Foods trucks at Third Degree’s recent open house

Food truck events, on the other hand, aren’t so convenient for those of us who’re disabled. Walking across grass, which is often uneven, is not an easy task. For some, it’s impossible.

The able-bodied can easily line up in grass.

For a few years now cities coast to coast have wrestled with accessibility of popular food truck events, so no citizens are excluded from participation. In 2011 Napa, CA halted a friday night event until a more accessible location could be found (source).

I’m asking local organizers to consider everyone when planning a food truck event.

– Steve Patterson

Last month (April 2013) the exterior of the new law school was basically complete, with new glass elements and a new top floor.

The same building in September 2012

But this post isn’t about the alterations to the building, this post is meant to help faculty, staff & students understand how to use the MetroBus system.

The distance between the current law school on the main SLU campus and the new building is 2.3 miles via Lindell/Olive & Tucker. Driving time is 9 minutes end to end, but no parking is available at the ends, so walking time needs to be added.

Taking the #10 (Gravois Lindell) MetroBus is 16 minutes, per Google Maps, including walking time.  Time on the bus is 11 minutes plus 5 for walking, so taking the bus is competitive with driving in this example.

Those going from the main campus can catch the #10 in one of two places: on Lindell east of Spring or Lindell east of Grand. You’ll exit the bus on just after it turns on 14th St., next to the Ford Building.

Riders returning the SLU main campus can catch the #10 at this bus stop at 14th & Pine, the Ford Building at left is the stop for those going to the law school.

In the opposite direction you’ll walk two blocks west along Pine to the stop shown above. You can exit at Grand to Spring for the main campus.

Frequency is every 30 minutes, 40 minutes after 11pm. The #10 line is the bus I use most often, the 30 minute frequency isn’t a problem when you know the schedule. I personally don’t use the printed schedule, I just check the times on the Google Maps iPhone app (or online) as needed.

The bus route number is shown on the front left followed by the the final destination. This example is the #70 (Grand) MetroBus heading NB.

The route number & destination is also displayed on the curb side of the bus, just behind the door.

Here are some other things to remember:

1. Make sure you look for your bus, if you are busy reading the bus driver may not realize you want to board and pass you.
2. Transfers offer a good value. Say you board the bus at 10:30am and pay $3 ($2 fare + $1 transfer), you’ll get a transfer good until 1pm!
3. Bus drivers can’t offer change, so having $1 bills is a good idea, a monthly pass is $72. Hopefully a new SLU administration will join the Metro campus programs like St. Louis Community College, Washington University, and University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL).
4. Let others get off the bus before boarding, when you exit use the back door rather than the front door. This reduces delays.
5. You’ll need to pull the cord to signal you want to stop at the next bus stop.
6. Don’t be afraid to sit toward the back, the front seats must be given up for elderly & disabled passengers.
7. Other MetroBus lines within 2 blocks of the law school include: 30, 41, 74, 94, 97, 99. Four blocks away at 14th & Market adds the 4 & 11.

Anyone else have any positive advice?

– Steve Patterson

South Hanley ducks under railroad tracks.

Q: How should St. Louis County reduce auto congestion between Hanley & Watson?

1. Focus on transit, bicycling and walking solutions 60 [57.14%]
2. Build proposed “South County Connector” partially-elevated roadway 25 [23.81%]
3. Do nothing 16 [15.24%]
4. Unsure/no opinion 4 [3.81%]

The pro-Trailnet crowd combined with the “do nothing” group total a whopping 72.38% that didn’t select the built it option.

A public meeting will be held Thursday May 30th.

The South County Connector Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will be available for public review and comment from Friday, May 3, 2013 to July 19, 2013. During the review period, the St. Louis County Department of Highways and Traffic will host a public hearing for the Draft EIS on Thursday, May 30, 2013 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Shrewsbury City Center (located at 5200 Shrewsbury Avenue, Shrewsbury, Missouri 63119).

The public hearing is an opportunity for interested persons to give testimony concerning the Draft EIS, including potential social, economic, and environmental impacts of the proposed roadway alternatives. Representatives of the South County Connector Study Team will also be available to provide information and answer questions about the Draft EIS at an open house meeting held at the same time as the public hearing. No formal presentation will be made. Display boards and copies of the Draft EIS will be available for review at the open house meeting. (South County Connector)

If you are among those who don’t think this project should move forward please contact all of the following:

• The study team (link with form and email address)
• The St. Louis County Council (this is in the 5th district)
• St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley

We’ve invested millions in transit, now is the time to double-down on transit to get a return on our existing infrastructure investment.

– Steve Patterson

First let’s take a quick look at the area:

Sign for Kenrick Plaza at Watson Rd and Trianon Parkway Drive, looking east

Sign at Trianon Parkway Drive, looking west

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The now-closed Kenrick Cinema is located on the west side of Trianon Parkway.

