Now is a Great Time to Buy a Scooter

So there I was out taking photos of the planning disaster commonly known as Loughborough Commons and this great blue scooter enters off Loughborough. After getting a few pictures I was heading into the store to pick up a few items for myself. I spotted the beautiful blue scooter and parked next to it.

Once inside the store I see a former client, I sold him and his wife their corner storefront building used for their home and art studio. Turns out it was him on the scooter. We talked for a bit and he says he spent a while searching through eBay auctions and the local Craigslist before purchasing this beautiful 1981 Honda via eBay. He bought his scooter this summer after they returned from a vacation in Greece where scooters were commonplace, he said.

I bought my scooter in August 2005 via Craigslist. The owner had just bought it a few weeks before but quickly realized he was too tall for the size of the scooter. He likely got an OK deal on it from the dealer since it was a new 2004 model he bought in July 2005. But, I got an even better deal. He had already purchased a faster and bigger scooter and didn’t want to have both around so I was able to negotiate a good price.

At one time I had something like 8 bicycles and I could see myself having a whole collection of scooters. That is, if I were not paying $800/credit hour to attend Saint Louis University. But I did some searching this weekend on eBay and on Craigslist and there are many scooters for sale. You’ll find many ads that read something like, “Nearly new scooter, bought it and rode around the block a few times.” You can find 3-4 year old scooters with under 400 miles on them!

Many scooters are sold to people who think they will use them and then don’t. The trick here is to not have that happen to you.

Here is a current ad on our local Craigslist:

2005 Piaggio BV200 ONLY 1800 MILES!!! – $3950
I purchased this new in May and have had little time to ride it. Aside from a couple small scratches from rolling it in and out of my shed this bike is like new. I paid $5175 for this just 5 months ago so come get yourself a bargain!

This is a large & fast scooter, quite different than mine. It has a 200cc engine and will carry two people quite easily. At 1,800 miles this person actually has done some good riding but probably not enough to justify the expense.

Here are a few resources:

• stlscooter.com: I started this website a year ago and have done only a few posts. However, I did do a nice listing of local dealership on where to buy scooters as well as listing various manufacturers.

• eBay Search: Scooter: eBay is good but shipping can be a real headache and potentially offset any savings. You can search more locally in the advanced search. Be wary about cheap knockoffs that are sold on eBay. If you can’t verify the manufacturer then it is best to steer clear. As with anything on eBay, don’t get caught up in the moment and overpay.

• Craigslist: Motorcycle/Scooter: The same warning applies here about no-name scooters being sold for what appears to be bargain pricing. Again, verify the maker of the scooter to see if they are reputable. If they are not on my list of manufacturers on STLScooter then beware. You might decide to search in Chicago or Kansas City as well if you don’t find what you are looking for.

Many scooters bought this past Spring and Summer will be sold this Fall. If you want a used scooter, now is the time to look.

Potential Candidates Take Note

I had a fun debate with a friend tonight over so-called “fringe” candidates. You know the ones that are neither an incumbent or have the financial backing relative to that of the incumbent. Doesn’t matter if we are talking about the US Senate, Alderman, School Board or dog catcher. These “other” candidates might all be from the same party, the non-dominant party or a “third” party with little actual success rate. The question becomes what responsibility does the media have to acknowledge the presence of these other candidates that many times have little to know chance of actually winning.

As I have demonstrated in prior posts, I think we owe it to our democracy to at least mention their names. Should other media outlets do the same? Should the media determine the others are not serious candidates and simply filter them out of the race. My friend argued, quite convincingly, these candidates filter themselves out of the race by not running effective campaigns. And I guess that is what really irks me — I want more choice in races but how far do I have to stretch to get that choice?

The Progressives (aka Green Party), and Libertarians, my friend points out, don’t run candidates for Aldermen. They always go for city-wide or bigger races. Why is that? Not that they can’t or shouldn’t run for a city-wide office but why not learn the ropes a bit on a smaller scale such as an aldermanic seat. Or, if you are going to run for a city-wide post then at least make some pretense of running a campaign.

