Celebrating Blog’s 19th Anniversary

 

  Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …

Thoughts on NGA West’s Upcoming $10 Million Dollar Landscaping Project

 

  The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …

Four Recent Books From Island Press

 

  Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …

New Siteman Cancer Center, Update on my Cancer

 

  This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …

Recent Articles:

ADA for Accessible Streets, Day 1

 

Today I attended a seminar on new guidelines regarding accessible streets — making sure all citizens can use the public space. We focused today on the physical sidewalk design, ramps and crossings. Tomorrow we will be looking at signals.

I want to thank Mayor Slay, Board of Public Service President Marjorie Melton, the Starkloff Disability Institute, and the Pyramid Companies
for putting together this excellent seminar. No, seriously. The speakers have been top notch and this has shown me that I need to know a lot more about this subject and I know all the engineers in the room certainly need to know more. This clearly demonstrates to me the City saw a lack of knowledge in a critical area and decided to take a very pro-active step to help raise the bar. Very commendable.

In a funny way, however, for the small sum of $100 they are helping me better understand new regulations relative to accessibilty in the public-right-of-way which I will turn around and use to be critcal of future projects. But maybe, just maybe, this will be good. They will have a better understanding of the new rules and knowing that I will be out there with my camera (and soon a new digital level) they will hopefully take the time to get it right.

Granted, they have projects already in the works at this point so I know something started next week will have been designed and contracted a number of months back. But future projects such as MLK streetscape and the Euclid streetscape will need to comply, no doubt!

I realize now I had only a very basic understanding of a portion of accessibility issues. We learned about differences between manual and powered wheelchairs, persons who walk with a cane or walker, people with various types of visual disabilities. In the afternoon we broke up into teams and went out around the hotel (downtown Hilton) looking at intersection design. Reports were mixed on both older sidewalk areas and new areas such as my team’s corner at Busch Stadium. Even at Busch some slopes were beyond the limits and details were off, but nothing major. The encouraging thing was seeing the engineers from HOK and the City talking with expert Bill Hecker (shown below with level).

accessibility - 02.jpg

The agency responsible for setting standards for accessibility is the U.S. Access Board. It should be noted that after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 they followed closely with standards for a number of areas including public buildings. Their guidelines help architects the exact specifications on things such as bathroom design, hallways and all manner of details in building open to the public such as restaurants, office buildings or civic structures. They’ve also had rules governing site design so you get things such as accessible parking spaces and connections on private developments. Yet, they are just now establishing guidelines for the public-right-of-way.

Yet another federal law requires that when local governments are repaving roads, they must make the sidewalks accessible. They’ve been using earlier guides for this purpose. Most likely your nearby corner has a ramp from the sidewalk to the street-level at the intersection. If not, don’t be surprised if your street doesn’t get repaved anytime soon. Most of the ramps that St. Louis has installed over the last 10 years don’t meet the new guidelines.

I took a break from writing this post, I just had to visit a couple of places (Southtowne Center & Loughborough Commons) to see if the intersections were as bad as I remembered. Yes, yes they are. But on the way I passed by some work being done at Gravois & Gustine. I’ve hesitated taking pictures of this yet because it is not done and didn’t want people going all ‘Matt Villa’ on me.

accessibility - 07.jpg

The cover in the PAR (Pedestrian Accessible Route) is not bad if done right. However, what you cannot see from this angle is how the concrete tapers off in a couple of directions, something we learned today could cause great instability on a wheelchair or someone using a cane/walker. From a lower angle you can get a better idea of what went wrong with this nearly finished project involving new signals and access ramps:

accessibility - 09.jpg

I fully anticipate that there will be mistakes, as we see above. It will be up to those designing the intersection to make sure the expectation is clear and the person inspecting the work must understand what is necessary. There will be times where the letter of the law cannot be met, where it is infeasible. At these times they need to show they considered alternatives and they did the best they could considering the circumstances. So while I do intend to buy a digital level I know it won’t all be perfect. I’ll be looking for more obvious mistakes, ones that some good ole common sense could have prevented. A really good example of that is just down the street at Gravois & Meramec:

accessibility - 04.jpg

Here we see brand new accessible ramps for crossing both streets and a brand new signal pole blocking a new sidewalk section. Can someone please tell me the logic behind adding accessible ramps only to block the sidewalk with the traffic signal? This is a good example of where someone along the process should have said, “Uh wait a minute guys, this doesn’t look right.” And the best time for that (read: cheaper) is while the project is still on paper, not set literally in concrete!

