Portion of Delor Bridge Collapses onto I-55

Tonight, just two blocks from my house, a portion the Delor St. bridge collapsed onto I-55 below. The massive section of concrete, the sidewalk and railing, fell to the highway below, blocking all four northbound lanes. A single car seems to have run into the concrete, luckily not ending up under the concrete.

The image above is looking east from the intersection of Minnesota & Delor (google map). You can see the section of concrete completely blocking the lanes as well as the car. I returned north to be able to get under the highway at Broadway so that I could get to the other side.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_cYo25iMR4[/youtube]

As you can see from the above video, a section of the sidewalk & railing along the north side of the bridge gave way.

So we are preparing to spend the next few years and half a billion dollars rebuilding I-64 (hwy 40) all the while the Mayor is calling for a billion dollar bridge across the Mississippi River. And yet, it seems, we can’t maintain the infrastructure we already have. Even our mass transit system, MetroLink, has deferred maintenance issues. True, this might be a freak accident but this is one of our oldest stretches of highway with questionable bridge structures.

Last week I received a questionnaire from MoDot asking if I, as an area resident, use the pedestrian bridge located a block north at Itaska. Obviously they are looking at this section of highway for a future round of upgrades. At this point we have so many miles of roads & bridges that the upgrading never ends. Sadly, the number of miles per capita continues to increase meaning each of us is responsible for funding more and more infrastructure.

Mississippi River Bridge: Last Option is the Best Option

A proposed new bridge across the Mississippi River is back in the news of late. Missouri and Illinois still cannot agree on how to pay for the bridge “now estimated to cost between $999 million and $1.76 billion.” (P-D 2/1/07). Call me a synic but if they are estimating such a range I’m going to go with the high end or better when the final bill is paid. In no way do I believe that it would come in under a billion. I’m going to go with $1.5 billion.

So we have several choices: the big highway bridge, a more cost-effective “coupler” built near the existing King Bridge and lastly we have a proposal to fix some of the existing interchanges, a new I-64 interchange in Illinois and redo parts of Illinois Route 3. The feds have already earmarked $239 million for the bridge project — money that presumably can go for this work. Interestingly, these little third option strategies are all items that need to be done anyway. I say stop wasting time on the bridge debate and get to work on fixing the areas that need fixing. Get the bottleneck areas resolved. Is this too short term and not the long-range planning I prefer we do? Perhaps.

I still question the “need” for a new bridge, especially one costing over a billion dollars to construct. Keep in mind that the old McKinley bridge will be reopening for traffic (including cyclists) in September connecting just north of downtown to Illinois Route 3 to Granite City and Madison County. This combined with the King Bridge and Eads Bridge into downtown can handle considerable local traffic. The new bridge as proposed will, in my view, simply shift sprawl from the Western edge of our region (St. Charles County) to the far Eastern edge of the region. Proponents say this will help re-center the City of St. Louis within the region. I suppose that is true, but so would curbing the sprawl through various Smart Growth measures employed by other regions. A billion or so would do wonders in the region for curbing sprawl and building more localized transit.

Frankly, if someone wants to buy a big house way out in Illinois and doesn’t like the traffic on I-64 they have several choices. One, move closer so the drive is not so long. They can get off the highway and take local streets that will get them across the river on other bridges besides the Poplar Street Bridge (aka the PSB). They can utilize the excellent MetroLink light rail system that serves a good portion of St. Clair County in Illinois or bus service to the city from Madison County Transit. Perhaps Illinois with its substantial transportation funding could help out Madison County by helping fund their proposed MetroLink extension.

This bridge, if finally built will not grow our region. It will simply shift suburban sprawl around a bit — a zero sum gain for the region. And simply put, the more lanes you build the more volume will increase putting you right back where you started at some point. As we’ve seen in the past, the city will remain a pass-through. Let’s fix the areas that need fixing and then work on moving people & jobs closer to the center — both in Illinois and Missouri.

Circus Day Foundation Offers Lessons in Life & Juggling

Yesterday I attended the annual bike swap meet organized by the St. Louis Regional Bike Federation. As always, the event grew ever larger — attracting more vendors and more customers. This year we had entertainment, the St. Louis Arches — a youth circus group that takes classes at the City Museum through the Circus Day Foundation. The foundation’s mission statement:

Circus Day Foundation teaches the art of life through circus education. We work to build character and expand community for youth of all ages, cultures, abilities and backgrounds. Through teaching and performance of circus skills, we help people defy gravity, soar with confidence and leap over social barriers, all at the same time.

They answer the question you may be asking, why circus?

Circus is a performing art that children and adults appreciate and value. Circus Day Foundation uses circus arts to teach and inspire children of all ages and backgrounds. Our performances entertain and thrill audiences of all generations with the ageless delight of the circus.

Even more so than other sport, cultural or artistic activities, circus is not associated with any particular race or gender. Many arts or sports activities have either a gender or race bias. Circus combines both art and sports aspects, involving kids who might not normally consider doing anything artistic and kids who might not generally attempt anything physical. Circus has an across-the-board appeal that other sports and artistic fields do not have.