My friend Pat Herod is running for License Collector against presumed winner Mike McMillan. But, Pat has assembled a campaign team which is sending out press releases, put together a web site, attended neighborhood meetings, and has signs and shirts for volunteers. In short, he is running a “real” campaign. Is it too little and too late? Maybe, but, I have great respect and admiration for Pat putting himself out there and giving it all he has.

The same cannot be said for the woman running as a Progressive against Gregg Daly for Collector of Revenue. I met her briefly at a recent event and although she is sweet she is not really campaigning at all — she didn’t even have a flyer. I asked why she didn’t have flyers or a website and her answer was, I kid you not, “they are too expensive.” In this day and age one can easily get a free email account and a free website (such as a blogger account) so to lack either is really sad.

Despite being a professor at Washington University, Jeff Smith was a fringe candidate when he first ran for US Congress in 2004. His hard work propelled him to nearly the top of that race, quickly dropping the fringe in favor of terms such as energetic and rising star. In August that same work ethic paid off as he won the race for 4th Senate district in Missouri (no general opponent). So what does this mean for you potential candidates and alternate parties out there?

Start small and start sooner rather than later. Field some candidates for aldermen and after you’ve elected or nearly elected a candidate for this seat look to the bigger races. Run a couple for aldermen in 2007 and when the race for mayor comes around again in 2009 perhaps one of those candidates will be ready for running in that race. Jeff Smith is the exception rather than the rule — running in a big race only to win the smaller race later usually doesn’t apply.

While I may happily list your name with the same credence as everyone else in the race, most media outlets are not going to have my sense of leveling the playing field. This means, as an alternate candidate, you are going to have to work harder to get recognition. You must send out press releases followed up by repeated phone calls. You’ve got to request meetings with the press. And don’t think sending out a release announcing a press conference is going to get anyone showing up. If you’ve got a blue dress with a stain on it maybe, otherwise good luck. Jake Wagman, Dave Drebes and Antonio French are not going to beat down your door simply because you filed for office. You will have to contact them to get any attention. Sending something my way wouldn’t hurt. Raising money to pay a consultant (or just a worker to send out press releases) is worthwhile.

Required reading for anyone thinking of getting into the municipal election next Spring are my posts from last month; Get Involved — Run for Office and How to Run for Local Office. We can do this folks. We can open up local electoral politics. It won’t be easy but nothing worth doing is.

St. Louis Grocery Market: Density Trumps Income

Over on Steve Wilke-Shapiro’s 15thWardSTL blog he is offering the following:

…a $10 Trader Joe’s gift certificate to the first person who can demonstrate that there is more money within three miles of the Brentwood Promenade than there is within three miles of Southtown Center.

This is in a post of his in response to a debate over demographics — the false notion that retailers locate in suburban areas due to higher purchasing power. Steve’s $10 is safe because, as he was betting, density trumps income. I was unable to find good public data within a 3 mile radius of Brentwood Promenada. Excellent data, however, is available for every address in the City of St. Louis. Click here to view the city’s excellent GIS (graphical information system) database where you can search by address and review census data.

I knew I probably could not prove Wilke-Shapiro wrong and collect the $10 gift certificate but I thought I could at least help out and prove him right. But, I was lacking good data from St. Louis County on a radius basis. I wanted to compare from the same source.

I found the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute website. Here they have a database which looks at purchasing power and other data from the 2000 US Census.

Their stated purpose is to “assess the advantages of urban density for underserved city neighborhoods.” So I looked at 63116, where Southtown Centre is located as well as 63144 where the Brentwood Promenade situated in St. Louis County. Upon seeing the results I thought I’d look at a few more just for comparison sake. Density wins over higher incomes each and every time. The more people per square mile, regardless of income, the more raw purchasing power per square mile. Wilke-Shapiro was correct and the naysayers that blame demographics for the lack of big chain stores in the city are incorrect. To be fair, it may well be the racial makeup of our demographic or the average incomes that keep retailers out.

This density issue is, I believe, why in low-density sprawling suburbs developers talk of creating regional shopping centers. They certainly need more purchasing power than a 3-mile or 5-mile radius would support in the ‘burbs. They must draw in shoppers from greater and greater distances to support say a mega grocery store. Despite lower incomes within the City of St. Louis the sheer number of people gives us substantial purchasing power within a given geographical area — a square mile.