This project is either the responsibility of MoDot or the St. Louis Board of Public Service, I’m going to ask tomorrow. MoDot, you will recall from a post earlier in the week, just ripped out 300 ramps along Lindbergh because they were not constructed at the proper angle. Moving a newly installed traffic signal is not so easy. If anything is clear to me it is this workshop on accessibility did not come soon enough, I’m glad it is here now.

Helpful Resources:

Update 12/15/2006 at 6:00am:

Last night I forgot to quote some of the text from the invitation about this event. I posted it back on November 17th but I think it is worth repeating:

“Compliance is no longer a guessing game. There is a right way, a wrong way and a best way. Architects, engineers, other designers, developers, builders, contractors, and city inspectors and officials now have a chance to make our community a model. This seminar will provide an opportunity to learn about the new guidelines — from experts in the accessibility field who helped develop the guidelines, and by experiencing what happens when accessibility is not addressed.”

The bold emphasis is theirs, not mine. However, it does appear many have simply been guessing (and poorly). It was repeated a number of times at the event and deserves notation here — the standards set by the government are the minimum for compliance. Minimum. Not ideal, not best practices, and certainly not a world leader for modeling accessibilit. I think we need to work on getting to minimum compliance!

Update 12/15/2006 at 9:00am:

The intersection work being done along Gravois is the handy work of MoDot — the folks about to spend $500 million on highway forty.  Let’s hope it is better planned than these sidewalks.

Power Shift on Cherokee Street

 

Earlier today control of the Cherokee Station Business Association shifted to a new and diverse group (see prior post):IMG_6535

In front from L to R is: Minerva Lopez (VP), Karen Abounader (board member), Patavee Vanadilok (board member). In back from L to R is: Jason Deem (Pres), Will Liebermann (Treasurer). Not pictured, Andrew Liebermann (board member).

The meeting was long and not without conflict. The new group provided roughly 20 proxie votes from business owners that could not attend the mid-afternoon meeting. SLDC staffer Harry Bennett and Ald. Ken Ortmann saying they’d need an opinion from the City Counselor’s office before they could accept the proxies. After long debate the new group, thinking they had enough votes anyway, dropped the issue.

And boy were they right. I watched as Ald. Ken Ortman and Ald. Craig Schmid unfolded and counted the ballots. Basically the old guard ran a full slate of candidates (same officers I believe) and the new group did the same. Based on what I could see it was a good 4-1 margin of victory in favor of a change of leadership.

Part of their victory, I believe, was the fact they ran a diverse group of people for the positions and you could tell from the packed room their base of support was as diverse as the street itself.

One of the issues that I think sent them over the edge was the recent paving of three vacant lots owned by the association. All three were paved over at a cost of $9,687.18 per the Treasurer’s report handed out at the meeting. The report shows another $2,471.06 in wrought iron expenses.

IMG_6536

The new board felt these lots should have remained as grass and that for this type of cost they could have been maintained. They also mentioned to me their concerns about water runoff with the impervious paving. Though not designed as parking, you can already see a car parked on this lot. Perhaps that is where the wrought iron fencing will come into play? Still, that is a lot of their improvement fund to be used — roughly 40% of their total.

Aldermanic candidate Galen Gondolfi was present at the meeting although he could not vote as his property is just a block or two beyond the boundaries of the CID (Community Improvement District). Interestingly, new board member Patavee Vanadilok was also not able to vote. As an attorney she is not required to have a business license and only those with a business license can vote. Yet, she was able to be elected and serve on the board. One of the priorities of the new board will be to revise and update their bylaws to fix past loopholes and simply items that were unforeseen when the organization was first established.

The next trick will be to get someone interested in re-opening the old upstairs bowling alley on Cherokee Street. Yes, Cherokee had a pretty awesome bowling alley at one time. Mr. Edwards, can we talk over a taco?

BTW, I had planned to attend the E&A meeting on the TIF for St. Louis Centre (see post) but this meeting ran too long. For coverage of that meeting check out Lucas Hudson’s report over at the ACC.

Battle for Control of Cherokee Street

 

At 1pm this afternoon the Cherokee Street Business Association will hold elections for its board of directors and officers. Unlike most business assocations, where things just continue with little controversy, this meeting may well be as heated as they come. This meeting may be a glimpse of how the upcoming 20th Ward election will go.

You see, Ald. Craig Schmid is pretty much of the same ‘keep out things’ mode of thinking of Wallace and her supporters. In the past, I think this has served a valid purpose. But times change and we must learn and adapt along the way. Among the groups on Cherokee are professionals, business owners catering to Mexican clientele, restaurants and bakeries, various artists and art groups, and a somewhat “radical” left-wing element. Wallace seems to have issues with all of them.

