What Would You Want In A Downtown Loop?

In response to yesterday’s post on the discussion of an expanded MetroLink system some were saying the two alternate routes for downtown just didn’t do enough. I tend to agree.

So it got me thinking, again, about what kind of internal downtown loop I’d want to create. This, in my mind, would be self contained and not connected to future north & nouth MetroLink lines. I’ve argued in the past for a modern streetcar system but I thinking at this point getting something running sooner might help spur additional development (residential, retail & office). Waiting for the funds for a streetcar system might result in a slow down of development.

So what would I do?

For cost reasons I’d start with a rubber tire (aka bus) vehicle. I would not want one of those ugly fake trolley looking buses nor would I want a standard shuttle or regular city bus. I’ve seen buses which look more like a rail transit vehicle — that is what I want.

In the ideal world I’d make this new rubber tire transit vehicle electric with overhead wires but again I am trying to be realistic rather than too far fetched. Perhaps a future phase would switch to electric vehicles and the original vehicles move on to serve shuttle purposes in another part of town like Cherokee St.

Where would it go?

The route would be simple so people aren’t confused about where it goes. I’d do a couplet by going eastbound on Olive and westbound on Locust. The question becomes which streets create the eastern and western Ends. I think on the east end I’d use either 7th or 9th, both being close enough to the 8th & Pine MetroLink station. On the west end of the loop I’ve got three choices: 23rd Street (just before Jefferson), Jefferson or Beaumont St (one block West of Jefferson).

While my proposed route is a basic rectangle that is easy to understand and put on signage it excludes many areas it leaves off many major stops. Not connected are Union Station, Savvis Center, 14th Street Transfer Center, Busch Stadium, Convention Center/Jones Dome or the riverfront. I don’t think a downtown loop can or should serve each and ever area of interest, if so, it would make the entire round trip a good 45 minutes or more. The question becomes what is the ideal compromise route and how close can we get so that people are willing to walk the rest of the way.

My route is heavily focused on the emerging West Downtown neighborhood located between Jefferson and 18th or 12th (depending upon who you ask). I think this area has great development potential and a transit line to get residents to offices in the CBD as well as others out to the area for lunch/dinner would be quite helpful in making development happen at a faster pace. If it extended to Beaumont & Olive it would be right at the foot of all the workers at A.G. Edwards.

How would we pay for it?

Such a circulator should probably be free or a minimal charge like a dollar, not enough to cover actual operations. So who would foot the bill? To a degree I think such a line serving downtown is in the interest of everyone in the city and region. As our downtown continues to prosper this attracts attention from outside the region which might result in a business relocating to the city or other parts like Belleville IL or Fenton, MO. I don’t know that we can convince the region of the benefit but it could be worth a shot. At the very least such a downtown loop would benefit downtown property owners, business owners and residents. We already have a CID (Community Improvement District) with special taxes for the Eastern portion of downtown. Create another to the West and perhaps that is the start.

How often and how long?

The issue of frequency and hours of operation is tough. I’d hate to see tax money pay for an empty bus to drive around all day although I think that is inevitable at times. I could see a morning rush getting residents from lofts in the West to jobs in the CBD with the reverse in the afternoon. The downtown loop could help bring workers from the CBD out to restaurants in parts West for the lunch rush. In the evening I could see residents from all over downtown using the shuttle to get to dinner, the soon to open bowling alley and the planned movie theatre. The potential does exist to make it possible to get around downtown without using a car. For a downtown worker on a limited income, not having a car could possibly allow them to buy or rent a small loft in the West Downtown area.

Future expansion of the loop could continue west toward Grand. This might be phased in over a period of a few years with each year adding 3-4 more blocks to the West. I’m not so crazy about Olive west of Compton with SLU’s massive parking garage and gated campus. Perhaps at some point the route switches to Locust & Washington?

What are your thoughts? Tell me what you think of my initial thoughts or outline your own concept.

– Steve

Gentrification, Property Taxes and Arson

In late April a large condo project under construction on South Grand was destroyed by fire, most likely the work of an arsonist (story on KSDK). Most of the reaction was the same. But, it was bound to be said by someone:

Condos on south grand destroyed by arsonist, asshole developers, hipsters and yuppies delayed in their quest to gentrify the area.
I caught this in the paper the other day. I don’t know much about the housing situation in the South Grand but I do know the area is becoming gentrified. It looks like someone got sick of all of the hipsters and empty nesters moving in to these $200,000-$300,000 condos and jacking up the property tax. Good for them.

The above is from a Charlie Decker at the St. Louis Indy Media Center (see post & comments). Where do I begin? I guess arson is as good of place as any. Arson is never justified! People’s property is damaged or destroyed (adjacent occupied homes caught on fire) and firefighter’s lives are placed at high risk. No way can the means justify the ends. I’m saddened that some in our society fail to see this and would instead say, “good for them.”

