My Top Ten Videos on YouTube

I’ve posted over 60 videos on YouTube over the last couple of years. This pales in comparison to my friend Antonio French over at pubdef.net but still not bad. So, in looking at the number of viewings of each I decided to do a lame top ten list:

#10 Gateway Cup 2007: 723 viewings — a compilation from four days of bike racing last Labor Day weekend:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEQPG7tRGP8[/youtube]

#9 valet cones in bike lane: 758 viewings — one establishment on Olive decides their valet service is more important than the bike lane:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kn5kByIJ2M[/youtube]

#8 Poor Pedestrian Signals: 768 viewings — SLU and the city make crossing Vandeventer on foot a challenge:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8UNBnYBJxQ[/youtube]

#7 smart card tech 923 viewings— Metro engineer explains smart card technology, note audio is note in sync with the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZJyv-woWCM[/youtube]
#6 St Louis Arches: 1,029 viewings —talented youth riding unicycles and performing other stunts:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBEXixZTaSc[/youtube]

#5 Arriving Brentwood station: 1,215 viewings — from the opening of the Shrewsbury MetroLink line in 2006:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77YJUOV7sFc[/youtube]

#4 Arriving Shrewsbury 1,225 viewings — also from the opening of the Shrewsbury MetroLink line in 2006
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN9olnv-TW8[/youtube]

#3 Ballpark Village Announcement: 1,303 viewings – The announcement about Ballpark Village and the unveiling of a fancy model:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-MS5l-S8yc[/youtube]

#3 Shrewsbury Station: 1,503 viewings — New MetroLink light rail trains being pushed into the Shrewsbury Station before the line opened:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1O0zOiCPBk[/youtube]

#2 Hamilton Blocks Sidewalk: 1,623 viewings — Insider at City Hall parks on the sidewalk with ‘official business’ placard on dash, denies blocking sidewalk when caught on camera (original post):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld9MwhV4ZLU[/youtube]

#1 Cardinals World Series Champs: 14,188 viewings — the fireworks and excitement following the Cardinals victory:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PzC0Wo0OU[/youtube]

St. Louis to Replace ‘Fuctionally Obsolete’ Arch with New Monument/Parking Garage

“It’s just too short,” says St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, “It’s holding back our skyline.“. Slay cited monuments in other cities that a considerably taller such as Paris’ much older Eifel Tower, Seattle’s Space Needle and Toronto’s CN Tower. Not as tall but able to accommodate more people is the London Eye.

One concept floated in the cigar filled backrooms of city hall is to recreate a 19th century riverfront, complete with a walkable compact street grid and cast iron storefront buildings. “It would be so retro,” exclaims Barbara Geisman, Slay’s Deputy Director of Development, making reference to the 40 city block of warehouses the city tossed aside in the 1940’s.

Geisman continued, “We have simply run out of historic structures to demolish. The Arch was next on our list.”

Alderman Phyllis Young is not to keen on the walkable grid idea, “I drive a hybrid Prius so why would I walk anywhere. What the area needs is more drive-thrus like a Starbuck’s and a Walgreen’s.” The St Louis Development Corporation has already awarded the project to Steve Stogel. When SLDC director Rodney Crim was asked if an RFP (Request for Proposals) had been issued he simply responded with, “Oops, we forgot. Too late now.”

Stogel’s concept is for the world’s tallest parking garage with a McDonalds on the top level. “Take away one Arch,” Stogel said, “and replace it with two arches and parking for 2,000 cars. Imagine driving right into the monument and enjoying Chicken McNuggets while watching East St Louis flood!”
Obviously I’m having a bit of satirical fun, the Arch isn’t going anywhere. However the second of two public meetings on the future of the Arch Grounds will be held Tuesday July 1st, starting at 3pm at the Old Courthouse.

From the Post-Dispatch:

The National Park Service will hold the second of two open houses Tuesday to gather input on proposed improvements to the Arch grounds.

The open house will run from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at the Old Courthouse, 11 North Fourth Street. Ideas range from better connections to the surrounding city to a major new museum.

St. Louis Cardinals Need to fix ADA Violations Along Clark St

The new Busch Stadium has been open for two years now. Clark Street has also been reopened along the North side of the stadium between Broadway & 8th for the same two years. To the North of Clark is the site of the former Busch stadium (1966-2006) and the site of the long delayed Ballpark Village.

Wednesday I discovered an issue that makes the sidewalk along the North side of the street non-compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ada.org).

Heading from city hall to the Hilton at the Ballpark (Broadway & Market) for the Downtown Partnership Annual Meeting & Lunch I decided to take Clark. The problem you can see above, the design of the sidewalk doesn’t allow me to just use the sidewalk for East-West travel.

Twice along the same stretch I encountered the same issue. Both times I took the ramp for crossing Clark and road in the street to the similar ramp on the other side. They made plenty of provisions for heading to a game but just not for getting from A to B using Clark Street.

Of course when they built the street & sidewalk they were still working on plans for the Ballpark Village. They unveiled plans for Ballpark Village in October 2006 (see post w/video) so they probably though by now that sidewalk would have changed based on the final construction. I know many of us, including the Mayor, thought we’d see something there by now. So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that the sidewalk was temporary. Still as a temporary sidewalk it was not properly accessible and after two years, it is not temporary! Either build your village or fix this sidewalk.

