Site Analysis 101, Include Pedestrians/Cyclists

Developers, architects, engineers and politicians in the St. Louis region must collectively assume that 100% of the population drives their own private vehicle on 100% of their daily trips.  They must, how else can you explain what passes for new development in the region? Only development that will remain more than a mile from the nearest structure need not worry about pedestrian access to the site. Anything closer than 1/4 mile should assume that some users will approach by a mode other private automobile.

One of my first classes in architecture school, in the mid-1980s, was site analysis.  I still have my text from that class; Site Analysis: Diagramming Information for Architectural Design by Edward T. White, 1983.  Note that the Americans with Disabilities Act did not become law until 1990.

“We should always remember that a site is never inert but is an ongoing set of very active networks that are intertwined in a complex relationship.”

White suggests a “consequence triangle” as “a convenient model for understanding the network of contextual causes and effects and how they relate to other aspects and issues of our project.”  The triangle includes the building, users and context.

The factors White listed to consider, collect data on, and to diagram, are:

• Location
• Neighborhood Context – 3-4 blocks adjacent to site, existing & projected uses
• Size and Zoning – dimensional aspects of site, current and projected zoning trends
• Legal
• Natural Physical Features
• Man-Made Features
• Circulation – pedestrian & vehicular movement — quoted below.
• Utilities
• Sensory
• Human and Cultural
• Climate

Neighborhood Context:

Presents the immediate surroundings of the site for perhaps three to four blocks beyond the site boundary.  This may be extended further to an important factor or because of the scale of the project. Map may show existing and projected uses, buildings, zoning and any other conditions that may have an impact on our project.

Size and Zoning:

Documents all the dimensional aspects of the site including boundaries, location and dimensions of easements and present zoning classification with all its dimensional implications (setbacks, height restrictions, parking formulas, allowed uses, etc.) and buildable area (land available for the project after all setbacks have been subtracted).  Analysis should also document the present and projected zoning trends, plans by the city transportation department to widen roads (change rights of way) and any further trend that might affect our project in the future.

Circulation:

Presents all vehicular and pedestrian movement patterns on and around the site.  Data includes duration and peak loads for surrounding vehicular traffic and pedestrian movement, bus stops, site access edges, traffic generators, service truck access and intermittent traffic (parades, fire truck routes, concerts at nearby auditorium).  Traffic analysis should include future projections insofar as they can be made.

Clearly some of the above are dated — seldom do cities increase the width of the public right of way these days.  In places with modern zoning (not St. Louis), the urban site will have build-to lines rather than setbacks, minimum heights rather than maximums, bike parking requirements and so on.  The circulation part is still valid.  Vehicles include bicycles and motor scooters.  Pedestrians include the able-bodied as well as those with disabilities (physical, sight, hearing, etc).  The pedestrian part is what is so clearly overlooked by the professionals designing many recent projects.

They may say nobody walks in the area of their project yet a bus stop is on the edge of the site.  If you have a bus stop within a 1/4 mile you’ve got pedestrians. I’ve been so many places in our region where it seems like nobody walks at all but if you stick around long enough pedestrians begin to come from all directions.  They gather and shortly a bus appears, picking them up and dropping off others.  Those that just left the bus go in all directions.

It is not just about bus stops either.  Unless you are isolated in the middle of nowhere you have others around you.   Most will choose to drive to their destination but given the choice some will choose to walk (or bike). Designing places in such a way that a car is mandatory is just not how I was educated.  These concepts are freshman level but forgotten by many.   We need to remind them to consider all means of accessing sites.

– Steve Patterson

Father and Son

It is nice to see the St. Louis region make the New York Times, although of late it has done so for less than positive reasons (Limbaugh/Rams).  The latest brings up interesting issues:

O’FALLON, Mo. – With three small children and her marriage in trouble, Pat Bond attended a spirituality retreat for Roman Catholic women in Illinois 26 years ago in hopes of finding support and comfort.What Ms. Bond found was a priest – a dynamic, handsome Franciscan friar in a brown robe – who was serving as the spiritual director for the retreat and agreed to begin counseling her on her marriage. One day, she said, as she was leaving the priest’s parlor, he pulled her aside for a passionate kiss.

