Edwardsville HS To Build Tunnel To Get Students From Parking

For a minute I thought I was reading the great satire from The Onion but a quick glance confirmed I was reading the Belleville News-Democrat. The topic: It seems Edwardsville’s high school is going to spend $480,000 on a tunnel so they can stop busing students from an overflow parking lot across the street to the high school building. Why you ask? Apparently the road is too dangerous to cross. In fact, it is against school policy for students to cross the road.

District 7 Superintendent Ed Hightower stood with State Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Collinsville, State Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, Edwardsville Mayor Gary Niebur and Glen Carbon Mayor Rob Jackstadt to announce a $384,000 grant. The grant will cover 80 percent of the cost of the $480,000 tunnel. Hightower said the tunnel has been part of the overall plan for the Edwardsville High campus since its inception. [emphasis mine]

So from day one they planned such a sprawling campus on a road lined with sprawling subdivisions that a tunnel would be the best solution. Remember when small college towns were charming and quaint? It seems they like sprawl as much as the bigger urban areas.

The tunnel will provide a lighted, video-monitored walkway for students who park at the stadium lot and must cross Center Grove Road to get to the high school. Currently, more than 200 sophomores and juniors park at the stadium across the street from the high school and ride buses across the street, which sees more than 14,000 cars per day.

Students are forbidden to try to cross the street on foot, and are faced with a three-day in-school suspension if they are caught doing so, according to student council president Mallory Smith.

“It’s a major problem,” Mallory said, especially for students who stay late for events or meetings. Once the buses stop running, they must wait up to half an hour for someone to take them across in a golf cart.

A golf cart? You see why I thought this was something the crazy folks at The Onion came up with. The school is in the top half of the picture at right while the stadium and extra parking are on the lower half, south of Center Grove Road.

This is wrong on so many levels. First, looking at the map you can see that Edwardsville, a small college town with a cute downtown, has sprawled beyond belief. The resulting high school campus is equally sprawling and auto centric. To be fair to the high school, the college campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), doesn’t really relate to the town either. It is bad when our metropolitan areas experience sprawl but perhaps it is even worse when small towns get in on the act with disconnected cul-de-sacs, strip malls and big box centers all reachable only by car.

– Steve

Celebrate Your Independents Festival July 1, 2006

I’m passing along an announcement from my friends over at Business United for Local Independent Development, aka BUILD St. Louis:

Many things to like about this event: locally owned businesses, pie, good music, pie, art, pie, and bicycles. And what is better after a six mile ride? Pie! Well, and some Schlafly beer! Sounds like a great event.

On an aside, can you believe the Tap Room has been open since 1991? They’ve done a great job with their building over the years but despite all the events and such they have always been this little island in the area. Slowly the area has seen other development such as the Sporting News Lofts at 2020 Washington. Next year many other buildings in the area will have new residents. Just goes to show that sometimes it takes a while for a seed to germinate.

The BUILD St. Louis Celebrate Your Independents Festival will be held on the Tap Room’s parking lot. I hope to see this land become so valuable that surface parking no longer makes financial sense. Building new on their surface lot would be a nice evolution for the local brew pub.

– Steve

Latest Mississippi River Bridge Proposal Getting Warmer

In the past I’ve been a vocal critic of the mammoth Mississippi River Bridge proposal that originally was going to exceed a billion dollars. Recent revisions shaved that down to $900 million and some change. Besides the cost, I was not happy with the implications of the bridge ramps cutting into the near North side.

Thankfully Missouri has refused to fund their share of the project. Missouri has said the only way we can afford the project is if tolls are collected. Illinois complained it would then prove too costly for their residents as they would end up paying twice — once to fund Illinois’ portion and second as the main users paying tolls.

The stalemate has forced what may be a logical compromise. From yesterday’s Post-Dispatch:

Illinois is moving forward with an alternative to a new Mississippi River bridge – one that’s about half as big, about half as expensive, and would get around Missouri’s efforts to pay for the structure with tolls.A source familiar with the idea said the Illinois Department of Transportation has a conceptual plan in hand for a coupler bridge beside the existing Martin Luther King Bridge. The additional structure would carry four lanes of traffic, all of them westbound. Crews would renovate the existing King Bridge to carry three lanes, all eastbound. Currently, the bridge carries four narrow lanes.

I like the concept! It increases the lane capacity across the river yet without breaking the bank or decimating neighborhoods (well, hopefully not). This is, of course, the plan they should have come up with back in 2001. It might well be under construction at this point had they not gone off the deep end with such a wild scheme.

As with prior concepts, I-70 would be directed to this new bridge coupler. The idea being it would reduce traffic along the stretch of highway between downtown and the Arch as well as reduce traffic on the Poplar Street Bridge (I-64). I’m just not sure what this new concept will do to Laclede’s Landing.

With a new bridge built North of the existing King Bridge it opens a number of questions. How close to the current King bridge and what is in the way?

If immediately to the North of the existing King Bridge you’ll find an existing hotel as well as the horrible new casino project, under construction, in the path. Both are ugly so I suppose I wouldn’t mind. The dock for the President Casino is also a visual travesty so no loss there. However, I can’t see much savings by having to buy out these properties.

So will Illinois propose the new Westbound bridge land somewhat to the North such as inline with Carr or Biddle Streets? If so, this has some pros and cons. On the plus side it avoids having to buy out some expensive real estate. On the con side it further divides an area that has potential to become a real neighborhood. Keeping all the traffic confined near the existing King bridge would allow the area to the North to become more defined and a cohesive neighborhood with access to the North Riverfront Trail.

