Washington Ave Maintenance 9 Months Later

Last July 9th I did a post called, “Washington Ave Suffering From Deferred Maintenance” which focused on nearly 10 missing street trees on what had been a very expensive streetscape.  I included  numerous pictures like this one:

July 2008

Four days later I reported that the “Forestry Dept Begins Long-Overdue Street Tree Maintenance on Washington Ave. They must have been testing the process to grind out the stumps because they only did one that weekend.

But eventually they all got removed and replanted.

February 27, 2009

The newly planted trees are budding out too.

April 20, 2009

But they won’t all do well.  The above tree is not planted correctly:

Not exactly centered

If this tree lives it will begin to grow into the grate on the right.  Most of the other trees seem to be planted reasonably centered in the area provided.  I happened to spot this one yesterday.  Is it too late to move it?

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This might explain a few things . . .

By Jim Zavist, AIA

One of the first things I discovered after I moved here in 2004 is that St. Louis has a lot of 4-way stops.  Some appear to have replaced traffic signals, at intersections where the cost of maintaining them could no longer be justified (Jamieson & Fyler or Olive & Sutter, for example) – it makes sense given the city’s financial struggles over the past several decades.  But there are many other locations where they seem to have been installed because someone (not a traffic engineer) convinced someone else in the city (likely the alderman) that doing so would make the neighborhood “safer” – Arsenal and Chippewa between Grand and Broadway are both classic examples*.  A not-so-surprising discovery is that many people don’t actually stop at all our STOP signs, many just slow down, then keep going.

It turns out that one of the traffic engineers I worked with in Denver grew up in St. Louis and southern Illinois, and he enlightened me a bit on how things worked in an earlier time, after I sent him this picture:  “In those days, the 1950’s, they used a lot of yellow stop signs and red ones they called boulevard stops.  I think the idea was that the yellow ones were meant to be like a yield sign because you didn’t have to stop at them unless there was cross traffic.  I remember my grandpa hollering at my mom not to stop at stop signs because you didn’t have to.  It made her mad because he did not have a car nor a drivers license.”

My wife also informed me that one of her older, senior friends remembers when the standard practice at 4-way stops in St. Louis was two cars at time alternating, not just one, as is (supposed to be) current practice and law.  Combine these two aberrations from current standards and practices, along with only token enforcement by the St. Louis Police and many people learning to drive/bad habits from their parents, it becomes easier to understand why a STOP signs here are viewed by many as only a suggestion!  As both a relative newcomer and an occasional cyclist, I’d like to hear what natives have to say on this one – is it a quaint St. Louis tradition, a clash of generational values, or something else?

*Having become pretty active in neighborhood politics, I had suggested the addition of 4-way stops at certain Denver intersections.  Since the city actually lets their traffic engineers design and manage a functional system, I quickly learned that 4-way stops are not the “preferred alternative”, that they were reserved for use almost exclusively at schools, where there would be a large amount of pedestrian traffic.  The engineers found, as we see here, with 4-way stops, that a large number of drivers assume that the other driver will actually stop, so they can just slow down.  They found, and secondary streets with moderate traffic, that alternating 2-way stops (E-W, N-S, E-W, N-S, etc.) was much more effective in both obtaining compliance and in balancing smooth traffic flow and safety than 4-way stops.

Local Architect Jim Zavist was born in upstate New York, raised in Louisville KY, spent 30 years in Denver Colorado and relocated to St. Louis in 2005.

Seven Lanes, No Waiting

Seven lanes, no waiting.  No, not the checkout, that has plenty of waiting.  I’m talking roads.  We’ve got ridiculously wide roads around here.

Jefferson & Market come to mind.  Jefferson North of I-64 and Market West of Jefferson each have seven lanes — three travel lanes per direction and a center turn lane.  Seven!  These wide roads pre-date our interstate system.  Roads like these two, Natural Bridge and others were widened to serve a city with a population over 800,000 and expected to top a million by 1970. Instead of passing a million residents we were at 622,236 in 1970 and by 2000 we were under 350,000.  Yet our roads are still designed for much greater traffic than is typically present.

When the highways like I-70, I-64, I-55 and I-44 these excessively wide roads returned to their prior status as local arterial roads.  Except that somebody forgot to come back and trim down the road width.

The new Jefferson viaduct between I-64 and Chouteau is finally open in both directions.  It contains two travel lanes per direction, a reasonable number.  I can think of no arterial roads in the City of St. Louis that need more than two travel lanes per direction.  It is no surprise that the areas adjacent to these wide roads are lifeless.

