PR: City, Police Department, Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, and Downtown Community Improvement District Announce New Safety Measures on Washington Avenue

The following is a press release:
—
 The City of St. Louis, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, and the Downtown Community Improvement District today announced new measures to ensure everyone enjoying themselves on Washington Avenue is safe.
 
After an almost two-hour meeting this morning in the Mayor’s office, Lieutenant Colonel Antionette Filla announced the following changes:
 
•     Additional foot patrol officers will be added to Washington Avenue on Thursdays through Sundays from 11pm to 4am for visibility and enforcement.
•     Additional traffic officers will help control the flow of traffic on Thursdays through Sundays from 11pm to 4am.
•       The St. Louis Police Department officers will be conducting random safety checkpoints. These checkpoints will be at varied locations in the Washington Avenue entertainment district and police will be checking for drivers’ licenses, vehicle registrations, seatbelt violations, etc.
 
Maggie Campbell, president of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, announced the following changes:
 
•     Four Downtown CID Guides will be dedicated to Washington Avenue until 11pm.
•     The Downtown Partnership will add security cameras and monitor them.
•     A group of Washington Avenue stakeholders has formed an advisory group to make recommendations.
 
Jeff Rainford, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, announced the following:
 
•     There is no evidence that Sugar was responsible for the shooting Sunday night. In fact, calls for service at Sugar have dropped since restrictions were put in place last summer. Police say Sugar did have security in place Sunday night.
•     Sugar has voluntarily agreed to stop their under-21 nights in the interest of the neighborhood.  The Excise Commissioner will ask Sugar and 15 to restrict their customers to 21 and above late at night.
•     The City Counselor will draft legislation to create a curfew for people who are under 21 for Downtown.
•     The City Counselor will draft legislation to restrict underage people from being in liquor establishments late at night.
•     The City is considering legislation to require lighting and an attendant at parking lots and garages.
 
 
Jeff Rainford, Chief of Staff to Mayor Slay, Lieutenant Colonel Antionette Filla of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and Maggie Campbell, President of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis will be available for individual interviews.
 
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St. Louis City & County Go Smoke-Free In Less Than Two Months

St. Louis City & County, with some exceptions, will go smoke-free in less than two months, on January 2nd, 2011.

For some of us it can’t happen so enough while others fear the day or think their business is grandfathered.  Numerous businesses have been opting to go smoke-free all year to attract customers that might have stayed away previously.

I hope to post more detail on the regulations and the allowed exemptions.  But, like so many things, enforcement may come down to citizen complaints. Some establishment owners are going to try to get away with allowing smoking.

– Steve Patterson

Bike Rack Uncovered

On October 14th I posted about a bike rack hidden by cafe furniture (Sidewalk Cafes vs. Bike Parking)

I didn’t get around to emailing the post to anyone with the city. But I did send a pic to the Citizens Service Bureau via Twitter (@STLcsb) and they got it cleared quickly.

The sign is in the way but that is easily tossed aside.

– Steve Patterson

Reaching My Polling Place

My polling place is just under a mile west of my loft, just west of Jefferson at the Heritage House senior housing building located at 2800 Olive.  In the past few elections I have driven my car but I decided to use transit for yesterday’s election.  The bus ride was direct and short.

Exiting the bus at Leffingwell Ave & Olive St. I noticed the first problem, I couldn’t cross Leffingwell due to no curb ramp on the other side of the street. I needed to cross Olive St. anyway so I did that first.

Unfortunately, the same problem existed when trying to cross Leffingwell on this side of Olive.  Since I needed  to cross the street to vote I had to look for alternate places to cross.

Halfway down the block I found a place to cross, on the east side of Leffingwell was a drive from an alley and the other side was a driveway for my destination.  My first preference to cross a street is a signalized intersection.  Second is a 4-way stop and the least desirable is mid-block. I was well aware that

I have reported this lack of curb ramps to St. Louis’ Citizens Service Bureau via Twitter (@csbSTL).

– Steve Patterson

Update on Taxi Stand on Sidewalk

I’ve been blogging about the placement of a taxi stand on the sidewalk in front of the convention center for years, with few results. In January 2007 I posted this video of a taxi exiting the stand via the pedestrian crosswalk:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRusfBYJ-_8

That prompted the Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) to add bollards at the two crosswalk locations across Washington Ave.  This prevented the taxis from exiting onto the crosswalk but it didn’t address the primary problem: the former sidewalk was now occupied by taxis.  Where should the pedestrians walk?

Pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk in front of America’s Center has increased since the old St. Louis Centre pedestrian bridge came down but it has still been hard to capture the problem in still images or video.  But Sunday after the Rams game the sidewalks were packed and it became easy to photograph & video the problem with parking taxis smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian sidewalk.

The following video is seven minutes of people walking around the taxis, not riveting but telling of the problem.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CQb8asXp3A

Happily I think a solution is near, I will meet with the CVC next week to see a drawing of their concept on how to return the sidewalk space to pedestrians. I’m finally optimistic about the situation.

– Steve Patterson