Rising Fuel Prices Make Mass Transit More Cost Effective

Not surprising is the fact that as fuel prices increase we see an increase in riders on St. Louis’ light rail – MetroLink. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Increased ridership, of course, is great news. More ridership will mean greater support for mass transit. But a downside does exist as well.

First, the cost to the system will increase even though the MetroLink cars are electric. Increased fuel costs will result in higher costs on nearly every good and service in the country. More directly, the cost of the electricity to run MetroLink will increase as well as diesel fuel for the buses. This increase in costs will put additional pressure on the agency to maintain service. It is estimated increased revenues from more riders will not offset higher operating expenses. Some will call for ending public subsidy of mass transit.

For decades the public has been subsidizing transit in a much different form – sprawl. From efforts to keep fuel costs down to paying for highways society has been footing the bill for the privilege of driving a private car. Nothing is more subsidized than the private automobile on a public street or highway.

With a monthly ridership of over a million passengers just think if we didn’t have MetroLink. That is over 35,000 riders per day on average. Without MetroLink we’d have many more cars on our roads for those that could afford a car. The costs of additional wear and tear on roads must be taken into account. The environmental impact of additional cars adding to our region’s smog would also add to the costs. Plus where would all the cars go? Would we tear down more of our historic architecture for yet more parking garages? The price of not having good mass transit would just be too high. We must support and use our mass transit systems.

For me MetroLink just isn’t between my normal A-B routes. I would love to see a street car come down South Broadway to connect downtown to Carondelet. It would be great to walk the few blocks from my home to Broadway to catch a street car. Maybe someday?

In the meantime, I’m going to look at bus routes to get me downtown for the occasional lunch at Curry In A Hurry, public meeting or First Friday gallery walk. It is not going to hurt me to take the bus on occasion. Getting on my bike for trips offers even greater benefits.

Citizens for Modern Transit
Metro – bus & light rail service
St. Louis Regional Bike Federation

– Steve

Biking to Brunch on Cherokee

Two miles is a short bike ride for most people and that is how far away the new Shangri-La Diner (2201 Cherokee, 772-8308) is from my house. A rode my bright orange Kronan bicycle and met a friend who rode from her loft downtown. As we were locking up our bikes to a street lamp post a couple from Tower Grove South rode up on their bikes – they locked to the handicap ramp railing.

Four bikes on one street corner on a Sunday morning. For the hour and a half we were there I saw a number of cyclists riding in both directions on Cherokee. St. Louis is becoming a cycling town. We are becoming, once again, an urbane city. The signs of urbanity are everywhere.

St. Louis needs a major program to install bike racks in commercial areas. I’m not talking about a few racks here and there but hundreds each and every year. This is not a build it they will come idea, the need is current.

– Steve

Discover the Potential of Ivanhoe Street

St. Louis has many great little neighborhood commercial streets and Ivanhoe between Arsenal and Fyler is one of the most charming. At this time Ivanhoe is neither bustling with activity or abandoned. Like many of St. Louis’ neighborhood commercial streets it is in that middle ground, just shy of being discovered.

Ivanhoe’s potential is great. Based on the scale it will never be a Delmar Loop or Cherokee Station, but that is OK. What it can be is an excellent street serving the adjacent blocks which contain mostly early 20th century single family residences. It also has the potential to become a place where folks like myself from outside the neighborhood go for shopping or dinner.

Located in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood and in the
23rd Ward the street is surrounded by an increasingly popular area to live. Unfortunately the Lindenwood Park website makes no mention of Ivanhoe. Their December 2004 Newsletter does mention a couple of new restaurants open. I’m not certain whom, if anyone, is working to market this street. On a side note, their newsletter shows bus routes on their map. Good idea!

Buildings on Ivanhoe range in size, height, use and age. This grouping of buildings is one of the best but if you look close you can see that some storefronts have had some unsympathetic remodeling.

Nevertheless, the bones are there for a charming street. Every time I’m on the street I begin to grin uncontrollably. It just feels good.

Sidewalks have a nice width and can certainly accommodate a good many pedestrians or sidewalk dining.

Speaking of sidewalk dining, this is the new Cafe Ivanhoe located at 3257 Ivanhoe. I haven’t eaten there so I can’t vouch for the food. The interior looked very nice but the menu was a bit too meat oriented for me.

Not every building on the street is commercial. Next door to Cafe Ivanhoe is a four family building. It was nice to see that someone had cycled to the area. Hopefully we’ll see bike racks included as part of future improvements.

In the middle of the area is a new mid-block parking lot. I’m not a fan of parking lots but with a couple of restaurants and the popular Babe’s Tavern I can see the street parking all being taken very quickly. Of note is the lack of parking meters both on the street and in the parking lot.

I mixed on the lack of meters. On one hand meters keep things active with people coming and going. It encourages turnover. On the other hand they add to street clutter and discourage some people.

I saved the best for last. Colossus is a new Greek restaurant on Ivanhoe with lots of indoor & sidewalk seating. Three generations of the family owned business were present during my lunch. If you need an excuse to check out the charm of Ivanhoe this is it.

– Steve

We Need a Trader Joe’s in the City of St. Louis

The Spring issue of “New Towns” just arrived in the mail today. Formerly known as Town Paper the quarterly focuses on Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND). There on page 12 is a story titled, “Little Trader Joe’s, Big Business,” which tells the tale of a Trader Joe’s in Old Town Alexandria, VA.

Trader Joe’s is such an awesome place to shop for groceries. I know many city dwellers that make the trek out to Brentwood to do their shopping. But where would be the best location?

Some ideas that crossed my mind are the old Aldi at Jefferson & Lafayette. Someplace downtown West of Tucker would be good but we don’t want to ruin business for City Grocers. Perhaps in Midtown near SLU? Perhaps on Delmar in the new East Loop area?
Anywhere closer than Brentwood!

What do you think? Have you been to Trader Joe’s in the St. Louis area or in other cities? Are you fine without a Trader Joe’s in the city? Can you see a Trader Joe’s fitting into the mix? Where would you like to see a Trader Joe’s in the city? Use the comments below to let me (and others) know what you think.

Also in this issue of New Town is a great insert with part of DPZ’s SmartCode – A Comprehensive Form-Based Planning Ordinance. This is available online as a 24-page PDF document (6.6mb). I highly recommend checking this out – click here.

– Steve

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers – Or Can We?

Late last year a very misguided urban planning student from St. Louis University sent me the following email. At the time I decided to ignore his comments but I saved it for future use. [UPDATE 4/11: – the email was receieved on January 19th not late last year. I was in the midst of a campaign I didn’t take the time to respond] Below is the full text of his email to me:

Based on feedback I receive, most people get what I want for the City of St. Louis – a pedestrian & bicycle-friendly urban environment. From my posts you can sense that I seek good connections for pedestrians, street trees, and vibrant neighborhoods. To answer his first question, no, I wouldn’t deem any recent development as pro-urban. Most developments are bigger projects and we just don’t get those right. But, St. Louis has many great urban areas. Those just happen to be those that we haven’t destroyed yet.

I’m not sure if I can continue. The ignorance of his comments….

Beggars can’t be choosers? Starving and decaying city? This is from the same person that says, “I am firmly dedicated to city living.” Yeah, right. Is this what SLU is teaching young planning students? If so the future of cities is doomed.

I’m not begging anyone to come to St. Louis. We are not starving and decaying. People left the city because federal programs guaranteed loans for sprawl (and built new highways) while bigots wouldn’t drink from the same fountain as other humans. People all over the world are drawn to dynamic urban environments, not sprawl.

– Steve