A Year of Driving

A year ago today I bought my first post-stroke tank of gas. The 9 months prior to my stroke I did not have a car — my motorized transportation was a 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter that got around 90 miles per gallon.  A year ago I felt guilty about going back to driving a car. I’m over the guilt although I want to, someday, go back to not having a car.

So the day I buy gas for the first time in nearly six months just happens to have been the day gas prices peaked in St. Louis.  I paid $3.979/gallon for basic unleaded. By December 30th I paid a low of $1.339/gallon – a 66% drop. I tracked each fuel purchase and my mpg on an application on my iPhone:

Cold winters and recent a/c use took a toll on my average MPG.  My last fill-up was on a return trip from Chicago – 70mph with a/c.  Pretty good numbers.

During the year I drove 7,200 miles which included a trip to Oklahoma and the recent one to Chicago.  Take out those two road trips and I drove about 5,500 miles around town.  Admittedly I have a big advantage of working from home.  But I also have a compact life shopping locally as well as combining trips. Even as the price of gas dropped I continued to conserve.

The above chart shows the price per gallon that I paid over the last year.  Yes, I’m a nerd by charting this but I’m a visual person.  As we seen the price per gallon has steadily increased in 2009.  It is still a long way from where it was a year ago – the climb up is much slower than the drop off.  But the prices from last summer will return at some point.  There will be a point in a year or two where $4/gallon seems low.

By the end of 2010 I hope to have another scooter — perhaps a hybrid or all-electric scooter.  Like before, I’ll go a couple of years having a car and a scooter before going to scooter-only.  This time I will be able to join Enterprise’s WeCar car-sharing program for those times when I need/want a car.

– Steve Patterson

Mistake Alert: Loop Trolley Proposal Looking Backward Rather Than Forward

It is no secret I love streetcars.  I’ve ridden old & new systems in seven North American cities  (New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle & Portland).  While these systems have much in common with each other the main difference is the vehicles used. They vary from vintage to reproduction vintage to completely modern.

European cities  largely kept their streetcar systems intact over the years but have continually upgraded their vehicles to the newest designs over the years. Toronto’s system has lines dating to the 19th Century.  Every so often vehicles have been replaced with newer designs.  Their current vehicles date to the late 1970s:

But Toronto’s vehicles have the same problem as vintage vintage reproduction vehicles: access.  Stepping up into them is not friendly to wheelchairs, strollers, bikes, small kids or just a person carrying luggage or packages. The Loop Trolley folks want that vintage look rather than providing the best transportation for the 21st Century.  They are looking backward rather than forward.

They are looking at a system like they have in Little Rock AR:

Little Rock’s vehicles are new but have a vintage look & feel.

Filming a period movie?  Great, use these.  Investing tens of millions in a modern transportation system that will last into the second half of the 21st Century?  Wrong choice!  The Loop Trolley folks are stuck in 1904.  The World’s Fair is over guys.  So what is the right choice?

Modern “low-floor” vehicles such as the above in Portland.  The same type was used in Seattle.

The vehicle’s low-floor center design with wide doors make entry/exit easy for everyone.  Stroller & packages?  No problem.

The interiors are bright, modern and comfortable.  The type you’d feel comfortable wearing shorts and a t-shirt rather than wearing a dress and carrying a parasol.  We must look forward.  But the Loop Trolley advisory board feels the vintage look is more appropriate.

But in Helsinki Finland, founded in 1550, the old & modern blend beautifully.  We must build our new transportation systems and architecture of the current times.  Building a streetcar line to connect areas together is the right direction.  The system should be expandable to parts beyond the Loop & Forest Park.  Looking back to the glory days of 1904 is not going to help us in 2030.  Judy Garland, the star of Meet me in St. Louis.  has been dead for four decades.

To make the reproduction cars accessible they’d have a ramp like our buses do.  As a frequent wheelchair user I can tell you I would not use such a system.  It works most of the time but it would set me apart from everyone else.  The ramp would take time to extend & retract –holding up traffic in the meantime.  Why not just build an accessible system with low-floor vehicles?

The name “trolley” doesn’t matter much.  Could be streetcar or tram.  Seattle started out using trolley for their modern vehicles — the line was going to be the South Lake Union Trolley.  That is until someone realized it would be called SLUT, for short.  So it opened as the South Lake Union Streetcar instead.  So the trolley name is fine but not the reproduction vehicle.

The trick is the modern low-floor vehicles cost roughly three times the price of a reproduction vehicle. I don’t have figures to know how much of the estimated $50 million cost would be for the purchase of vehicles.

For more info on track options and other issues presented at the Loop Trolley open house last Wednesday check out, “Public Gets First Look at Loop Trolley Details, Feedback Solicited On Track Options” at STLUrbanWorkshop.com.

