A Weekend of Bicycle Racing in St. Louis

Last Saturday night thousands of casual bike riders were on the roads after Midnight (Sunday morning) for the 46th Annual Moonlight Ramble:

Starting tonight and continuing through Monday racing cyclists take over the streets.   The annual Gateway Cup is 4 days of racing that attracts riders from across the country to compete for cash & prizes.  They always put on a good show.  Monday is the start of the Tour of Missouri, a pro-level bike race.  The first stage will take place in St. Louis Monday.

Here are the details for interested spectators:

Friday 9/4/09:

The nighttime start to the weekend.  Lights are set up on the four corners around Lafayette Park for the Tour de Lafayette.

Join the Lafayette Square neighborhood and business district for a Friday night festival  celebrating an evening of racing under the lights! Lafayette Square is known as one of the country’s best preserved examples of Victorian “Painted Lady” architecture dating from the 1870’s and 1880’s.  It is also St. Louis’s oldest historic district. The neighborhood (and tonight’s race course) surrounds the first public park in the city of St.  Louis as well as one of the first public parks west of the Mississippi.  The neighborhood took a hit during the Great Depression and after WWII,  but thanks to the restoration efforts of a determined group of urban pioneers,  Lafayette Square saw a renaissance starting in the early 1970’s. Today it is  one of the crown jewels of St. Louis, with condo and loft developments as well  as a business district blossoming with restaurants boutiques and art galleries. Enjoy!

Bring a lawn chair and pick your corner and enjoy the neighborhood as the riders speed by or enjoy food and beverage from the many vendors.  Parking is tight so carpooling, biking or taking transit (Union Station MetroLink) is advised.

Saturday 9/5/09:

A first this year, racing around Francis Park in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood.

The St. Louis Hills Francis Park Criterium For the first time the historic St. Louis Hills neighborhood is host to the second leg of the Gateway Cup! Francis Park, named after David Rowland Francis- President of the Lousiana Purchase Exposition in 1889, is know for its wide, tree lined streets and for having beautiful churches on every corner. Today the St. Louis Hills neighborhood showcases gingerbread bungalows, stately homes and some of the tidiest landscaping in St. Louis. Home to St. Louis cultural and iconic Ted Drewes- our homegrown ice cream oasis. We hope you enjoy the new and improved race course selection for this second stop of the Gateway Cup!

Please join us for bands and a post race par-tay just behind the finish line in Francis Park. Featuring local band Ship of Fools during the day and followed by local hero Steve Ewing of the Urge, one of St. Louis most revered musical acts. We encourage everyone to stay until 8:00pm before heading to the Tour of Missouri Women’s Soiree event later in the evening.

Should be a fun day around a wonderful park in a beautiful neighborhood.  First race 11am, last race starts at 4:30pm.

Sunday 9/6/09:

No park to race around.  Even better are is the dense neighborhood known as The Hill.

The Hill is proud to once again host the longest standing bike race in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area – the Giro Della Montagna – the third stop of the 2009 Gateway Cup!

The Hill boasts the finest Italian restaurants anywhere. It is the boyhood home of such baseball legends as Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola. It is a neighborhood that acts as a model for community as generations of families continue to maintain their residence creating a close-knit feel. The neighborhood was settled by Italian immigrants starting in the late 19th Century. The anchor for the community continues to be St. Ambrose Catholic Church, the Start/Finish site for today’s race. The Italian heritage continues to thrive with the Hill’s variety of Italian restaurants, bakeries, taverns, groceries, community organizations, and social clubs. One of these such clubs, the Bocce Club, hosts the traditional pasta dinner for the cyclists Sunday evening after the completion of the last race of the day. Giro Pasta Dinner, Sunday, September 6th 4:00-8:00 pm, St Louis Bocce Club 2210 Marconi @ Bischoff on race course. Menu includes all the Pasta you can eat, plus 2 meatballs, salad, Italian Bread, and dessert. $7 adults/$4 children. Tickets available at the door.

First race at 12:15pm, last starts at 5:50pm.

Monday 9/7/09:

Labor Day will be a busy one downtown with both the Tour of Missouri Criterium finishing the Gateway Cup series plus the start of the Tour of Missouri.  The Criterium’s first race starts at 7am with Pro 1 & 2 starting at 10am.  At 1pm is the start of Stage 1 of the Tour of Missouri.  Both can be viewed from Citygarden on Market Street. The Tour of Missouri stage extends into Soulard & Lafayette Square so plenty of places to watch the race go by exist.