The life skills we learn, as children, are the tools we take with us into adulthood. If we teach children when they are young to overlook differences and focus on similarities, to focus on working together to fix something rather than abdicating responsibility and blaming instead, those skills could result in a more peaceful future. When you are trying to do a human pyramid, you need to know the technique and the terminology so that you and your partner are speaking the same language physically and verbally. You learn fairly quickly, that to succeed in performing the pyramid, you cannot blame each other if something goes wrong but you must figure out what you can do together to make it work. Whoever you are and wherever you are from, there is some circus skill that you can accomplish because circus is an art made up of a variety of skills.

Circus teaches life’s lessons. Participation requires cooperation, individual and group responsibility and control over mind, body and emotions. Children learn these skills through circus arts and apply them to everyday life. Circus teaches the art of life.

You could see it in the kid’s faces, they were having a really good time all the while working hard and really focusing on each other. We were treated to a wonderful show complete with gymnastics, balancing acts and juggling. Since it was a bike show, they concluded their 40-minute or so performance with bike tricks. Enjoy the show:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEXixZTaSc[/youtube]

For more information, including how to become a sponsor, visit circusday.org

5th Annual Bicycle Swap Meet and Classic Bike Show, Sunday January 28, 2007

From my friends at the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation…
5th Annual Bicycle Swap Meet and Classic Bike Show
Hosted by the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation
Sunday, January 28, 2007
12:00 Noon – 3:30 PM

Gateway Center
One Gateway Drive
Collinsville, IL 62234
(just 12 minutes from the Arch)

NEW THIS YEAR: Members of Circus Day Foundation’s St. Louis Arches youth circus troupe will perform using bicycles and unicycles combined with an array of circus tricks and skills at 1:00 p.m.

For more information: e-mail: swapmeet@stlbikefed.org, or phone: 314.707.5001
For directions and a map, click here [UrbanReviewSTL: it does say you can get to the center via bus or metrolink but I have not verified the route(s)]

Riding your bike to the Swap Meet? Click here for maps & cue sheet.

$5.50 admission fee starting at noon (free to St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation members and we’ll have a table where you can join at the event. Always free for children under 12)
Early Bird Entry: $10.50 will get you in the door at 10:30 a.m.
All admission fees include a $.50 surcharge for Gateway Center.
Hosted by St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation.

Individuals, bike shops, non-profits, and bike-related businesses will have booths with all sorts of bike related goods. Display your vintage bike, or vote for the best of the classic stingrays, balloon tire, middleweight, and special interest models. Enter a raffle for a brand new reproduction purple Stingray! Expert bike fitter, Tim Ray, will do bike fittings for a fraction of his usual fee. All proceeds from bike fittings will benefit the Bike Fed.
For some additional information and pictures of prior swap meets visit the official website.   To read about some of the 14 bike shops with booths at the meet continue below.
… Continue Reading

Urban Street Trees Help Protect Pedestrians

Urban street trees, those planted between the curb and sidewalk in the public right of way, serve a number of purposes. These tend to help give the street a visually narrower feeling, a form of traffic calming. The help separate the pedestrian from passing traffic which makes the sidewalk more pleasant. And, as you shall see, the row of street trees can help keep a pedestrian from getting hit by a car.

Some, such as MoDot (Missouri Department of Transportation) and entities such as QuikTrip will argue that street trees endanger motorists — if they drive off the road they might get killed by hitting a tree. They don’t want that kind of liability. Little concern is paid to the liability of hitting a pedestrian.

Today this truck, most likely speeding, slammed directly into a street tree on 18th street across from Union Station and a very short distance from the MetroLink station. I almost always see pedestrians on this sidewalk, as I did later in the day.

Look at how the front of this massive truck wrapped around the tree, what if had been a person(s) instead? Of course street trees do not form a solid barrier of protection, but they do help. Parked cars along a street help provide another barrier from cars hitting pedestrians on the sidewalk. Plus, parked cars are more forgiving than this tree.

Back in August I got picture of this car shortly after it hit a tree in front of Ted Drewes on Grand. Here the car did made it onto the sidewalk but luckly it did not hit the many people who were hanging out enjoying frozen custard.

About 8 years ago I witnessed a guy, showing off his new 5.0 (aka Mustang) to his girl, completely lose control from the same spot as this car — barely missing the tree and ending up in the middle of Ted Drewes’ parking lot. Luckily, that time of the year the business was closed and the place was empty.

Earlier this month this van hit the corner of a building I have listed for sale at 5411 Virginia (shameless plug, see listing). In this case the street has both street trees and on-street parking but they managed to miss those than hit the corner of the structure. This section of Virginia is heavily traveled by pedestrians, a bus stop is located in front of this property. The building only suffered superficial damage.

On-street parking and street trees have a very important role in the city where we do have pedestrians at risk from getting hit by out of control cars. Next time someone argues against allowing onstreet parking or street trees in the interest of safety just picture the above cases.