– Steve Patterson

I-64, Light Rail and Transit Suburbs

A few years ago when talk began of rebuilding part of I-64 (known locally as Highway 40) and extending the region’s light rail system, MetroLink, people had suggested putting the light rail down the center of the rebuilt highway.  Ultimately these systems were kept separate.  The light rail extension opened on August 26, 2007 (see post) and Hwy 40 will be complete by the end of 2009.

I never supported the transit in the center of the highway concept for St. Louis.  Here’s why:

Rail in the center of a highway works well when it takes forever to drive to your destination and costs a fortune to park once you’ve arrived.  In the St. Louis region drive times are short and parking is cheap.  Once a person is in their car to drive to the train at the highway they are likely to just stay in their car — no incentive to switch modes.

Another reason would have been the logistics of getting a line out the center of Hwy 40  Existing lines crossed 40 at Vandeventer and further east — both away from the highway construction zone.  As a city person that takes the train outward the center highway option would have delivered me to the center of a highway — not useful to me.

While in Chicago last weekend I visited two transit suburbs — Oak Park & Evanston.  Both developed around heavy rail transit.  St. Louis has no equal.  Ferguson, Kirkwood & Webster Groves are the closest we’ve got but these were more railroad towns than transit suburbs.

Above is Marion St. in downtown Oak Park,  IL.  At the end of the street a Metra stop crosses overhead.  These transit suburbs have the same formula — a few blocks of commercial around the stop and then detached single family homes.  You will have apartments above the retail and perhaps a corner apartment building but the housing is primarily single family.  Residents along these lines continue to support transit because the drive to downtown Chicago takes time and once there it is not cheap.

St. Louis never had such a system.  Our suburbs never developed as Oak Park or Evanston did.  Attempting to retrofit transits systems later is a major challenge. Putting rail down a highway, if you could, is not going to make the highway suburb transit friendly.

St. Louis did have a complete streetcar network in the city and inner-ring suburbs.  Returning to such makes sense both functionally and economically.  Running light rail down the center of a highway out to suburbs built around the car would have been a major waste of money.  Of course we wasted tons of money having to put much of the light rail extension underground rather than at grade as it should have been.

We’ve got to figure out the best way to weave transit into our non-transit friendly region.  To me that is maintain our current light rail system with streetcar & buses serving the core (city + inner ring suburbs) and buses to serve the areas outside the core.

– Steve Patterson

Planning & Promotion Continues for Loop Trolley

Yesterday I attended an Economic Development Forum sponsored by the Loop Trolley.  Guest speaker,  Portland developer John Carroll, spoke about the benefits he has seen in Portland over the last decade.

The streetcar/trolley is not the most efficient way to get persons from point A to B.  That would mode would be the bus.  However, as our speaker pointed out, the permanence of a fixed rail helps entice development.

It was December 5, 2005 that the ribbon was cut on the two restored streetcars used to promote the Loop Trolley.  I was there that day:

That day I wrote:

One could argue that the loop, both East and West, is going fine and doesn’t need the federal dollars that it will likely receive to move this project forward. I agree philosophically. Cherokee Street comes to mind [as] a commercial street that could benefit from an exciting transportation system such as this trolley system. But Cherokee Street doesn’t have a Joe Edwards pushing for anything. So I say build the trolley not where it is needed most but where we can get it built and where it will get used.

Once built, the region, I hope, will demand more streetcars throughout the city and region.

In the nearly four years since I wrote the above I have experienced streetcar systems in San Francisco, New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, Seattle, Portland and Toronto.  Quite the list and quite different from each other.  Some are old systems that have remained in operation.  Others are new with restored, reproduction and modern vehicles.  I’ve attended two Rail-Volution conferences since then — Chicago in 2006 and Miami Beach in 2007.

The Loop area is so named because of the streetcar line that used to make a loop and turn back toward downtown.  The western end is in the municipality of University City.  In recent years the restaurants & shopping have expanded east of Skinker in the City of St. Louis.

Loop’s leader Joe Edwards want to return a streetcar (er, Trolley) to Delmar.

The blue line on the left shows the route as planned.  It simply would go from the Lion gates at the west end to De Balivere at the east and then loop around the Missouri History Museum on the edge of Forest Park.  Along the short route it would pass two MetroLink light rail stations (Delmar & Forest Park).  Would the trolley be transit overkill?  At first I thought so.

But between these two stations and all along the proposed route there are plenty of development opportunities.  Development around light rail stations happens in rings whereas development along streetcars follows the line — impacting far more real estate and reaching more people.  More bang for the buck basically.