Galen Gondolfi, a candidate for Schmid’s 20th ward seat, is among those seeking change on Cherokee. Jason Deem, a young business man whom I have met and consulted on a rehab project, is seeking to be the new President of the association. Deem has assembled a diverse group of people from the street, all running as a slate. You can view their flyer in: English or Spanish.

Will a win for Deem and his slate mean trouble for Schmid in the larger ward? Maybe, maybe not. But, a Deem win will mark a shift on the street that Gondolfi will certainly tout on the campaign countdown to March 6th. Craig Schmid is not among the favorites of St. Louis’ political establishments but I have to think they’d rather keep him over a more progressive Gondolfi. Ken Ortmann, whose ward includes part of Cherokee, is not up for re-election until March 2009.

At issue is more than just who controls the gavel at meetings. Cherokee is a special taxing district so those who control the board, along with the aldermen, control the use of monies collected from taxes. How this money is used, or not used, will be important in the coming years.

More information on the growing rift on Cherokee from the RFT archives:

The meeting will be held at 1pm on the 2nd floor of the Juvenile Court Building across from the Casa Loma Ballroom, at Iowa and Cherokee (map).  The group, under Wallace’s leadership does have a website, www.cherokeestation.com, which currently has only an announcement about a Cindo de Mayo this past May.

Remaking Urban Streetscapes – A Look At St. Louis’ Euclid Ave

 

Planning work is well underway to remake three blocks of Euclid Ave, from Lindell Blvd on the north to Forest Park Parkway on the South. Monday evening the design team made another of several public presentations on the issues and proposed options. Interestingly, one of the stated goals was to make the street accessible to all yet the meeting was held in a meeting room at the hotel on Lindell that is reached by stairs, no elevator. Luckily, an advocate for the disabled was present to give feedback on behalf of those that couldn’t reach the meeting.

The group behind this makeover is the Central West End-Midtown Development Corporation. Sorry, no link as they don’t yet have a website. I know, almost 2007 and no website to communicate their plans for redeveloping an area…

They are spending a whopping $400,000 on the planning and engineering for three city blocks of a single street. These funds, as I understand it, came from an increase in the taxes on the property where we have the new Park East Tower high-rise. A diverse group of stakeholders were involved at the start of the project on November 9th.

The development team, headed by Denver-based Civitas, is huge. The list of consultants is close to 10, I think. Too many cooks in the kitchen, in my view. I guess the local development group wants to make sure all $400K gets spent.

This stretch of Euclid was redone probably 30 years ago or so. That is when Euclid, and cross streets Laclede & West Pine, gained the now-dated “lollipop” light fixtures (their description, not mine). The sidewalks and such were redone in the latest style for the time, it was up to date and hip. And that my friends, was the problem. The focus was on the horizontal surfaces of the sidewalk or things like street lamps.

Sure, it probably worked for a while. Anytime you infuse some new cash into an area it will attract some attention which brings new business and customers. Sustaining this influx of investment and users, however, is the trick. Height of fashion streetscapes become dated at some point and keeping up the interest level becomes harder and harder when that happens. I know of no such street that has a long-term sustainable record.

“Washington Avenue,” you proclaim. Well, we are only into the streetscape a few years. It is showing some signs of wear and it will be interesting to see if the city is going to keep up with maintenance or simply move on to areas like Ballpark Village. The outrageously expensive light fixtures do a poor job of lighting the street — you get blinding hot spots and and dark areas otherwise. However, as more businesses open and have lit signage this has become less of an issue. Still, the two blocks from Tucker to 14th are all tricked out like a cheap whore screaming for attention. This is what happens when you let good designers go crazy.

The design team will be back next week presenting to the stakeholders and then to the public on the 16th of January.

You see the design community has the nagging problem, the portfolio. The portfolio or gallery is where they show off their projects to their peers and prospective clients. It takes the really flashy stuff to show up well in photographs. A well-designed streetscape (or building) that is reasonable conventional but part of a dynamic urban context will look far too boring in a designer’s portfolio. Often they want projects that look exciting when empty, hard to accomplish unless you go all out.

You can put the most interesting of brick paving in front of a Wal-Mart and it is still a Wal-Mart. You will not want to spend anymore time out front simply because of the pattern created or some token sculpture. Sure, it might make your passing through a bit more interesting but you will not return because of it. And eventually the novelty of that paving pattern will wear off. The world’s great streets are not about the paving. Nor are they entirely about the architecture. Before going any further with this rant I want to break for some reality of the actual proposals for Euclid. The rant will continue post-proposals.