A report prepared by PGAV details how Kenrick Plaza is in bad physical condition, the layout doesn’t work well (former Burger King blocks views of retail space behind, etc.) and it doesn’t work for people with disabilities.

Here’s the proposed site plan, which includes cutting off public access to Watson Rd for many houses, leaving one entrance off of Laclede Station as the sole way in and out, with an exception for cutting through the private “lower Kenrick Plaza” area.

Proposed site plan, click image to view larger version on Scribd.

The same report talks about the new proposal…

COMPLIANCE WITH THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

The Comprehensive Plan for the City of Shrewsbury (the “Comprehensive Plan”) dated March 1970, designates the land use for the Area to be commercial. The Comprehensive Plan, drafted as the Kenrick Seminary lands became open for development, envisioned the land uses immediately adjacent to Watson Road as a commercial corridor that would bring the City’s percentage of commercial land up to 10.4% from a meager 3%. The City was heavily dominated by residential and institutional uses and lacked significant commercial acreage.

The Comprehensive Plan was followed in the original construction of Kenrick Plaza as a commercial district supporting the surrounding residential development that largely lacked retail, entertainment, and restaurant options within close proximity. Also accommodated in the Comprehensive Plan was the construction of one or more television towers. This redevelopment plan maintains the Area as commercial land use consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and accommodates the existing television tower. The map depicting future land use included in the Comprehensive Plan specifically and clearly designates the Area for commercial land use.

Oh good, it complies with the 1970 “Comprehensive Plan”! Apparently nothing in Shrewsbury has changed in the last 43 years. I want to point out a few big red flags about this proposal:

A sidewalk along Watson Rd with “decorative lighting” every 75 feet but you must walk in the auto driveways if you want to shop.

Residents used to driving/walking to Watson Rd will no longer be able to do so, nor can they or their kids/grandkids walk to the store to get bread & milk.

View looking south toward Watson along Trianon Parkway from the last side side street before access to be cut off.

Shrewsbury should be requiring more connections, not fewer.

206 Accessible Routes

206.1 General. Accessible routes shall be provided in accordance with 206 and shall comply with Chapter 4.

206.2 Where Required. Accessible routes shall be provided where required by 206.2.

 206.2.1 Site Arrival Points. At least one accessible route shall be provided within the site from accessible parking spaces and accessible passenger loading zones; public streets and sidewalks; and public transportation stops to the accessible building or facility entrance they serve.

EXCEPTIONS:

1. Where exceptions for alterations to qualified historic buildings or facilities are permitted by 202.5, no more than one accessible route from a site arrival point to an accessible entrance shall be required.

2. An accessible route shall not be required between site arrival points and the building or facility entrance if the only means of access between them is a vehicular way not providing pedestrian access.

 Advisory 206.2.1 Site Arrival Points. Each site arrival point must be connected by an accessible route to the accessible building entrance or entrances served. Where two or more similar site arrival points, such as bus stops, serve the same accessible entrance or entrances, both bus stops must be on accessible routes. In addition, the accessible routes must serve all of the accessible entrances on the site.

Advisory 206.2.1 Site Arrival Points Exception 2. Access from site arrival points may include vehicular ways. Where a vehicular way, or a portion of a vehicular way, is provided for pedestrian trvel, such as within a shopping center or shopping mall parking lot, this exception does not apply.

206.2.2 Within a Site. At least one accessible route shall connect accessible buildings, accessible facilities, accessible elements, and accessible spaces that are on the same site.

EXCEPTION: An accessible route shall not be required between accessible buildings, accessible facilities, accessible elements, and accessible spaces if the only means of access between them is a vehicular way not providing pedestrian access.

Advisory 206.2.2 Within a Site. An accessible route is required to connect to the boundary of each area of sport activity. Examples of areas of sport activity include: soccer fields, basketball courts, baseball fields, running tracks, skating rinks, and the area surrounding a piece of gymnastic equipment. While the size of an area of sport activity may vary from sport to sport, each includes only the space needed to play. Where multiple sports fields or courts are provided, an accessible route is required to each field or area of sport activity. (2010 ADA Standards)

In short this says it is ok to require pedestrians to use an auto drive to a facility like a Starbuck’s but that exception isn’t applicable to a shopping center. Elsewhere in the same link as above, the term “shopping center” is defined as:

(A) A building housing five or more sales or rental establishments; or

(B) A series of buildings on a common site, either under common ownership or common control or developed either as one project or as a series of related projects, housing five or more sales or rental establishments. For purposes of this section, places of public accommodation of the types listed in paragraph (5) of the definition of “place of public accommodation” in section § 36.104 are considered sales or rental establishments. The facility housing a “shopping center or shopping mall” only includes floor levels housing at least one sales or rental establishment, or any floor level designed or intended for use by at least one sales or rental establishment.