Plus I want to get a system in operation in St. Louis so that it can be expanded to serve more of the city.  The lines on the map above are my most recent ideas for potential extensions (a variation on earlier thoughts).

One idea is to take a line into Forest Park to reach the Art Museu, Zoo,  and Muni.  This would be a great way to get an overview of the park and it could reduce the need for more parking.  Next I’d extend a line north through what is now the Ruth Porter perdestrian mall.  At the very least go up to Page and come back south on Goodfellow.  The biggest extension would continue east on Delmar.

After crossing Kingshighway the eastbound track would go down Washington, one block south of Delmar.   This would widen the impack of the investment.  It would jog down to Olive at Vandeventer and then straight line into the CBD.  The return line would pass the MetroLink light rail station at 6th & Washington as well as pass the convention center.  Joe Edwards said he felt a streetcar line could give St. Louis the nod when competing with other cities for a conventions.  A streetcar passing between the convention center and convention hotel would be a natural draw.  Visitors could easily be enticed to hop on the line to see the sights along the route — getting an overview to help them where to decide where to dine.

At Tucker I show the westbound line going west on Locust rather than Washington.  This puts is only a block off the eastbound track on Olive, avoids messing up the expensive streetscape on Washington between 12th & 18th and, as a bonus, it would run past my front door at 16th & Locust.

Of course it can’t all be just east & west.  Above I show a north-south pair of lines on Vandeventer & Sarah.  Around Jefferson Paul McKee is planning a north line for his NorthSide project.  I’d want a line or two heading south as well.  I’d like to be able to reach all parts of the city via streetcar.  Perhaps  if I live another 50 years?  But the lines shown above are realistic and they could, over time, work to increase our population and job base.  We could become the type of city that retains young graduates from laces like Saint Louis University and Waashington University.

To learn more about the Loop Trolley consider attending the public open house at 4pm on July 8th, Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar, 4 to 7 p.m.

– Steve Patterson

The Page Avenue Extension

Missouri Highway 364, more commonly known as the Page Extension, does not lay within the St Louis city limits. Just a few miles of it are even in St. Louis county. And yet it stands as a prime example of state and federal policies that is working against urban renewal in the city. Before I go much further, let me state that I am an avid user of the highway and the associated bridge.

The highway was originally planned back in the 80’s and a history of the project can be seen here along with an overview here. At that time there were three bridges connecting St Charles Co. to St Louis, I-70, US 40, and the Rock Road. Of the three only I-70 was a high speed travel corridor. US 40 had traffic signal intersections and the Rock Road dumped into the City of St Charles. Since then the Rock Road bridge has been torn down, I-64 has been extended along 40, and 370 & 364 have been added. This gives drivers four high-speed choices to cross the Missouri river, for a combined sixteen lanes of traffic. Upon completion of the Page extension project, it will extend almost to the 70-40 interchange in Wentzville. Drivers originating in Wentzville and beyond will have four different ways to get into St Louis Co without a single traffic signal.

What purpose does this road serve? Anyone who has driven on it can easily answer that question. It gets workers living in St Charles Co to their jobs in St Louis City and Co. The morning rush hour has a large flow of vehicles into St Louis with barely a trickle going the opposite way. It is reversed for the evening rush hour. On the weekend it is used so sparsely, I doubt most drivers would notice if the bridge was not there. Therefore, almost the entire purpose of this road is to make it easier to work in St Louis and live in St Charles.

All major projects need funding. The first phase was funded partially by Congress in the Pipeline Safety Act of 1992. The second phase, currently under construction, is getting a large chunk of funding from the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This money was added to the pot of cash already provided for by the state to make this new artery possible. And this is where the project becomes a policy debate. Lawmakers in Jefferson City and Washington deemed it necessary to spend state and federal dollars to make it easier to not live in St Louis if a person has a job there.

People were migrating to St Chuck as part of white flight before all the new concrete was laid the last two decades. How many would continue to move out there if it was not so convenient? This convenience will hamper any efforts to revitalize the city, like the planned Northside development. For that development to work it needs to attract a large population of people living in the suburbs. Relocating people already living in the city would be zero growth and no new tax base.

So we have a government working against the city. Until that changes it seems liked the deck is stacked against urban renewal. That does not mean it will not happen, just that until there is a policy change it is going to be harder than it should. The solution to the problem leads to a conflict of interest. Lawmakers would need to make it inconvenient to live in the far flung suburbs. Their constituents probably would no longer support them and no lawmaker wants to work themselves out of office. I have no idea how to get lawmakers to do what is better in the long term as opposed to what will get them re-elected. And I do believe increasing the number of quality urban walkable neighborhoods is better in the long term.

– Kevin McGuire