Marine Villa Neighborhood to hold Officer Elections Tonight (1/28/2008)

A small neighborhood group holding elections for officers might not seem like news to most of you. However, to residents of this part of South City, it has been a long time coming. Last year residents were finally able to obtain a copy of the 1969 bylaws (view pdf) which do in fact call for annual elections after a nominating committee collects the names of those interested in running.

Alderman Craig Schmid, whose 20th ward covers only about a 1/3 of the neighborhood, lives within the boundaries and has been President of the organization for at least the last six years.  In that time nobody has ever ran against him for the job of President, although the election process outlined in the bylaws had not been followed either.  Supports of Schmid will gladly tell you he has been instrumental in reducing problems in the neighborhood.   Opponents will argue that Schmid can be too authoritarian.

Tonight’s meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Peterson Auditorium of St. Alexius Hospital (enter on Osage Street), 3833 S. Broadway.  The Marine Villa website lists the following nominations:

(President) Mike Siculan
(Vice-President) Eddie Brauer
(Corresponding Secretary) Susan Sheppard
(Recording Secretary) Pam Lanning
(Treasurer) Mike Ferguson
(Sergeant at Arms) John Oberkramer and Rod Cook

It would appear that Schmid and others who have long controlled the organization are bowing out rather than face a strong opposition — doing a Blunt if you will.   I’m predicting a smooth transition of power.

The Trash of St. Louis County

Two stories related to trash in St. Louis County keep making regular appearances in the paper and on the news. One is the story about the county plan to create eight (8) trash districts with each getting a contract with a private trash hauler. The other story is of opposition to a trash transfer site to be operated by Fred Weber Inc in South County. The trash transfer site, per the Post-Dispatch, would “handle 500 tons of trash a day.”

St. Louis County is geographically large with more than eight times the land area of the City of St. Louis, yet it has barely more than a third the current density. Still, parts of the county are quite urban while other parts are very rural (for now at least). Much of the county is just a mass of ugly auto-centric sprawl. The County is also divided into 91 municipalities in addition to areas that remain unincorporated. For those of you native to St. Louis, St. Louis County has about 85 or so more municipalities than is considered normal. However it is the unincorporated area that is getting divided into trash districts for the purposes of hiring contractors to collect trash and recycling.

Subdivisions within the unincorporated section of the county can opt-out of the plan — instead hiring their own trash service or potentially letting each resident within the subdivision deal with their trash individually. From the Post-Dispatch:

Opponents say the districts would take away householders ability to choose their own haulers. The districts would lead to a monopoly of large haulers and put small haulers out of business, opponents say. The result, opponents declare, would be higher costs.

The county argues they doubt that one hauler would get all eight contracts that are out to bid. Furthermore, they’d like to see a reduction of the number of trucks on all their roadways with every resident hiring their own service.

The other issue is that of a transfer site, where the local trash trucks bring the trash for it to be loaded onto larger trucks (or is it barges?) to be hauled away to some unlucky place.

On the East side there has been controversy over a landfill that seeks to expand closer to a state park. Despite measures to ensure that landfills don’t leak, they do end up polluting ground water that is used for recreation, fishing and as fresh water sources.
Here is the deal folks, we generate far too much trash!!! It has to get picked up and it has to go somewhere. Don’t like it? Don’t produce so much of it. Even those that recycle are still often buying items with too much packaging. Add a water filter system to your sink rather than buy all those plastic bottles of water. The amount of money we spend on hauling off our trash, the space it consumes, and the damage to the environment is all shameful.

Yes, I have trash too and it pains me every time I toss something out — I think how can I go about reducing this excessive packaging? One solution is to buy products that don’t have packaging — such as fresh fruits and veggies. Skip the individual plastic bags in the produce section and use your own canvas bag at checkout. Better yet, buy at a local farmers’ market.  When you have two near equal choices pick the one with less waste packaging.