Civitas was kind enough to share with me the two proposals presented at the meeting. Basically, the two plans involve some of the same items: removal of all existing sidewalks, curbs, trees, and paving. Both involve starting over from scratch.

The first concept, shown below, is what is being described as a “polish” project — clean up what they have. Major changes from today involve the bump-outs at the intersections — those extended curbs that make it shorter to cross a street. They are also suggesting using pervious paving under the on-street parking so that some rain water can be absorbed into the soil rather than adding to the load on the sewer system. The other major difference is raised intersections at Laclede & West Pine. These are used as traffic-calming devices — basically the crosswalks and the center of the intersection are at the same level as the sidewalks. As you drive you’ll go up a slope at you get to the crosswalk and back down the other side as you cross.

Euclid Streetscapes Enhancement Option A

Option A — click image above to view in Flickr and to see larger size in detail.

This first option calls for two 7ft parking lanes as well as 22ft in the center for two travel lanes. In the 60ft right-of-way this leaves 12ft for sidewalk on each side of the street. I think they could narrow the curb-to-curb width a bit to 34ft for the two travel and parking lanes, giving more room to pedestrians.

On-street parking would remain at the same number of spaces, roughly 48 per their estimates. These spaces would be redistributed a bit as current all are in the two blocks between Laclade and Lindell. In both revised plans some on-street parking is included in the block between Forest Park Parkway and Laclede. Some at the meeting argued in favor of eliminating on-street parking completely, suggesting the cars are eyesores. Eliminating on-street parking on these three blocks would pretty much kill this street. Yes, quite a bit of parking is available on side streets and in parking structures nearby but that is not the point. On-street parking does a number of things beneficial to the pedestrian — namely helping to slow traffic in the travel lanes as well as providing a big buffer between sidewalk and moving vehicles. Using the curb bump outs and other techniques it is possible to acheive a good balance in this mix.

“But how would eliminating parking kill the street,” you ask? Simple, we do not have the density required to keep the sidewalks busy at all times. Sure, we have a number of pedestrians now that make the street look lively but take away the cars and those same number of pedestrians now looks pathetic. We’d need considerably more pedestrians on the sidewalks to make up for the loss of perceived activity contributed by the parked cars. You might argue that removing parked cars from the street would increase pedestrian traffic but such a cause-effect is only wishful thinking. Density is what increases pedestrian traffic, not the absense of parked cars. Without parked cars the street would look vacant and as it looked vacant you’d have less and less pedestrians because they would not feel as safe on the street. Eventually we’d see less stores as a result. The street would die a slow death. On-street parking can only be eliminated in very special circumstances and none of those exist, or are likely to ever exist, in the St. Louis region. We all need to accept on-street parking as part of the activity of the street.

Moving on to Option B, seen here:

Euclid Streetscapes Enhancement Option B
What to say about Option B? WTF!?! Let me explain. Someone on the design team, or from the client, got this bright idea to make a “statement” with the street, specifically water runoff. Never ever advocate making a statement with paving and especially not how that paving is designed to channel storm water. I’m as “green” as the next guy but a 3ft wide covered drainage channel down the middle of the street ending a “planters” at the intersections. Again, WTF? Streets for centuries have been crowned — raised in the center causing water to run to either side, along the gutter/curb and into a drain (ok, the drains have not been around for centuries but you get the idea). We don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. We are talking about three blocks of a narrow right of way. Giving more space to the roadway takes away space from the sidewalks, counter intuitive if you are seeking a pedestrian-friendly environment.

Ald. Joe Roddy spoke last night and was there for all but the last bit of the meeting. He spoke very upbeat about this being the most vibrant street in St. Louis in the future. Again, pretty pavement patterns does not equal vibrant. Issues that can have a sustainable impact on the vibrancy of this street now and in the future are land use, zoning and new construction. The Park East Tower is going to add many new residents but its oppressive street-level design doesn’t help matters. They parking structure that creates the bad situation will have 160 public spaces. I personally would have preferred they do without the public spaces and given us a better street treatment. I hear a bank may be going in the retail space, that will really pack the sidewalks on a Saturday evening.

Roddy and the development group should have taken a big chuck of this $400K they are spending and invested that in some good design guidlines for the area. Along the way look at taxing the hell out of surface parking lots like the one at the corner of Euclid and Lindell to the point where the owner is forced to sell or develop it.

