rack.

In these examples the rack is folded up since it is not in use.  Loading your bike just requires you to pull down the rack so you can load your bike.  Each rack will hold two bikes in opposite directions from each other. The rack has trays for the wheels and a bar to hold it securely in place.  For more information see Metro’s Bike-N-Ride FAQ page.

Regular adult fares are $2.00 and $2.75 with a transfer valid for a connecting bus.  Bus drivers do not give change so if you use three singles to buy a pass w/transfer you will not get any change. Unlike our light rail where you buy a ticket and just walk on, with a bus you pay as you enter.  The fare box accepts bills and coins.  Riders with passes just swipe their pass as they enter. See the Metro Fare Chart for all the details.

Riders are asked to exit the set of doors that are midway toward the back.  That allows new passengers to begin entering the bus.   Unlike our light rail, or commuter rail/subways in other cities, a bus doesn’t automatically stop at every stop.  A pull cord runs along each side of the interior of the bus.  You pull the cord to alert the driver you wish to stop at the next stop.

If you are among those that has never ridden a municipal bus I encourage you to do so.  I still prefer modern streetcars but the bus has a place in most transit systems.

– Steve Patterson