Ms. Bond separated from her husband, and for the next five years she and the priest, the Rev. Henry Willenborg, carried on an intimate relationship, according to interviews and court documents. In public, they were both leaders in their Catholic community in Quincy, Ill. In private they functioned like a married couple, sharing a bed, meals, movie nights and vacations with the children.

Eventually they had a son, setting off a series of legal battles as Ms. Bond repeatedly petitioned the church for child support. The Franciscans acquiesced, with the stipulation that she sign a confidentiality agreement. It is now an agreement she is willing to break as both she and her child, Nathan Halbach, 22, are battling cancer.  (full story, A Mother, a Sick Son and His Father, the Priest)

Let me state for the record that not only am I not Catholic, I don’t believe in a deity.  My thoughts here will be brief because this isn’t about my views.  I want to get your thoughts.

I believe the requirement that Catholic priests be celibate is the root of the problems they often have with women and/or children.   Male celibacy just isn’t natural. Where do I, a non-believer, get off making such a statement?

Victims of abuse have used the courts to seek resolution.  Once an issue leaves a church and enters a civil court it becomes fair game.  The Catholic Church should permit priests to marry, to have normal adult relationships.  This is the question in one of two polls this week (see right sidebar).

– Steve Patterson

Interracial Marriage Remains an Issue

Interracial marriage remains an issue for some:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

(Full article from the Associated Press: Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.)

I can’t believe a justice of the peace in 2009 would be so backwards.  Few of us can say for certain we are of a single race, mixing has been going on for centuries.     This issue is the subject of one of two pols this week, see right sidebar to vote.

We all know our president is the child of an interracial couple, he seemed to do alright for himself.  What bothers me is it seems like the interracial marriage issue only comes up when one party is black.  What about an Asian and an American Indian?  Would this justice of the peace object to that union? Probably not, we are hung up on black.  I just thought we were long past the point of a government representative blocking black & white marriages.

– Steve Patterson

Successful Northside Job Growth

The first phase of the Northside redevelopment project as proposed by Paul McKee is to focus on the “job centers” and mixed use areas. Numbers are being thrown around as to imply thousands of jobs will be created by this project. I wonder what measure will be used to declare the project a success with respect to jobs by those proposing the plan.

The project will require a lot of construction jobs, which is a fact. These are people that would not have been needed otherwise. The time frame of twenty years implies the jobs will be needed for an extended duration compared to most construction projects. Despite that scope and time frame, do construction jobs truly help grow the area? Even with such a long time frame the jobs are only temporary. It is unreasonable to assume that someone could graduate, make a career of the project, and retire when it is done. Based on retirement accounts requirements they would still have another twenty years of work.  Shouldn’t the expectation for jobs created be that the jobs are permanent? Yes,t his economy has shown that no job is truly permanent, But no matter the time frame  construction jobs are by nature temporary. The 40/64 concrete river project demonstrates that. When 40 is complete construction will continue in the region, but will all those workers stay in St Louis? I doubt it. Some of them will return when the new Mississippi bridge starts up in full. There will probably be projects after that, but I don’t want the fate of the region’s job growth to depend on never ending highway work.  Local restaurants can’t move around the region at will to follow the construction.  They need permanent customers to keep open.

Looking at the McKee track record for development makes me wary, too. He touts his Winghaven and NorthPark projects as examples of what he and his associates can accomplish. The two projects boast two of the regions larger employers in Express Scripts and MasterCard. Unfortunately both these employers were already in the region before they moved into their new offices.  More specifically, they were in the same city. Sorry, Maryland Heights, I hope you didn’t need those taxes. True, Express Scripts was threatening to leave the area and NorthPark help keep them here, along with some tax incentives. Also, MasterCard had outgrown its offices in Maryland Heights and needed new digs. But in the end, McKee merely helped keep jobs from leaving. Preventing negative growth is not the same thing as creating new growth. Who does McKee plan on luring into the north city for this new project? I doubt Edward Jones is going to give up all their brand new buildings along 270.  Do you think InBev is tired of the historic brewery yet?