Imagine, for a moment, that we all had to dispose of our own trash. Trash collection is just a government service we expect to be paid out of our taxes or in some cases it is something that a resident just writes a check for each month. Still, the consequences of our actions are so far removed from our everyday lives we don’t give it much thought.  We haul the bag out and someone takes it away.  Poorer countries are now accepting trash from wealthier nations. Your old pizza box just might end up in Africa!
In all the opposition to landfills, transfer sites or how trash is collected I’ve not seen one suggestion on actually reducing the volume of trash/recycling.

St. Louis Board of Aldermen Recognizes Rollin Stanley

Today the St. Louis Board of Aldermen passed Resolution #323 thanking Rollin Stanley for his five years of service to the city.  Many aldermen expressed thanks for his help in planning assistance in their wards. Stanley indicated he left with a heavy heart, indicating he is more proud of his work in St. Louis over the last five years than his prior 21 years in Toronto.  Stanley is leaving his post as the Director of the Planning & Urban Design Agency to take a similar position with Montgomery County, Maryland (see prior post).

SLU Parking Lot Violates City Rules Governing Location and Materials

As Joni Mitchell sang, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Last year Saint Louis University (aka SLU) razed a building along Lindell Blvd. The former mansion next door was spared for the moment, likely while they finish raising funds for the expanded law school. In the meantime the university has used the site of the razed building for a parking lot.

This parking lot, an extension of what existed behind the now razed structure, has two characteristics which put it at odds with city regulations on parking lots — first, it extends beyond the established building line and two it is gravel.

This is the same issue we saw over on Halliday St. — with all the buildings aligned the last thing we want to see is a parking lot projecting out in the space between the building line and the public street (sidewalk & roadway). Now, you might say, “hey this is only temporary” and you’d be right. But temporary for how long, a couple of years? So what happens when a business person in the city wants to put in a temporary parking lot also in front of the building line until they can make other arrangements?

Also at issue here is the material. Numerous others have tried to get away with having gravel only parking lots. Environmentally speaking, the gravel is better than typical asphalt because storm water can seep back into the ground rather than creating more runoff. However, it also looks a bit tacky, especially in such a prominent location.

Here are a few additional pictures:

Perhaps SLU got a variance from the city to allow the parking to extend beyond the building line and be of gravel for a limited period of time. While I’d like to think that SLU would take such steps when not complying with the rules I’m guessing that is not the case. I’d also like the think the city would not allow SLU to step out of line given they don’t allow others to do the same.  The main SLU campus is located in the city’s 19th Ward.

Bill Would Permit Segway Use in Forest Park

Last Friday Ald. Lyda Krewson (D-28th) introduced Board Bill 449 which would allow, with restrictions enforced through a permit process, the use of a Segway in Forest Park. Currently the Segway is legally allowed to use the street, along with cars, trucks, bicycles and scooters. They are also allowed, per state law, to use sidewalks and bike paths:

Defined–requirements for operation.

307.205. 1. For the purposes of sections 307.205 to 307.211, “electric personal assistive mobility device” (EPAMD) shall mean a self-balancing, two nontandem wheeled device, designed to transport only one person, with an electric propulsion system with an average power of seven hundred fifty watts (one horsepower), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a propulsion system while ridden by an operator who weighs one hundred seventy pounds, is less than twenty miles per hour.

2. An electric personal assistive mobility device may be operated upon a street, highway, sidewalk, and bicycle path. Every person operating such a device shall be granted all of the rights and be subject to all of the duties applicable to a pedestrian pursuant to chapter 304, RSMo.

3. Persons under sixteen years of age shall not operate an electric personal assistive mobility device, except for an operator with a mobility-related disability.

4. An electric personal assistive mobility device shall be operated only on roadways with a speed limit of forty-five miles per hour or less. This shall not prohibit the use of such device when crossing roadways with speed limits in excess of forty-five miles per hour.

5. A city or town shall have the authority to impose additional regulations on the operation of an electric personal assistive mobility device within its city or town limits.