Any lawyer out there want to represent me in suing the Cardinals for violating my civil rights due to their non-compliance with the ADA?

ADA Curb Cut No Longer Compliant After Street Resurfaced

The city has been resurfacing several streets downtown. Initially they were grinding up the old asphalt in the evenings, forgetting people live downtown. After people complained they shifted the schedule so the noisy grinding work was done during daylight and the new asphalt laid after 5pm.

With the top most layer of asphalt missing for a few days it presented some challenges for me & my wheelchair. The biggest issue was avoiding the man hole covers that were now suddenly sticking up but still in the crosswalk. But it was temporary and I managed by changing my route or picking crosswalks that were less problematic.

One of the streets that was resurfaced was 11th. A few corners along 11th still lack an ADA ramp. For example the city has the top two floors at the building at 1015 Locust which is on the NE corner of 11th & Locust. The same corner lacks an ADA curb cut. The other three corners have cuts but that doesn’t help when the direction you want to go doesn’t.

BTW, corner ramps suck! They were basically a cheap way for cities to comply with the ADA — building one ramp to serve two directions rather than building two ramps at each corner — one per side per crosswalk. It did allow more curb cuts to be built with limited funds so that is a good thing. The trouble is now getting people to stop insisting the curb cut must be pushed to the very corner.

The problem with the curb cut at the very corner is that is it not in the natural line of travel down the sidewalk. All the time now I’m having to continually maneuver to the outside corners of the sidewalk. Not so bad when the sidewalks are empty but when others are around it often means I’m crossing in front of them or having to stop to cross behind them.

But these are also dangerous on streets with no curb lane. With traffic driving in the outside lane near the curb and these corner ramps means those of us in wheelchairs are being forced out near or, in some cases, in the travel lane of moving traffic.  Talk about a sitting target!  But this post is supposed to be about a single ramp that got worse after the street was repaved so let me get on with the main topic.

Above is the corner curb cut at the SE corner of 11th & Washington Ave.   As you can see the street now casts a shadow as it dips down to meet the ramp.  It didn’t do this before.  The ADA has guidelines on the slope of both the ramp and of the adjacent street.  The street can of course go downhill as needed but I’m talking about the “crown” ot the street — how high it is at the middle and how much does it angle off to the curbs.

Excessive slopes present a number of issues.  Those using manual chairs can have a harder time getting up the slope.  In the case above the slope is steep and sudden. In my power chair I feel like I’m going to tip backwards, the slope is that steep. Manual chairs often have anti-tippers to prevent falling backwards (little extra wheels at the back that prevent tipping back) but electric chairs have no such devices.  So with anti-tippers in the above situation a person may find as they try to cross that curb cut because as they go up the slope their anti-tippers may catch on the backside. This point is also now more prone to hold water.
My guess is the crew just put down too much asphalt in this section and didn’t realize the implications of their actions.

I Made the A-List

The July 2008 issue of St Louis magazine is out on newsstands featuring “115 picks for the best in…” Well they have all the usual categories such as various best of areas in dining and shopping. This year the editors named me “Best Blogger.” They wrote:

No one but urban gadfly Steve Patterson could write 50-plus blog posts about the McDonald’s on Grand, much less make said posts so completely compelling that we’ve clicked through them for hours on end (in our spare time, of course). The real-estate guru of Urban Review STL has written volumes about everything from farmers’ markets to building permits, scooters to city politics, averaging 28 posts per month across his blog’s 56 categories — and scarcely slowing down to acknowledge his disabling stroke this February. Honestly, we’re in awe.

Thanks guys!

Since starting the blog on October 31st of 2004 I’ve posted over 1,500 posts. Some have been guest posts. The guest commentaries always bring a new perspective to the discussion. When I was in the hospital my friend, Architect Dustin Bopp, was able to keep the blog going with updates on my condition and to post a number of guest posts. Thanks to Dustin, Margie, Jim and others for your contributions.

The blog has reached a milestone of over 15,000 reader comments. That is a lot of discussion! I see my role as putting the topic out there and taking a position and then letting others share their thoughts.

So thank you to all the readers out there and thank you to St Louis magazine for the recognition of my work.

OK, a little house keeping. Regular readers have likely noticed the missing right sidebar. I was trying to add in a graphic for the very cool walkscore.com site and something went very wrong that caused the entire sidebar to disappear. Of course I had a backup of the sidebar code but the software is not accepting it. I’m getting a programmer on the job as soon as they become available.

Something has also happened to my anti-spam code word plug-in for comments. As a result I’m getting hit with lots of spam. To combat this I’ve set it up so that any comment that has a link in it will be held for moderation. The good news is that I’m now able to read & approve comments from my iPhone.

I’ve got some interesting posts planned for the coming weeks and months. As I resume the Master of Arts in Urban Planning and Real Estate Development program at SLU this Fall I’ll bring you some of what we are discussing and learning. I’ve got a stack of books to read & review and a growing list of additional books that I want for my library.

Now is an exciting time to study cities and to write about urbanity.

Update 6/27/2008 @ 12:15pm:

I made a big omission in my thanks yous above.  My friend, Seattle Architect Rich Kenney not only contributed blog material during my absence (and before) but he also flew to St Louis within days of me being hospitalized.  Although I was sedated so I don’t remember him being here.  The missing beer & wine from my fridge and his picture of me in ICU is enough proof.  We’ve been friends for twenty years now and will be for another 20.     Thanks Rich!