Additionally, there is the dilemma of existing projects already in work to compete with. Winghaven still has space available for development. NorthPark is basically a field with nice streets. Express Scripts isn’t even in the development, instead choosing to be south of I-70 next to UMSL. The old Ford Plant has been wiped out of existence and Hazelwood is dieing to get some tax base back on that land. The current economy has opened up business space in areas like Earth City and Westport. The occupancy rate downtown offices are not that great. And these are just some examples of places in the region vying for new jobs. What if the Northside development center gets all the new jobs in the coming years and every where else in the metro area remains stagnant?

Finally, the current economic conditions do not bode well for new jobs. Every region of the country is going to fight to keep what they have. Other cities are constantly offering huge incentives to attract growth. Just look at what it took to keep Express Scripts. What exactly does Paul McKee have to offer to convince a company to move to St Louis when it is hard to keep the ones already here? St Louis will be wrangling with every other city in the country for each new job. Not to imply it is a contest St Louis cannot win, but it won’t be as easy as some people are implying. The Lou is not the only place that will be offering new buildings and tax incentives in the coming years. That still leaves the possibility of start-ups as the source of new jobs. Might the next Google or Facebook start up in north St Louis? A future global company setting up roots in the new development could be the pinnacle of the project. Unfortunately, as many failed businessmen will tell you, there are more failures than success with new companies.

How will you measure the success of the project with respect to jobs:

• For just having jobs associated with it?
• Having low end retail jobs new to the city?
• Pulling jobs into the city from around the metro area?
• Preventing jobs from leaving the metro area?
• Getting new jobs at the cost of other developments in the metro area?
• Being the founding location of a future Fortune 500 company?

Permanent new to the region jobs, while not sucking up all growth in the metro area, will be my measure of success.

– Kevin McGuire

South Grand: From the Gilded Age to “Great Street”

South Ground has always been a great street. In the early days it boasted a streetcar line, Tower Grove Park, an active business district, and the mansions of The Gilded Age. It left good bones for redevelopment a century later and has opened the door to a new era as a “Great Street.”

In 2005, the East-West Gateway organization began spearheading an urban-planning movement called “Great Streets” in the St. Louis area. “Great Street” ideas hope to re-invent life in the city by taking a holistic view to neighborhood streetscapes. It is, in some ways, a backward-looking movement that hopes to bring back some of the chaotic diversity of earlier street life to modern ways of living.

It eschews our mid-century fascination with the car and focuses again on the street as home to all whether on foot, bike, bus or car. It also wants to achieve something more than integrated transportation; it wants to underline the cultural context of a neighborhood and to reflect the community’s deep historical roots in hopes of crafting a unique cultural identity to stimulate social and economic development.

Starting in early September 2009, the city of St. Louis and East-West Gateway began an experiment to demonstrate how those infrastructure changes might affect life on South Grand. They re-striped Grand from Arsenal to Utah Streets into a three-lane configuration with concrete barriers to simulate future bulb build-outs at the end of city blocks. Public meetings before, during and afterwards captured neighborhood assessments on the changes.

Tuesday October 6 was the final public meeting on the pilot project and East-West Gateway shared data from the experiment and initial designs with the community. Probably the most visible change has been the decrease in vehicle speeds through the business district. Before the three-lane experiment began, car speeds on the then four-lane road averaged 42 mph. Traffic slowed to 31-32 mph during the three-lane experiment.

The difference is palpable either on foot or in a car. More than half of the residents attending the meeting said pedestrian safety was either improved or greatly improved under the new configuration and 69% experienced street crossings as easier or safer.