The last section above does allow cities to place restrictions. In the City of St. Louis it has been interpreted by the City Counselor’s office that the Segway is a vehicle and is not allowed to use sidewalks and/or bike paths. The current applicable definition comes from ordinance 65138 which was signed by the Mayor in January 2001 — before the introduction of the Segway:

For purposes of this ordinance a “motorized scooter” shall mean any two-wheeled device that has handlebars, is designed to be stood upon by the operator, and is powered by a motor that is capable of propelling the device with or without human propulsion at a speed of not more than 25 miles per hour.

The above ordinance was originally targeted to those motorized skateboards that were popular at the time — hence the ‘stand upon part’ of the definition. The city cites the following as reasons for a Segway being a vehicle and thus banned from use on sidewalks:

Every person operating a motorized scooter shall have all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of any other vehicle as established by ordinance, including, but not limited to, ordinances concerning driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages or drugs, except those provisions which, by their very nature, can have no application.

Well, OK, but what about this section from the same ordinance:

A person operating a motorized scooter is not subject to the provisions of this code relating to registration, and license plate requirements, and, for those purposes, a motorized scooter is not a motor vehicle.

If we stroll over to the “revised code” for the city and look at the Chapter 17.16 Miscellaneous Traffic Rules we can see all sorts of, well, miscellaneous rules. These include rules on many topics such as crossing fire hoses, boarding in motion, transporting animals, and allowing police officers to ride bicycles on any sidewalk in the city. The city considers the Segway a vehicle and references the following as reasons why it is banned on all sidewalks:

17.16.040 Driving upon sidewalk or bicycle/ pedestrian right-of-way.

A. No person shall drive any vehicle upon a sidewalk except upon a permanent or duly authorized temporary driveway.

B. No person shall drive any vehicle upon any bicycle/pedestrian right-of-way. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to persons driving emergency vehicles or maintenance vehicles, persons who drive upon any bicycle/pedestrian right-of-way as a means of ingress or egress to a place of business or a residence or persons crossing any bicycle/pedestrian right-of-way at a point designated by Grace Hill Americorp as river access crossing site. (Ord. 64952 § 2, 2000: prior: Ord. 57831 § 1 (part), 1979: 1960 C. § 827.040.)

So is the Segway a “vehicle” or not? The state of Missouri considers a bicycle a vehicle as well with the operator is subject to the same rights and rules as a motor vehicle operator but we don’t ban bicycles from operating on bike paths.

So Ald. Krewson’s bill is not looking to examine the bigger issue from a city-wide perspective. BB#449 is geared only at Forest Park and mainly at institutions within Forest Park. Basically the Science Center owns (16) Segways they like to use for groups to show how they work — you know, the science behind them. Legally they should be permitted to use them on roadways in Forest Park but it seems they want to use them on sidewalks and paths. This bill, if passed in its current form, would permit the Director of Parks to formulate rules, an application process and issue permits to those seeking to use a Segway in Forest Park.  To receive a permit you’d need to own the Segway.  Institutions in Forest Park, such as the Science Center, could allow others to use their Segways after the person signed a waiver form.  Anyone riding a Segway in the park would need to wear a prominent plackard — making them look even dorkier.

So all this brings up several questions.  First, does the current laws on the books limit the use of Segways or not?   If yes, do we keep it as is or do we consider where and how we’d like to permit Segways on sidewalks/paths.  For example, besides Forest Park perhaps on the North Riverfront Trail?  If the current laws do not ban the use of Segways on sidewalks/paths, do we want to limit their use.  At nearly $6,000 a pop it is pretty rare to see one out and about except for tour groups.

One time, a few years ago, I crossed the street heading to the Chicago Art Institute and a group on Segways had blocked the entire corner on the sidewalk — making it difficult for me as a pedestrian to get through.  Like my scooter, I have no issues with someone locking up a Segway to a bike rack on the public sidewalk, but I have to wonder about mixing Segway users with walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, and cyclists on paths in Forest Park.  This seemingly non-issue gets complicated pretty quickly.  For more information on the Segway see Wiki and Segway.com.