The ETI site looks at a total of 16 categories of consumer expenditure. I looked at two of these: “Food at Home” and “Food away from Home” and included the total from all categories. Others were items such as “Furniture”, “Apparel and related services”, and “Computer hardware and software.” The numbers are annual expenditures within a square mile from that population. It does not, however, indicate where they spent the money. This is strictly a combination of how much they have to spend.

Go down the chart and the higher the density the higher amount of money spent on food at home (aka groceries). In fact, if you compare each of the 16 categories from 63116 in South City to 63144 in Brentwood you’ll see the city zip code trumps Brentwood on each and every one. We pack in a lot per square mile. In North St. Louis from 63113 (The Ville/MLK area) their total purchasing power is just shy of Brentwood’s on a total basis.

We have considerable purchasing power throughout the city north and south yet we (myself included) tend to give it away to the county. We have the greatest asset of cities: density. We must collectively learn to capitalize on our density as a draw for more people, more purchasing power, and more retail options. We need our purchasing power to stay in the city — to earn tax revenue and to multiple as it makes through out community rather than being gone as soon as we spend it St. Louis County. This is how we will improve our schools and provide better services to the citizens.

The counter argument, if you do the math, is in the suburban areas they are spending more per person per mile. That is, they are buying more expensive items that are likely higher margin for the retailers. So, if you believe this argument then kindly ask Steve Wilke-Shapiro to send me the $10 gift certificate to Trader Joe’s.

Trying To Get to South County Via MetroBus; My Scooter Awaits

I figure I preach enough about walking and using mass transit I should make such a person attempt myself. You see, my beloved scooter got a flat tire from a nail on Monday evening as I was heading to dinner downtown. I ended up pushing it the last 6 blocks to meet my friend, late. I left it in another friend’s parking garage downtown until the dealer could come and pick it up. I’d been meaning to take it in for routine service anyway so the timing was actually OK. Now it is ready this fine Saturday morning and I need to pick it up and ride back home. It is located at Mungenast Motorsports behind Dave Mungenast’s St. Louis Honda on South Lindbergh.

This obviously excludes me driving my car down there as I’d have to go back somehow later and get my car. My first thought was to get a friend to drop me off but then I wondered if I could just take the bus to get there. Why inconvenience a friend and use more gas when the bus is likely going that way anyway. Plus, I can’t let Joe Frank be the only blogging about taking the bus.

So I pull up Metro’s recent “TripFinder” website where you can put in your starting point and destination and it gives you options for bus and light rail — a Mapquest for mass transit. But I was getting these weird results all wanting to take me downtown and then up North with results in excess of two hours. I discovered that although I entered the destination address of 5939 South Lindbergh Blvd the software dropped the “South” part and wanted to take me to Florissant in North County. Zip codes are not allowed or at least I haven’t found any combination of commas or whatever that permits them. Some mapping software will ask do you mean “South” or “North” 5939 Lindbergh just to make sure. This, however, gave me no such option. From past observation I knew I had two bus routes near my house that both ended up at South County Mall which is not far from my destination but probably further than I’d be willing to walk both due to distance and environment (suburban hell). I pulled up Metro’s system map and confirmed that #40 and #93 both make it to the mall.

The TripFinder offers another way to find the address, I can use a map or find a street and look for stops on that street. So, I pull up Lindbergh and they have a very long list of stops on Lindbergh — 5 pages of stops. Makes sense, the street is very long cutting across a wide swath of the region. And Lindbergh is listed as “Lindbergh”, “Lindbergh US-61”, “Lindbergh Blvd” and so on with the cross streets coming after that. I looked up the area on Google and saw that Mueller Rd was probably a likely stop. I picked page 3 of the list and found the Mueller stop relatively easy. Plug it in and I’ve got my logical route to South County Mall via the #93 with a transfer to the #49 along Lindbergh. Total travel time, just a few over an hour. Total time figuring this out, about 10-15 minutes. For a frame of reference, Google says the drive is 8.2 miles and should take 13 minutes.