Parking will be scarce so if possible use MetroLink, or your own bike, to get downtown.

The routes all four days use city streets, which will be closed to traffic.  It is possible to cross the route on foot but not by car.  When crossing on foot look for the volunteers which will help you cross safely.

If you haven’t been to Lafayette Square, St. Louis Hills, The Hill or downtown in a while this is a good excuse to do so.   Hopefully the rain will come at times the riders are not competing. Have a great weekend and Labor Day!

• Gateway Cup Schedule w/route maps
• Tour of Missouri

– Steve Patterson

A Small Pedestrian Victory

Friday night last week I was out later than usual.  After getting a veggie hot dog from Sam at Hot City Franks at 13th & Washington I started to head home.  At 16th I ran into a friend who was walking home to 10th Street.  It was around 11:45pm so I decided to escort her home.

On 10th Street at St. Charles Street I spotted this Chevy in front of a fire hydrant. While that is upsetting I was more upset by this car on St. Charles Street:

This Dodge was parked in the crosswalk and blocking the ADA curb cut.  I’ve blogged about cars blocking this ramp before.  It was now midnight and I call the police non-emergency number.  They had bigger issues to deal with on a Friday night.  As I sit there I realize that drivers may not realize the crosswalk exists.  The curb is faded yellow and the crosswalk is unmarked.

So from this spot at 12:05am I email the above photo to a trio of city officials to get some resolution.  I sent it to David Newburger, Commissioner on the Disabled, Todd Waeltermann, Director of Streets and Phyllis Young, Alderman for this ward (7th).  Newburger & Waeltermann both replied Saturday morning with Young replying on Monday morning.

Last night, less than a week later I pass by the same intersection and I’m pleased to see my requested crosswalk stripes.  Around the corner is a “no parking here to corner” sign as well.  So kudos to David Newburger, Phyllis Young and especially Todd Waeltermann for getting my requested solution completed.

Now I need to get this trio onto the problem one block West at 11th Street:

At this intersection a block away the crosswalk has two issues.  1) like the other it is not marked and 2) the near curb lacks a curb cut, eliminating the East side of 11th as a viable route for me.

I think to get action it is always a good idea to report a problem to more than one person.  In this case the three all knew the other two were aware of the same problem.  Many would have placed a phone call to the Alderman during the week but I think by going directly to the persons involved in a solution but making the elected representative aware helped speed up the fix.  Had I placed a phone call to Phyllis Young we probably would have played phone tag a few times, it would have been hard to verbalize the issue and then she would have had to turn around and do the same with others.  So before you pick up the telephone to contact your Alderman about a problem try contacting the department and/or Citizens Service Bureau by email, preferably with a picture of the problem.  Copy the appropriate Alderman on the correspondence so they are aware of the issue and request for service but the responsibility for action falls to a city staff person.

– Steve Patterson

The Widening of Delor Street

Delor Street winds through South St. Louis, from East of Grand to the River Des Peres.   The block of Delor Street West of the Bevo Mill area (map) is know for cute but modest houses and for a very narrow roadway:

Delor Street, above, has been so narrow that cars had to go very slow.  Now the city is in the process of widening the curb to curb width.  The South curb line (right, above) is being moved a few feet over.  I have mixed feelings about this work.  The narrow width helped slow traffic.  But I would not want to try to get in/out of my car on the narrow street.

When I drove down Delor Street recently I saw the construction in progress.  One thing is clear is the narrow tree lawn was being eliminated in order to move the curb line. Mark Groth has observations and a couple of construction pics on his blog, St. Louis City Talk (link to post).  From his pics I can see curb bulbs and islands.  Once construction is complete I’ll return, walk this block as part of my therapy and get photos.

– Steve Patterson

Bike Station Needed Downtown

Brian Spellecy of the blog, Downtown St. Louis Business, recently emailed me about bike stations.  He was thinking about one for St. Louis and it got me thinking about one again.

Nearly four years ago on October 14th, 2005 I did a post (Four Flavors for the St. Louis Riverfront) reviewing the four riverfront proposals and their inclusion of a bike station:

The plaza is already built across from the Old Post Office and it lacks even a bike rack.  Scratch that location off the list.  Two blocks of the Gateway Mall are now the wonderful Citygarden.  Two more blocks off the list of potential sites.