Formerly wide streets like Delmar (West of Kingshighway) have received new planted medians to consume excess width.  Ditto for Grand between Arsenal & I-44.  I’ve expressed before my wish to use the width for modern streetcar lines.  However, medians can be built down the center now and streetcars run in the outside lanes later.  One thing is certain, these streets are not going to magically reinvent themselves.  Government intervention created the current widths and it will take government intervention (aka $$$) to remake them in a more reasonable for.

Of course funding projects in the city today is more challenging because we have fewer people to split the cost.  Back then they were clearing away obstrucxtions to make room for an increasing number of automobiles.  Today we’d be spending money for different purposes — to reactivate the streets and the private property along them.  Some of the adjacent land is public such as the long vacant Pruitt-Igoe site at Jefferson & Cass (map).  Redoing Jefferson & the Pruitt-Igoe site go hand and hand.

If only we had slimming these streets ready to go as “shovel ready.”

Missourians Against Red Light Cameras

This just in from local singer and anti-red light camera activist Jesse Irwin:

The bill that would ban red light cameras in Missouri, SB211, is being ambushed. It was granted a premature, unexpected hearing by the Senate Transportation Committee scheduled for this Wednesday, February 18th at 8am at the capitol in Senate Conference Room 1. We have to keep them from killing the bill before it gets to the senate floor. I need people to do one of three things.

1. Call or email one or all of the senators on the committee. You can find them here:

http://www.senate.mo.gov/09info/comm/tran.htm

Let them know you don’t like the cameras and you support the passage of SB211

2. Give me a written statement saying they do not like these cameras, etc. You can fax it to 968-5981 or send it to irwinjes@webster.edu. I  will take it to the capitol for you and enter it into the record

3. Ride to jeff city with me on Wednesday morning to sit in on the hearing.

There is a lot of big money trying to stop us, so we are going to have to be loud and persistent.

I am organizing a group of people who will be driving down to attend the hearing. If anyone is interested in going and would like a ride, they can send me an email at irwinjes@webster.edu or call me at 314-775-5760.

Thanks again,

Jesse Irwin

http://www.redlightcameraban.com/

Now that I’m driving a car again I’m concerned about the cameras.  Not that I might get caught doing something I shouldn’t — that a camera might falsley cite me.

Reconnecting St Louis to the Mississippi; Don’t Cover the Highway, 86 It.

People are naturally drawn to large bodies of water — rivers, lakes and oceans. In St Louis we’ve got the mighty Mississippi as our Eastern border. Sadly we’ve made it far too difficult to actually reach the river.

Last week I did a post announcing the National Park Service’s open house to review their proposed General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (aka the Arch & Arch grounds). I had jokingly suggested that the city wanted to replace the arch with the world’s tallest parking garage. Reader comments quickly turned to Memorial Drive and I-70 that divides the Arch grounds (and the river) from downtown.

Mayor of Affton wrote:

I think there’s room for 1 and 2 story buildings on the east side of a much smaller, narrower Memorial Drive, with a service road behind them on the arch grounds. Further, let’s really connect some neighborhoods with a train or trolley that goes from Soulard, to Chouteau’s Landing, across the Arch grounds on the east, up to the Landing, Lumiere, the Bottle District and North Broadway.

‘the dude’ wrote:

Highway 70 is already being rerouted – over the new Mississippi River bridge. The “Lid” plan is seriously flawed. The idea of building a lid over the depressed lanes is based on assumptions made before the new Mississippi River bridge became a real project and before we were attacked on September 11th. The Lid is a bad idea on many levels.

‘Kevin’ wrote:

It seems that nobody wants to discuss that the problem with the arch grounds is not the grounds them self, but the private land around the arch. Pretty much every building adjacent the arch grounds has its back to the arch. Imagine if when you looked out the Eiffel tower or the Colosseum all you saw was the back of buildings. The city needs to require all buildings adjacent the arch to have store fronts facing it. Imagine sidewalk dining or shopping looking the park. Its the only way to integrate the monument into a downtown experience.

And no, I have forgotten about the thing called I-70. If they are going to put in a new I-70 bridge they need to remove the section cutting the arch off from downtown. Have the highway end at broadway and fill in the I-70 trench. Do we really need to connect the two bridges?

‘dude’ wrote:

For starters, the NPS should complete a traffic and design study to determine the feasibility/desirability of abandoning the depressed lanes and replacing them with a new Memorial Drive as compared to going with the Lid option.