So I am debating. The fare is $2.25 (bus w/transfer) which is not a big deal but I had to check my wallet to make sure I had some singles as they don’t make change. Looking at the schedule I see that half the hour travel time is spent waiting at the JC Penny at South County Mall, not exactly my idea of a good way to spend a nice Saturday. I do have class reading to do but I’d have to carry a backpack and my motorcycle helmet on the bus and while I am waiting. The bus leaving near my house on the #93 is on an hourly headway so I have to work on that schedule as well.

I just called my friend, he is picking me up in an hour.

On a somewhat related note: Dave Mungenast Sr. recently pass away from cancer. I had the fortune to meet and talk with him earlier this year while visiting his Classic Motorcycle Museum on Gravois in South City. I, of course, bent his ear about opening a new shop in the city for his Honda scooter sales. I had hoped to talk to him more in the future as he had great knowledge about what the city was like in the 1950s. The motorcycle museum location on Gravois was one of his early auto dealerships before he and nearly every other business fled to the once greener pastures of the suburbs. My condolences go out to the Mungenast family for their loss.

Valet Video: New & Improved — Now Confrontation-Free!

My post from Tuesday evening with video of the owner of Copia received much attention and a fair amount of both praise and criticism. Curious if anything had changed I returned to Washington Avenue Thursday night with camera in hand. This time I did a couple of things differently — I did not talk to anyone, staying completely away from the valets and the restaurants themselves (Copia in the 11xx block and Lucas Park Grille in the 12xx block). The video is far less exciting than the confrontation on Tuesday evening but it is telling about the extent of the situation.

Every non-coned public parking space between 10th and 14th was taken last night when I was there after 9pm. The only empty spaces in this four block stretch were spaces coned off by a single valet company, Midwest Valet, while employed by Copia and Lucas Park.

The video and sound quality are a bit poor as my still camera’s video feature doesn’t do too well when moving at night. But, you’ll be able to get the idea. The first video is in the 11xx block of Washington Ave. I start at Tucker and walk toward 11th. I’m on the north side of the street looking over at the block containing Copia (it is the beautiful 2-story building with the 3 arched windows). Once the valet sees me he begins to make a few calls and eventually moves the cones from the street. Remember, the police were there just two nights ago and told them to move the cones.

The 11xx block of Washington Ave has a total of 10 marked parking spaces. Four are in front of Baseline which is to the east of Copia. The SUV parked in the far east end of the block is actually in a yellow no-parking zone. Moving to the west of the four spaces in front of Baseline we have a fire hydrant and then a single parking space directly in front of Copia. We then have another no-parking area for a buildings’ fire standpipe. Five additional spaces are on the western half of the block. The valets should be able to operate by taking the single space in front of the restaurant combined with the two non-parking spaces. I will return to measure this width to see what that would give them but it is greater than 60ft. This would leave 9 public spaces for patrons of Copia or other establishments (or friends of residents). Copia is in the 7th Ward.

In the next video I am in the 12xx block of Washington Ave where Lucas Park Grille is just as abusive by taking two sides of the street. We start off with a valet that just made a u-turn in the street to park a car across from the restaurant in a public space they had coned off. It should be noted, the Director of Streets Jim Suelmann has issued LPG a permit to have all these spaces but indicates they are only for the drop off and pickup of cars — that all cars should be moved to sites elsewhere. Clearly, that is not what is happening here. A couple of clubs are open and active in this block and several places are open late in the next block to the west. However, the only vacant spots are those coned off by the valet company for the use by LPG and the sushi place next door.

The point of all this is we do have things going on downtown and along Washington Ave but a few businesses are being overly aggressive in their use of the public street and public parking. We need balance. Lucas Park Grille is in the 5th Ward.

Currently nobody is taking any responsibility for the problem. The valets say they are doing their job. The restaurant owners say they (via the valet company) have a permit for this much space, the Treasurer’s office (which is responsible for parking revenues) has no policy, the aldermen won’t act on a complaint unless from a constituent, the Director of Streets says he doesn’t have the ability to enforce the permits he issues and in reality the police have much more important things to worry about. But the reality is we paid dearly for these streetscapes and much is riding on their long-term success. The demand for the spaces is there but they are reserved for a select few.