Here are some miscellanous issues that came up at the meeting and my thoughts on them:

  • Old trolley tracks may still exist under the street. Here is a crazy idea, do a trolley up and down Euclid to connect the MetroLink stop in the medical complex with the urbanized neighborhoods to the north? Run up to Delmar or Fountain Park?
  • A “pedestrian refuge” is planned at Forest Park Parkway. This is very much needed. They team also plans to bump out curbs at the ends of the parking lanes to reduce the width of the crossings. They had some nice before and “after” images.
  • It was suggested new structures be required to have public parking. I say that is unnecssary, more than enough parking exists now. Eliminate parking requirements completely and let the developer determine how much parking they need to provide to meet the market demand.
  • The team showed a kitchen garden in the presentation. I love kitchen gardens with herbs and such — but not in my public streets. I do not want to eat at a local restaurant and worry that my basil was fertilized by the neighbor’s poodle.
  • Some feel some monuments need to be placed at each end to mark the entrance to the area. Again, it is only three blocks long. The area needs to become an extension of Euclid to the North of Lindell. They would do well to copy the same feel so that people naturally flow back and forth across Lindell.
  • The development group will be applying for a federal grant from East-West Gateway. Their early estimates are somewhere between $1.8 and $3.0 million dollars. For three blocks!

City streetscapes do not need to be fancy. They need good paving, concrete is a perfectly fine material. They need to be lined with good-sized street trees (spend a bit more on bigger trees). Streets need attractive and quality lighting, nothing too fancy or garish. In short, streets need to just be streets. Zoning, signing and things like opening windows to restaurants are the factors that make for an exciting street. People need places to sit or lock up their bikes. Public clocks are a nice touch. Markers in the pavement to indicate the cross street name helps with way-finding as does the address in the paving. Subtle details are far more important than the hit you over the head so cool and trendy things designers want to experiment with. They need to work on the basics first and branch out from there, not the other way around.

Update 12/12/06 at 8:30pm — I forgot to pass along a link to a December 6 article on this subject from the West End Word.

New Sidewalks in the Suburbs: A Good Thing or a Waste of Money?

 

Regular readers of Urban Review know I am a huge fan of sidewalks and accessibility. However, my focus is mostly around areas where we have a more urban form such as in the city and older suburban downtowns like Maplewood, Ferguson, Webster Groves or Edwardsville IL.

But what about the vast majority of highly auto-centric areas? I would certainly advocate as new areas are built they include sidewalks, as unlikely as they are to be used given the context. This leaves one area, retrofitting sidewalks in our older auto-centric sprawl mess.

One such example is along St. Charles Rock Road between roughly I-170 and Lindbergh through municipalities such as St. Ann, Breckenridge Hills and St. John. To be fair I think SCRR always had some sort of left over pavement designated as a token sidewalk but with so many driveway crossings and electrical polls it was pretty useless.

st. charles rock road - 1.jpg

I must be on some turn of the 20th Century street, just look at the retro lamps on the bright pink concrete sidewalks. Inviting huh?

st. charles rock road - 2.jpg

Yes, money well spent. In truth it does help provide accessibility for those who need to but the overall result is almost more ridiculous than it looked before the improvements. Do we think colored concrete and some black lamp posts are going to really make this stretch of road inviting enough to gain more pedestrians?

Over on Lindbergh (speedway) Blvd we’ve got similar attempts going in.

lindbergh - 06.jpg

Except on Lindbergh they only get asphalt sidewalks (nice huh?), the pink concrete is reserved for special areas at crossings. Doesn’t this make you feel safer as a pedestrian. So now when the car flying off the exit ramp hits you the news crews will have a nice new sidewalk to stand on as they film your body being taken away. The other side of this crossing, in case you are wondering, is past the street light in the background.

The opposite view. Pedestrian-friendly, suburban-style. To be fair, I took these pictures in June but it did appear as all the work had pretty much wrapped up. The last of the concrete and asphalt was being set — I did not see anymore areas being dug out. In the picture above, I cannot imagine walking on the pavement to get to the next sidewalk area — this is a high-speed exit! My guess is they did not have the right-of-way to place a sidewalk along the area to the right and get closer to the next crossing.
But maybe when this is redone it can be corrected? It is not as far off as you might think. Turns out MoDot screwed up the specifications for these pretty-in-pink ramps and all 300 of them are being removed and redone at taxpayers expense! Don’t believe it? Watch the You Paid For It segment yourself.
Again, I love sidewalks and making areas pedestrian-friendly. But, just putting a sidewalk along a major street does not make things necessarily accessible or friendly. We need street trees or other fixed objects separating the pedestrian from the passing traffic. We need zoning codes that will require adjacent buildings to have sidewalks connecting to the public sidewalk or, even better, constructing the new building adjacent to the sidewalk.

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