Forever people have complained about how downtown is cut off from the river and the Arch. The interstate is obviously the barrier. But none of the higher ups are talking about removing the barrier! Instead, they are proposing a literal band-aid solution. One that leaves some 80+ percent of the barrier in place.

‘Scott’ wrote:

My problem with the Arch grounds is that there is not much down there to draw me there and to stick around. The museum is a huge snooze and residents can only enjoy going up the arch so many times. We need attractions to pull people down there and keep them there and spend some money. An aquarium would be a great idea. We need dining options too. Leave the arch alone and develop the grounds around it.

All valid points. At the time the Arch won the design competition the highway was an assumed. It was just thought we’d all drive our single occupancy vehicles there. Those that would walk would do so only at the center of the Arch. To make sure we only crossed at the center new buildings both North and South of the center blocked off the downtown street grid. The result is that Memorial Drive is barely tolerable as a place to drive and not at all as a place to walk. To illustrate this point I’ve put together a short video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h6r_S-zU-o[/youtube]

The NPS is incorrectly focusing all their attention on connecting to downtown at one single point — in the center aligned with the Old Courthouse. A better connection to the Arch grounds and down to the river is more than a single bridge or even a 3-block “lid” can address.

The solution?

• I-70 needs to be removed from the equation (more on that further down).
• Memorial Drive needs to be reconstructed as a grand boulevard and renamed 3rd Street.
• Buildings fronting the existing Memorial need entrances facing the Arch.

The new Mississippi river bridge, when built, will become I-70. While some traffic uses this portion of I-70 as a pass through between North & South they can use my proposed 3rd Street Boulevard or other North-South streets on our street grid. I’d remove I-70 from the new bridge on the North all the way to I-44/I-55 on the South. This would permit a larger portion of the downtown and near downtown to begin to heal from the damage caused by the highway cutting off streets.

San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway carried 70,000 cars daily when it was destroyed by earthquake in 1989. Today the new boulevard still carries a considerable amount of traffic while encouraging pedestrians to walk along or cross it. San Francisco took the opportunity to connect the area into their streetcar system. I say we use this new 3rd St boulevard project as an opportunity to introduce a modern streetcar loop to downtown with a section passing right by the Arch.

This new modern streetcar line, complete with accessible low-floor cars, would use Broadway in one direction and the new 3rd in the other. The line would go North of the Edward Jones Dome to the site that has been hyped as the Bottleworks District. At the other end the line would use both Market and Walnut (or Clark). This would connect the Arch grounds to the future Ballpark Village, MetroLink light rail, and numerous hotels. On this end the line could turn around at 22nd with new development on the extra state land that was reserved for the abandoned 22nd Parkway. Back at the other end, when the dome is imploded after the Rams leave or we build them a new dome the line will connect to new development there. The line could be extended east along Cole to eventually reach the old Pruitt-Igoe site as a location for a new dome or whatever Paul McKee has in mind.

With high activity points along the route the line would be well used. Zoning along the line would need to mandate urban buildings with frequent entrances, not blank walls. Ditto along the new 3rd. The buildings we have now are a disgrace. Cars in parking garages have outstanding views of the Arch while the pedestrian on the sidewalk is subjected to a wretched environment.

A little bridge or a lid over the highway just isn’t enough. Earlier generations dreamed big and it’s time we did too if we plan to fix their mistakes.

Update 7/9/08 @ 3pm

I’ve been a bit busy lately and behind on my reading.  One item I overlooked until now is ‘The Case for a New Memorial Drive’ by my friend Rick Bonasch over on his site, STL Rising.  He covers the same topic in a detailed look at various issues – highly recommended.

ADA Curb Cut No Longer Compliant After Street Resurfaced

The city has been resurfacing several streets downtown. Initially they were grinding up the old asphalt in the evenings, forgetting people live downtown. After people complained they shifted the schedule so the noisy grinding work was done during daylight and the new asphalt laid after 5pm.

With the top most layer of asphalt missing for a few days it presented some challenges for me & my wheelchair. The biggest issue was avoiding the man hole covers that were now suddenly sticking up but still in the crosswalk. But it was temporary and I managed by changing my route or picking crosswalks that were less problematic.

One of the streets that was resurfaced was 11th. A few corners along 11th still lack an ADA ramp. For example the city has the top two floors at the building at 1015 Locust which is on the NE corner of 11th & Locust. The same corner lacks an ADA curb cut. The other three corners have cuts but that doesn’t help when the direction you want to go doesn’t.