Remaining would be on or under part of the two city blocks that contain Kiener Plaza & the Morton May Amphitheater.  This would be an excellent spot for offering bike rentals as well as food & drink sales via a connected kiosk.

Another is under the block containing the ‘Twain’ sculpture by Richard Serra, immediately west of Citygarden.  Like Chicago’s Bike Station in Millennium Park, our station could be underground with a simple glass structure above grade.  This would add a new level of activity to that block without competing visually with the Twain sculpture.

Of course a bike station can be fitted into an existing structure as well.  A bike station provides secure bike parking, lockers, showers and often bike repair services.  The idea is to provide a place where workers can bike downtown, shower & change for work. We have a number of buildings with vacant ground floor space that might be well suited for such a role.

The ones I know of are not owned by the municipality — rather they are part of a not-for-profit organization.  Some cities likely help out such as getting the facility built and then leasing it to a group that manages the day to day operations.

Ideally we’d determine the center point of the greatest concentration of downtown workers and locate the bike station at that point.

If we want more cyclists/fewer cars downtown providing a bike station is a step in the right direction. A great facility could be viewed by businesses as a bonus to their workers — a reason to stay downtown or to relocate downtown.

– Steve Patterson

Stimulus Keeps America Motoring

Private cars are not going anywhere anytime soon but I like to see policies designed to take away the massive advantage the car has over say mass transit.

Stimulus funds, as we know, are going toward many road projects.  Yes, the road projects were “shovel ready” but only because that is all we seem to plan for.

The cash for clunkers program (officially the car allowance rebate system) has been well received:

According to a survey of car dealerships and 2,200 consumers by CNW Research, the average fuel economy of vehicles traded in last week was 16.3 miles a gallon, which is not much less than the 18 m.p.g. needed to qualify for a government rebate of $3,500.

The relatively small differential suggests that consumers have not been turning in the oldest, dirtiest and least fuel-efficient cars, but instead have been getting rid of their second and third cars, according to Art Spinella, who ran the survey.

The vehicles that consumers bought with their credits had average fuel efficiency ratings of 24.8 miles a gallon, he said.

Lawmakers hoped the cash for clunkers program, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, would reduce America’s dependency on imported oil. But the early results of the program suggest that may not happen. The vehicles turned in were driven about 6,000 miles a year, he said. If the new vehicles are driven about 12,000 miles a year, the rough annual average, then consumers will actually use more fuel, not less.

“The energy independence argument did not ring true, at least so far,” Mr. Spinella said.  (source)

There is much debate about the program.  True, 2nd & 3rd cars are used as the trade in vehicle.   The new car will become the primary vehicle and the old primary vehicle will become the new secondary car in the household.

Some say the fuel efficiency requirements should have been higher.  I agree.  My guess is if they had been too high many of the new vehicles would have been foreign rather than domestic makes.  Domestic makers simply focused too heavily on trucks & SUVs.

My 2004 Toyota Carolla, built in California, has a combined EPA of 28mpg.  It is worth more than the rebate anyway.  A 1994 Carolla still wouldn’t have qualified due to a combined EPA of 25mpg.

I looked up many other cars at fueleconomy.gov to see if they qualifed based on MPG.  A 1994 Ford Crown Victoria just barely qualifies but a 1994 Ford Taurus does not.  On one hand I’d like to see 20mpg cars be replaced with 30mpg vehicles.  On the other you have to draw a line somewhere.

And clearly there has been no shortage of qualifying trade ins.  You have to wonder if buyers are going to cheap used car lots to purchase a $1,000 clunker so they’d have a vehicle to qualify for the $4,500 rebate?

The clunker program is certainly a fast way to stimulate the economy.  But it also shows how important the auto industry is to our economy.  How will we ever change that fact?

At one time the St. Louis we made streetcars used by many cities.  No reason why the shuttered Chrysler plant in Fenton couldn’t build modern low-floor streetcars for use in the Loop Trolley line and in many others.  Someone has to build the trains for the high-speed rail lines being planned in the US.

Stimulus money needs to make it easier to use our private cars less often.  Where is the rebate for trading in a clunker and buying a 90mpg scooter as a replacement? Or a 10-year transit pass?

– Steve Patterson