Area Around Busch Stadium is Busy

Today I went by Busch Stadium.  People were everywhere.

I hadn’t seen the area this busy since that night in October 2006 when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PzC0Wo0OU

Play ball.

– Steve Patterson

Delmar Crosswalk Missing ADA Ramps

Twice now in the last few weeks I’ve crossed Delmar at the crossing shown below:

Both times I drove to the Loop area in my car and parked in the disabled parking next to the Pageant.  Note to Secretary Salazar, I have a state permit to allow me to park there.

Both times crossing Delmar I had to deal with the curbs on each side of the street.  A person that requires a wheelchair would be completely out of luck.  Many people use wheelchairs.  I use mine downtown all the time.  I’ve taken MetroLink to the Loop in my chair too.  Some folks, say just after surgery, use a chair temporarily.  But while walking I still find the ramps very helpful.  Parents pushing baby strollers also find ramps helpful.

When the roadbed was narrowed and sidewalks widened a few years ago the idea of crossing the street was overlooked.

The distance between Rosedale Ave on the East and Skinker on the West is nearly 1,000 feet – roughly the distance of three blocks downtown – with no place to cross in between.  This distance needs two, not one, crosswalk with curb cuts.

– Steve Patterson

Welcome All-Star Fans

Visiting St. Louis for the 2009 All-Star Game?  Welcome to St. Louis.

Whether this is your first visit to our city or you’ve been here often I want to share a few things with you. We’ve been busy sprucing up downtown for weeks & months.  Actually we’ve been working on downtown for decades.  Efforts over the years have been a mixed bag — some positive and others destructive.

Next month marks my 19th year in St. Louis.  For me it is a love-hate relationship.  This city is worth fighting for so I stick around.

The most recent in the positive category is Citygarden between 8th & 10th on North Market St — a couple blocks North of Busch Stadium.

As you walk around downtown spending money (thank you) you will notice a couple of things.  First, not all intersections have pedestrian crossing signals.

Please be careful crossing streets — look at other signals to see who has the right of way.  In the above example if you are leaving Citygarden heading south on 9th you get no clue as to when it is safe to cross Market St. It would be nice to get some stimulus money to make sure we get pedestrian signals at all intersections.

Normally I’d also warn you about cabs on the sidewalk in front of our convention center but they have been displaced by vehicles related to the Fan Fest.

We have a long way to go but we’ve come a long way in the nearly two decades I’ve lived here.  So please enjoy your visit and spend money so we will have funds to address our shortcomings.

– Steve Patterson

Mistake Alert: Loop Trolley Proposal Looking Backward Rather Than Forward

It is no secret I love streetcars.  I’ve ridden old & new systems in seven North American cities  (New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock, San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle & Portland).  While these systems have much in common with each other the main difference is the vehicles used. They vary from vintage to reproduction vintage to completely modern.

European cities  largely kept their streetcar systems intact over the years but have continually upgraded their vehicles to the newest designs over the years. Toronto’s system has lines dating to the 19th Century.  Every so often vehicles have been replaced with newer designs.  Their current vehicles date to the late 1970s:

But Toronto’s vehicles have the same problem as vintage vintage reproduction vehicles: access.  Stepping up into them is not friendly to wheelchairs, strollers, bikes, small kids or just a person carrying luggage or packages. The Loop Trolley folks want that vintage look rather than providing the best transportation for the 21st Century.  They are looking backward rather than forward.

They are looking at a system like they have in Little Rock AR:

Little Rock’s vehicles are new but have a vintage look & feel.

Filming a period movie?  Great, use these.  Investing tens of millions in a modern transportation system that will last into the second half of the 21st Century?  Wrong choice!  The Loop Trolley folks are stuck in 1904.  The World’s Fair is over guys.  So what is the right choice?

Modern “low-floor” vehicles such as the above in Portland.  The same type was used in Seattle.

The vehicle’s low-floor center design with wide doors make entry/exit easy for everyone.  Stroller & packages?  No problem.