BTW, corner ramps suck! They were basically a cheap way for cities to comply with the ADA — building one ramp to serve two directions rather than building two ramps at each corner — one per side per crosswalk. It did allow more curb cuts to be built with limited funds so that is a good thing. The trouble is now getting people to stop insisting the curb cut must be pushed to the very corner.

The problem with the curb cut at the very corner is that is it not in the natural line of travel down the sidewalk. All the time now I’m having to continually maneuver to the outside corners of the sidewalk. Not so bad when the sidewalks are empty but when others are around it often means I’m crossing in front of them or having to stop to cross behind them.

But these are also dangerous on streets with no curb lane. With traffic driving in the outside lane near the curb and these corner ramps means those of us in wheelchairs are being forced out near or, in some cases, in the travel lane of moving traffic.  Talk about a sitting target!  But this post is supposed to be about a single ramp that got worse after the street was repaved so let me get on with the main topic.

Above is the corner curb cut at the SE corner of 11th & Washington Ave.   As you can see the street now casts a shadow as it dips down to meet the ramp.  It didn’t do this before.  The ADA has guidelines on the slope of both the ramp and of the adjacent street.  The street can of course go downhill as needed but I’m talking about the “crown” ot the street — how high it is at the middle and how much does it angle off to the curbs.

Excessive slopes present a number of issues.  Those using manual chairs can have a harder time getting up the slope.  In the case above the slope is steep and sudden. In my power chair I feel like I’m going to tip backwards, the slope is that steep. Manual chairs often have anti-tippers to prevent falling backwards (little extra wheels at the back that prevent tipping back) but electric chairs have no such devices.  So with anti-tippers in the above situation a person may find as they try to cross that curb cut because as they go up the slope their anti-tippers may catch on the backside. This point is also now more prone to hold water.
My guess is the crew just put down too much asphalt in this section and didn’t realize the implications of their actions.

MoDot wants to pave Missouri

The Missouri Department is now arguing for additional funding  to  reconstruct  some 200 miles of I-70.  MoDot now wants to double the number of lanes between St Louis and Kansas City — four total for passenger vehicles and local trucks and four total lanes for long haul trucks.  They argue, unconvincingly, that truck traffic is going to double by 2030 and that our quality of life is in danger without this new highway.  Here is their propaganda video:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=VTUf3qZQvf4[/youtube]

Rising fuel cost will shift the demand for these big trucks.  Increasing transportation costs will alter the markets enough that we will hopefully see a return to local production, thereby reducing the need to truck stuff into the state.  The billions of dollars proposed to be spent on this highway project would be better invested in re-establishing local manufacturing and food production within the state.

This highway, if built, would be like the new runway at the St Louis airport — an expensive project built on false assumptions about projected growth.

If they want to build such a highway then build toll booths as well.  Make those that use it pay the cost.  Sure for transportation that cost will end up in the price of goods but that is the reality of the situation — better to have the transportation cost in the price of the item rather than having it in a tax on something unrelated.

MoDot talks about the costs to maintain what we currently have and yet they want to add many more acres of paving in addition to more bridges and so on.  This to me would be a major waste of tax dollars.

Halliday St. Illegal Parking Pad Fiasco Ends, Portion of Street Likely Given Away

OK, so here is what you do if you buy a property to rehab that has no parking. First, you pave over any bit of yard that exists on a Saturday when you won’t get caught. One of two things will happen, you either get left alone and get to keep the parking or “compromise” and get the alderman to give you a portion of the publicly owned right-of-way for you to include with your property.

I first blogged about this in June of last year (post) and a fourth time in August 2007 (post w/links to other posts). Last month, after wearing down the neighboring residents, something finally happened. The pad, illegally placed in the front yard, began to be removed.

Now, this sounds wonderful. As we can see from the image below…

…the pavement is now gone from the front yard after a six month prolonged process. The developer had promised parking to his buyers and rather than face the music for such a commitment the city is going to come along and bail him out — by giving him part of the public street.

This quiet one-way street in the Tower Grove East neighborhood is about to get some angled parking for the condo residents. I personally have no objection to the switch to angled parking or even issuing them permits for their exclusive use of those spaces. My issue is with the city vacating a portion of the street so it can be given over to private residents. Late last year Ald. Conway confirmed with me that he was trying to get Todd Waelterman, Director of Streets, so sign off on the vacation. I have not received a response from Waelterman that this has indeed happened.