Here are some related prior posts:

Laclede’s Landing, December 2004 (includes rendering of casino and foul language)

Mississippi River Bridge, January 2005

Riverfront makeover, July 2005

Riverfront, I-70 lid and Mississippi River Bridge; August 2005

Mayor Slay on Bridge, August 2005

Mississippi River Bridge, November 2005

Mississippi River Bridge, the numbers, November 2005

I’ve written a lot more on this subject than I realized! Nothing gets me going like a billion dollars being spent on bad auto-centric planning. I’m just really curious to see what the proposal looks like on both the Missouri and Illinois sides. What are your thoughts on this latest twist?

– Steve

Olive: One Street, One Neighborhood, Two Wards

The Northern edge of the Central West End is a maze of street barricades. Nowhere is this more visible than the view where Washington & Olive come together just East of Euclid. This view is looking Eastbound along Washington (left) and Olive (right). Click here to view a map.

I wrote about this recently (see post) and since then I’ve had some calls & emails on the subject. As a result, I’ve done some additional research and want to discuss this further.

So here is the fun part. Olive, a once great road, is politically divided. One side of the street from Boyle Westward is in the 18th Ward (Terry Kennedy) and the other is in the 28th Ward (Lyda Krewson). Both sides of the street, however, are fully within the Central West End neighborhood. From an urban perspective the issues relating to the rebirth of this street do not fall into line with ward boundaries.

What is the big deal?

Say you are visiting the Green Market located on Washington just East of Euclid and you see the new Bowood Farms just down Olive. You can certainly walk from one to the other but barriers tend to have the “wrong side of the tracks” connotation. Here, one wonders, which is the good side and which is the bad side?

In the past barriers were used to help stabilize an area but of late these barriers have become such an established fixture they are now, in my view, preventing revitalization from expanding into formerly neglected areas. The view at right is a close up of Olive at Walton. On the left of the picture you are in the 18th Ward and on the right you are in the 28th Ward. Same street, same intersection. If one alderman has their barriers removed you’ll just see folks driving around the remaining ones to go the direction they want.

Olive East of Walton has seen some hard times. Lots of buildings have been razed over the years but many hopeful signs exist. I think these barriers are preventing this area from reaching its potential. People who need to get from A to B will find a way to do it. Right now I think that puts additional traffic along McPherson between Euclid and N. Taylor.

Just to the East of the above as we approach N. Taylor we see the remains of what was once a thriving neighborhood shopping district. A number of buildings have been renovated but they are still not fully connected to the neighborhood due to the barriers along Olive. Again, each side of the street is a different aldermanic ward.

A former school, Field School, is being renovated into apartments. An old apartment building next door is being converted into condos. This is all just East of N. Taylor. With all these new residential units coming onto line soon it is a perfect opportunity to connect this area to Euclid via Olive.

Further East along Olive we get to Newstead. This is in the 28th Ward and Newstead is closed to Olive, sorta. The private parking lot on the left of this picture has access to both Newstead and Olive — cars & trucks are simply cutting through to avoid the street closure. This shows a couple of things, people will find ways to get around street closures and that a need exists to get people from place to place — enough of a demand that we need to look at reopening these various closures.

It would be nice to see Ald. Kennedy & Ald. Krewston work together with local residents, business owners and the city’s planning staff to come up with some sort of plan for the area rather than just leaving barriers in place simply because they’ve been there for decades. Both Ald. Kennedy & Ald. Krewson are up for re-election in March 2007.

Additional photos in this area can be seen on Flickr.

– Steve

Forty Year Anniversary of Last St. Louis Streetcar

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the last streetcar to operate in regular service in St. Louis. On May 21, 1966 the #15 Hodiamont line ceased operations. From Streets & Streetcars of St. Louis by Andrew D. Young:

“This line opened in 1875 as a narrow-guage steam railroad running northwest on right-of-way from 4000 Enright through Wellston to Florissant.”

For 91 years this line had numerous technical changes but continued to serve the needs to those residents along the line. Many forces following WWII took their toll on streetcar systems: old equipment, GM’s interest in selling buses, road paving & widening projects, bridge replacement projects, and increasing suburban sprawl. While impossible to prove my theory, I believe that had St. Louis updated its streetcar system rather than shutting it down we would not have lost the population we have over these last 40 years. Of course, this assumes many other factors such as something to control sprawl and creative ways to keep lines running while bridges were replaced.

MetroLink, everyone keeps reminding me, is a regional system. While this is nice for everyone far away from the core it does little to benefit me in the core. I want a modern transit system to once again serve the City of St. Louis and it’s inner ring of suburbs. We are a city and we should not be dependent up our cars or typical bus service.

Of course it always come back to money. A regional system is being pushed because St. Louis County can potentially get the money from voters to help fun more of the system. I’m increasingly of the mindset we need to find a way in the city to pay for a localized system of new modern streetcars. I think I’d even settle for one of the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) lines as long as the vehicle that was selected was one that looked more like a rail transit vehicle than a bus.

We need both a regional and core system. The regional system cannot do work of a localized system nor can a local system do the job a regional system is expected to do. Light rail does a great job on the regional level but standard 40ft buses fall short at the local level. I’d like to see the light rail system remain in as much rail right-of-way as possible because that is where it does well. Streetscars, by contrast, are meant for streets.

Forty years is simply too long to have gone without a streetcar running down a city street. Maybe we’ll have enough vision to undo past wrongs.

– Steve