The interiors are bright, modern and comfortable.  The type you’d feel comfortable wearing shorts and a t-shirt rather than wearing a dress and carrying a parasol.  We must look forward.  But the Loop Trolley advisory board feels the vintage look is more appropriate.

But in Helsinki Finland, founded in 1550, the old & modern blend beautifully.  We must build our new transportation systems and architecture of the current times.  Building a streetcar line to connect areas together is the right direction.  The system should be expandable to parts beyond the Loop & Forest Park.  Looking back to the glory days of 1904 is not going to help us in 2030.  Judy Garland, the star of Meet me in St. Louis.  has been dead for four decades.

To make the reproduction cars accessible they’d have a ramp like our buses do.  As a frequent wheelchair user I can tell you I would not use such a system.  It works most of the time but it would set me apart from everyone else.  The ramp would take time to extend & retract –holding up traffic in the meantime.  Why not just build an accessible system with low-floor vehicles?

The name “trolley” doesn’t matter much.  Could be streetcar or tram.  Seattle started out using trolley for their modern vehicles — the line was going to be the South Lake Union Trolley.  That is until someone realized it would be called SLUT, for short.  So it opened as the South Lake Union Streetcar instead.  So the trolley name is fine but not the reproduction vehicle.

The trick is the modern low-floor vehicles cost roughly three times the price of a reproduction vehicle. I don’t have figures to know how much of the estimated $50 million cost would be for the purchase of vehicles.

For more info on track options and other issues presented at the Loop Trolley open house last Wednesday check out, “Public Gets First Look at Loop Trolley Details, Feedback Solicited On Track Options” at STLUrbanWorkshop.com.

– Steve Patterson

I-64, Light Rail and Transit Suburbs

A few years ago when talk began of rebuilding part of I-64 (known locally as Highway 40) and extending the region’s light rail system, MetroLink, people had suggested putting the light rail down the center of the rebuilt highway.  Ultimately these systems were kept separate.  The light rail extension opened on August 26, 2007 (see post) and Hwy 40 will be complete by the end of 2009.

I never supported the transit in the center of the highway concept for St. Louis.  Here’s why:

Rail in the center of a highway works well when it takes forever to drive to your destination and costs a fortune to park once you’ve arrived.  In the St. Louis region drive times are short and parking is cheap.  Once a person is in their car to drive to the train at the highway they are likely to just stay in their car — no incentive to switch modes.

Another reason would have been the logistics of getting a line out the center of Hwy 40  Existing lines crossed 40 at Vandeventer and further east — both away from the highway construction zone.  As a city person that takes the train outward the center highway option would have delivered me to the center of a highway — not useful to me.

While in Chicago last weekend I visited two transit suburbs — Oak Park & Evanston.  Both developed around heavy rail transit.  St. Louis has no equal.  Ferguson, Kirkwood & Webster Groves are the closest we’ve got but these were more railroad towns than transit suburbs.

Above is Marion St. in downtown Oak Park,  IL.  At the end of the street a Metra stop crosses overhead.  These transit suburbs have the same formula — a few blocks of commercial around the stop and then detached single family homes.  You will have apartments above the retail and perhaps a corner apartment building but the housing is primarily single family.  Residents along these lines continue to support transit because the drive to downtown Chicago takes time and once there it is not cheap.

St. Louis never had such a system.  Our suburbs never developed as Oak Park or Evanston did.  Attempting to retrofit transits systems later is a major challenge. Putting rail down a highway, if you could, is not going to make the highway suburb transit friendly.

St. Louis did have a complete streetcar network in the city and inner-ring suburbs.  Returning to such makes sense both functionally and economically.  Running light rail down the center of a highway out to suburbs built around the car would have been a major waste of money.  Of course we wasted tons of money having to put much of the light rail extension underground rather than at grade as it should have been.

We’ve got to figure out the best way to weave transit into our non-transit friendly region.  To me that is maintain our current light rail system with streetcar & buses serving the core (city + inner ring suburbs) and buses to serve the areas outside the core.

– Steve Patterson