The slower speeds did not result in greater congestion. Data collected during the trial show a modest 3%-4% decrease in congestion in the area and there was positive feedback from emergency services in that they were able to use the third lane, the turn lane, to quickly navigate the area during emergency calls, an improvement to fighting four lanes of traffic with no dedicated lane.

Neighborhood residents did present anecdotal evidence that some traffic had moved to neighborhood through streets to avoid South Grand. East-West Gateway representatives said they would collect more data on that as the trial period is extended.

The third major change was a reduction in street noise during the pilot. Forty-six percent of residents noted a reduced or greatly reduced level of noise and data collected confirmed a 17-decibel drop in high-end noise.

The pilot has thus proven to be a success in terms of calming traffic, reducing noise, and making the zone friendlier and safer for pedestrians. But what about enhancing the character of the neighborhood or enhanced economic activity? No data was presented by East-West Gateway and perhaps there are too many external factors like the prolonged recession to make any accurate determinations.

I can say, and this should please the street’s merchants, that 37% of the residents reported an improved or greatly improved shopping and dining experience during the “Great Streets” pilot. The slower speeds on South Grand do allow a better look at the shops and restaurants and the friendlier street atmosphere is likely to translate to more walkers and bikers dropping in to check them out.

So what’s next? The institutional recommendation will be made to continue the pilot, temporary concrete barriers and all, until construction can begin in mid-2010. In the meantime, East-West Gateway will continue to collect data and investigate outstanding issues like whether permanently closing the alleys that open on South Grand between Arsenal and Utah will work for residents, merchants and city utility crews. Design work will also continue along with the selection of materials and street trees. Also undecided is whether there will be dedicated bike lanes on a shared bike-car lane through the pilot area. Further consultation with the bicycling community is promised.

Since the proposed “Great Streets” improvements for South Grand are in the $8-$9 million range and only $3 million is available in U.S. federal stimulus funds, the vision being constructed in 2010 will be limited in scope. The budget will allow a permanent reconfiguration of the roadway to three lanes, widening of the sidewalks by three feet, building the bulbs at the end of each block to set off parking spaces from the roadway, and installation of new pedestrian crossing areas at intersections. Special attention will be paid to ADA curb cuts and bringing the project beyond code for ADA modifications. There will also be funds to plant more street trees and replace street lighting with more energy-efficient and effective fixtures.

An effort is being made in the design process to incorporate established neighborhood design icons into the new designs for bike racks, benches, newspaper box corrals, and neighborhood signage. Picking up the wrought-iron, Gilded Age designs from the fencing on either side of the Tower Grove garden gates and the neighborhood signs for Compton Heights and Tower Grove East, the new amenities will reinforce the neighborhood’s unique design heritage.

Several issues remain up in the air. Two local schools founded in the Gilded Age, Gallaudet School for the Deaf and the Missouri School for the Blind, have requested that audible signals be added to traffic lights so their students can safely cross at the South Grand business-district intersections. Green, LEED-standard materials for paving options, bioswales to deal with street water run-off, and lighting fixtures that meet requirements for night-sky preservation are all under consideration, but haven’t been locked down.

To the extent that this project succeeds, credit should be given to the credible public-engagement process for this project.  Two initial workshops were used to identify problems in the area in 2007 and 2008; three extensive public open houses were held in August, September and October to determine design options, establish neighborhood preferences, and provide data from the pilot. Extensive displays, multiple meeting times and venues, printed materials, online surveys, and extended live question-and-answer sessions with keycard voting on options were all used to present ideas and receive feedback. At Tuesday’s meeting, 85% of residents found the process to be transparent and 74% felt the most important problems on South Grand had been addressed.

Project planners had a few surprises. One was the support expressed at public meetings to not just meet, but exceed, current ADA standards for access to the area as a business and social hub. Two was the public preference for LEED-compliant materials for paving, including pervious pavement. And three was support for street lighting that would meet neighborhood needs for safety, yet not be overly lit, so the area could meet improved energy efficiency standards and protect the night skies from unnecessary light pollution.

– Deborah Moulton