Developer G. J. Grewe and Architect TRi should be ashamed for submitting such a plan, this isn’t 1970 despite the fact Shrewsbury’s comprehensive plan hasn’t been updated.

As I was finishing this post yesterday I received an email from Shrewsbury Mayor Felicity indicating “accessibility is being addressed with sidewalks from the bus stop to the stores.”  The site plan on the Shrewsbury website is a preliminary concept. I requested an updated copy but I have not received it.

UPDATE 5/22/2013 @ 3:30pm:

At 3pm I received from Shrewsbury Director of Administration, Jonathan Greever, a PDF copy of ”of the current special use permit site plan. This document is limited in that it does not address the entire site and its intended use is not for construction. The purpose for this document is different than that of a fully engineered plan. As stated previously, the final engineered plans have not been generated.” You can view it on Scribd here.

– Steve Patterson

Let’s start downtown and work our way north. At 14th & Olive you have the library on the NE corner and the library administration building & a charter high school on the NW corner. I think the library admin building has office space available for lease.

The parking lot at 14th & Locust is privately owned, a good candidate for new construction. Photo is from 2007 before the charter school added another floor to their space on the left.

1400 Washington has had numerous development plans, it is now becoming a parking lot, same owner as the previous lot across the alley.

I’d like to see these two buildings on Washington Ave west of 14th get renovated, along with a thin wedge between the east wall and 14th. Photo from 2011.

Before we go any further north it makes sense to look at the route on a map along with a development zone on each side of the line. Light rail has stations miles apart, whereas streetcars are more like buses by having more frequent stops along the route.

The blue line is the proposed streetcar route, green about 660ft (1/8th mile) and the red about 1,320ft (1/4 mile). Purple is the new bridge connecting into Tucker.
Click to view in Google Maps.

The area between the green lines is the immediate area that I estimate to be part of a special transportation district with slightly higher property taxes, pro-rated based on distance.  The red lines are a quarter mile distance, the usual distance a person is willing to walk.

Quite a bit of this area is in what will be one of the Northside Regeneration job centers.

Numerous parking lots occupy significant land north of Washington Ave, ideal candidates for new construction.

A former BarnesCare building built in 2001, is now vacant. With no pedestrian access and large setbacks from both MLK & 14th this building should be razed and a new urban building constructed on the site.

Hogan Trucking uses two city blocks, Carr St has been vacated. Interestingly the property owner is listed as Hogan Redevelopment Corp.

This site must legally remain a public park, as it has been since 1842.
Click image for more information.

Many would love to see the crumbling Carr School get renovated. Click image for more information on this 1908 structure.

7.9 acres ready for development, the original lot boundaries remain since they were never consolidated.

The 14th & O’Fallon St bus stop is always busy, but that hasn’t spurred development to date. This stop is currently served by the #32 & #74 MetroBus routes

On the west side of 14th, south of Cass, is the O’Fallon Place Apartments owned by McCormack Baron Salazar.

Looking NW on N. Florissant from 14th, vacant land and mostly vacant buildings are all around.

The Mullaphy Emigrant Home at 1609 N. 14th could finally get renovated if the streetcar connects the near-north side to downtown. Click image for more information on this historic structure.

Looking back toward downtown we see evidence of disinvested in the area along N. Florissant near Madison St. The city says property owners are responsible for sidewalks but in this case the city is the property owner.

The City of St. Louis is the legal owner of the 668 sq ft wedge-shaped lot at 1458 Madison St.

This small building at 2100 N. Florissant Ave was built in 1906, the owner is in St. Louis County.

A bank in Illinois now owns the unfinished daycare at 1501 Clinton & 1500 Monroe. The buildings to the north are owned by several owners, including the LRA & Northside Regeneration.

The mostly vacant St. Liborious complex at Hogan & North Market is a city landmark, it is privately owned. Click image for more information.

Vast open areas are prime for redevelopment along the proposed streetcar route. This is north of North Market on the west side of North Florissant

The vacant gas station at 2418 N. Florissant was built in 1972.

Two blocks north at 2618 N. Florissant is another vacant gas station, this building has been modified many times since 1938.

This building, owned by a person in Atlanta GA, needs to be replaced. The Church’s Chicken could operate out of a storefront in a new building.

This building from 1940 should be replaced.

This bank was built in 1993 after the urban bank at the corner of N. Florissant & St. Louis Ave was razed, despite neighborhood objections. This should be replaced with an urban building on the corner.

The NE corner of N. Florissant & St. Louis Ave. had a cute diner until 1998

With so much vacant land & buildings, this stretch of the proposed streetcar line has the greatest potential for redevelopment. It will also be a challenge initially to get projects funded. Once the line is open and Paul McKee builds one of his job centers near Tucker & Cass things will start to take off. Form-based codes requiring dense urban design will be key to getting the right kind of construction.