In a city public space, the collective street, sidewalk, etc…, should be valued highly. It is these public rights of way that service as connectors to all privately owned land. It is the use and arrangement of these spaces that define a street as part of a walkable community or simply as a suburban arterial road with no redeeming public value. Cities like St. Louis need to treasure our publicly owned land that we have in our streets and alleys.

Highway 40 Closure, Much Ado About Nothin’

Economic life was going to come to a complete standstill in the St. Louis region if traffic was not allowed to continue through the reconstruction of highway 40.  That was the prediction of Frontenac Republican Scott Muschany and others at a meeting held on December 17, 2007 that was “organized” by retired traffic engineer Joe Passanise:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wewf3pJEAU4

…Make no mistake about it, beginning January 3rd MoDOT is going to unleash the worst economic damage that this community could ever suffer, one of the worst public health crisis… - Scott Muschany 12/17/07

Wow, “worst economic damage that this community could ever suffer.”   The closure came and with a few exceptions it has been a non-event.  People are adjusting their schedules, routes and modes.

Our region’s adaption to the closed interstate highway proves one thing — the highway is not necessary!  Muschany and his road building Republican buddies would probably like to have the project take much longer and cost hundreds of millions more.  The fact we are spending over $500 million for something the region doesn’t need is bad enough.

As I and others have said before, Highway 40 should not be rebuilt as the  “new I-64″ but should be a proper urban boulevard with through lanes in the middle and more localized lanes on the outer edges.  These outside lines, separated by a line of trees from the center lanes, would have on-street parking and buildings fronting them.

Mass transit might take the form of a commuter rail line down the center but it also might take the form of more localized service to the local stores, or a combination of both.  Areas North and South of the corridor would be connected through a grid of streets making it easier to get across this long-standing divide.

Instead the traffic folks envision more traffic and more pavement to handle the volume.  Alternates are not considered as we worship the so-called freedom of the interstates.  True enough, getting to Chicago, Tulsa, Kansas City or many other places by car on county roads would be time consuming so I do see value in the highways to connect regions — it is what they do within regions that I have a problem with.

The citizens of the St. Louis region will adapt as they have been to the changes.  There will most certainly be accidents that cause delays and unfortunately lives will be lost.  Of course, lives are lost daily on crashes on our interstates.  And in a couple of years, once the highway is completely rebuilt, most people will drop their car pool or use of mass transit and return to their single occupancy vehicles.  Due to the improvements of the new highway others will join them and in short order we will be back to slow downs and at capacity travel on the new I-64.  When this happens, in 5 or 10 years, the engineers will be back at the drawing board working on the next version. The alternative is that fuel becomes so costly we a drop in use and the highway will seem overbuilt for demand.

One thing is certain, those that sought to keep the highway open didn’t have a clue.  Hopefully the folks in Frontenac will elect themselves a new state rep this coming November.

Crosswalk Leads Directly Into Curb & Light Standard, Missing Ramps

Getting around the city is a challenge for those using mobility devices (wheelchairs, mobility scooters), pushing strollers or pulling luggage. Sure, everywhere you look you do see ramps. So what is the problem, you ask?

Well, ramp placement plays a role in their ultimate usability and sadly placement has been given little thought throughout the city. Of course, it is worse out in the suburbs where sidewalks are a luxury.

Above is looking East across 18th Street at the signalized entry to Union Station (behind me) and across to another parking lot — I like how they managed to center the crosswalk lines with the curb on the other side — perfectly centered between two ramps! Pedestrians headed West from the new multi-modal center (Greyhound & Amtrak services) are directed up a new ramp which takes them out to the above intersection. Those heading South along 18th (toward Ameren/Lafayette Sq) must cross this crosswalk as the viaduct only has sidewalks on the West edge. Those coming and going from Union Station also cross this intersection.

Interesting, the ramp for the corner where I am standing aligns perfectly with the center of the painted stripes yet on the opposite side it runs into a curb and signal post. Brilliant!

When I took the above image a couple of weeks ago the signals here and at the new ramp just a few hundred feet to the South had been placed on yellow flash for 18th and red flash if you were leaving on of the parking lots. For pedestrians, this means no pedestrian signal to indicate when it is OK to attempt to cross the street.

And, as you might expect, the ramps on the other side are a mess of wrong slopes and cross angles. Controlling a wheelchair to keep from having the right ramp spill you out in the street would be a challenge. This situation should not be acceptable given that pedestrians from this new facility are headed this direction.

UPDATE 1/9/08 @ 9am – The new multi-modal center is expected to open in late April.