It’ll take at least a decade, if not two, for this to be built out.

– Steve Patterson

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The poll is in the right sidebar until May 26th, results presented May 29th.

– Steve Patterson

Nearly every tree around the property looks like this, completely dead.

Some will say the city is a harsh environment for street trees, the road salt and chemicals used to clear snow & ice from streets is too much for new trees to handle. Perhaps, but when half the root ball is above the level of the adjacent sidewalk the tree is going to dry out and die. If it happens to survive it will eventually bust the sidewalk as shallow roots seek water.

These trees never had a chance for survival.

How should it be planted? Deeper!

A properly planted tree will have the root ball up to 4″ below the level of the sidewalk. Source: Arlington VA, click to view larger version.

I don’t know if a contractor for the new building or the city planted these trees, whomever it was did a poor job.

– Steve Patterson

From October 2008:

Owners of the vacant St. Louis Hills Office Center at 6500 Chippewa Street last week received preliminary approval from the St. Louis Board of Adjustment to do interior and exterior renovations on the five-story brick building.

In meeting with neighbors, they also have resolved some, but not all of the concerns of surrounding residents about traffic, parking and other issues.

The board required that cars going from the center’s parking lot into an adjacent alley turn right toward Chippewa. There also must be a privacy fence. (Suburban Journal)

The wing had already been torn off by that point. Let me show you the problem…

The St. Louis Hills Medical Center facade facing Chippewa St.

The original 1950s entrance wasn’t accessible to all.

A few years ago a deteriorated wing was removed and new entry created.

The new entry is accessible if you arrive by car and park in the parking lot.

A route was provided for pedestrians to enter the building, but it contains a flight of stairs. No ramp was provided as required by the ADA.

View of entry from base of stairs

View of pedestrian route from entry

View from entry across parking lot to automobile drive off Bancroft Ave.

In case you missed it, the problem is the provided pedestrian route isn’t accessible to everyone. If a pedestrian entrance is provided, everyone must be able to use it.

Presumably a licensed architect was involved in this project, their errors & omissions insurance may be paying for a ramp.

– Steve Patterson

Finally the city to placed signs on the meter of the spaces that were permitted for valet service, including days of the week and hours of operation. The valets continued to take more spaces than given, again inconveniencing the general public. For example, until recently, we had three different valet stands in the two city blocks of Washington Ave between 10th and Tucker (12th), two were directly across the street from each other!

The city has permitted valet on Thursday-Saturday evenings after 6pm. Lately the city did something it should’ve done 8 years ago — created a central valet zone to cover these two blocks. So now on Tucker from St. Charles St to Washington Ave you have a bus stop and a valet zone. This area didn’t have any on-street parking before, it was just excessively wide.

Half the block from St. Charles St to Washington Ave is now designated for valet parking 3 nights per week after 6pm. Copia, Prime 1000 & Mosaic customers now valet here.

Valet problems are solved, right? Wrong! The valet companies still feel they have the right to take public parking whenever and where ever they like.

Valets covered two meters in front of Prime 1000 on Monday May 13th, I took this photo at 3:50pm.

Empty spaces mean the city isn’t getting revenue to pay off bonds to cover parking garage debt. Since it was before 5pm I was able to email the above pic to the appropriate people so they could come out and tell them they couldn’t do this.

I personally don’t care if valeting happens 7 days a week, as long as it is in the central spot on Tucker so the public spaces remain available for the public to use.

– Steve Patterson

Cupples 2 (left, renovated) and Cupples 7 (right, slated for demolition by the city)

No surprise in the poll last week, readers are opposed to the city razing the Cupples 7 warehouse building, here are the results from the poll last week:

Q: The city plans to raze Cupples 7; support or oppose?

1. Strongly oppose 65 [44.52%]
2. Oppose 31 [21.23%]
3. Support 24 [16.44%]
4. Unsure/No Answer 10 [6.85%]
5. Strongly support 9 [6.16%]
6. Neutral 7 [4.79%]

Nearly half “strongly opposed” to razing the building. If they’re like me, they’d risk collapse while holding out for a developer with deep pockets.

When we simplify the results the contrast becomes even stronger: two-thirds are opposed.

2/3rds of readers were opposed to demolition

Yesterday I met with Treasurer Tishaura Jones and Cupples 7 was one of the topics we discussed. Per the previous treasurer, that office must buy the bank note on the property if the city demolishes the building. Jones told me they don’t have any definitive plans for the site once it is cleared. I suggested a transparent process to get the community involved in brainstorming ideas.

I want to see a building, not parking or green space.

– Steve Patterson