Gentrification is a really difficult issue. How is it defined and how is it applied? One dictionary said to “improve to middle-class taste.” Well, that can be a scary thought because most middle-class Americans like suburbia. I’ve argued before and I will say it again, we need to be continually mindful of affordable housing options throughout our city. But we must improve our housing stock and we must have a diverse population, including based on income. With this we will have change, some good and some bad.

St. Louis is an empty place. We’ve got roughly 350K people within our limits. Another 100K would fit pretty easy. Even a total of 600K would be feasible if we planned for such a density. Adding more residents will change the landscape. Retail stores will differ to meet the needs of the residents. Frankly, I don’t want to live in a poor neighborhood anymore than I do a wealthy neighborhood. I want to live in a highly mixed neighborhood with people from all backgrounds. To a degree I have that here with some low-income rentals adjacent to me and a neighbor a bit further down in the same block driving a new Mercedes that cost more than my house. This is good, we need people.

Property taxes, this is the biggest misconception. Yes, new construction and fancy rehabs increase the value of adjacent properties but the current situation places the tax burden on too few people. Increasing the number of taxable properties will spread the tax burden to more people. More people funding our local government can only help the situation.

Property taxes will rise if we don’t bring in more residents. The poor struggling to pay their property taxes will find that even if their home value remains level or drops the rate will need to rise, as allowed by state law, to cover the cost of governance. I’ll stick with more people sharing the costs as being better for everyone, including the poor.

Last night two additional projects under construction, both in Lafayette Square, burned (story). I seriously hope the above mentality is not responsible for such actions.

– Steve

St. Louis Public Schools are “Bankrupt”

St. Louis Public School CFO, Cedric Lews, last night indicated by deficit spending the system is technically bankrupt. His comment came during questioning from members of the board over the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2006.

At one point board member Bill Purdy asked questions about line item expenditures in the budget. He mentioned money for “deputy” superintendents of which we have none. He wondered why we have text books in three locations within the budget. This was all pulled from a “by location” report of the current budget which he had sitting on the table — a huge document.

Purdy’s focus with the location report was to look at possible cuts in the central office. Indicating we have less students and less teachers perhaps we should have less administrators in the central office. Purdy’s comments drew applause from the audience prompting board President Veronica O’Brien to bang the gavel and proclaim, “This is not a rock concert.”

She’s right, it was not a rock concert. However, it was entertaining in a sad sort of way. I may have to stop attending school board meetings just to keep from getting too jaded about the future of our schools and city. But O’Brien’s “rock concert” comment got me thinking. Perhaps we replace CFO Cedric Lewis with St. Louis native comedian Cedric the Entertainer? That guy is a funny. I bet he can make us laugh about the millions in the hole we are. And what if the board sold t-shirts, “I survived the St. Louis Public School Budget Debate: 2006.” Depending upon which faction you liked better you could get the board members to sign the shirt. Sadly, we can’t see enough shirts to overcome the deficits.

Superintendent Creg Williams had a very good response to Purdy’s questions on the line items in the budget. Well, sorta good. Williams indicated the line items used in the budget were established 5-10 years ago. Thus, line item names do not necessarily correspond with current titles. The budget is already the size of 2-3 phone books and on top of that we have line items that do not reflect our current system. When the board members don’t fully understand the budget they are expecting to pass how can we as mere citizens have any confidence.

On the issue of trimming the central office budget Williams said the administration could be completely eliminated and we’d still have a deficit, that it represents only 4% of the total budget.

Later Peter Downs asked about maintenance. A senior staff member from that department, I don’t recall his name, indicated the bulk of his maintenance budget was going to roof maintenance — something on the order of $3.1 million for this coming fiscal year. When asked if that was enough his response was a big no. It appears other building maintenance must take a back seat to roof repairs. This is logical as it does not good to do other maintenance only to have the roof leak.

I witness last night, during the hour or so I was there, a level of hostility among board members that was not encouraging. I supported Peter Downs and Donna Jones and I am glad they are there to ask questions that I know I certainly want answered. What is missing from all this is someone to rally the troops, pull everyone together and get us on solid footing.

I’m telling you, we need Cedric the Entertainer to conduct these meetings.

– Steve

North & South Transit Study Meeting Notes

Yesterday I made it to the first of three public meetings to be held this week on the subject of future transit in St. Louis with expansion to both North & South St. Louis. They study is now in month five of 18 months. Very little new information was shared although this is the first time the public is being shown routes different than those that came out of the earlier study back in 2000.

As a small aside, it was nice of PR Consultant Laurna Godwin of Vector Communications to make sure I got a “Media Kit.” As a result I was able to download the images you see below rather than rely on my photographic skills to take pictures of presentation boards.

Regular readers know I am critical of the plan to run light rail down our streets. Not that I don’t like in-street transit. Quite the opposite, I am a huge fan of in-street mixed traffic modern streetcars (not slow heritage/vintage streetcars). I don’t like the light rail in street concept because it creates dedicated lanes and because everywhere except downtown it will require a fixed median which I believe will make it too challenging to bring back once thriving commercial streets where ever the lines passes. Advocates say it is a necessity to get the reduction in travel time to both get funding for the system and to attract riders. For now I’m going to leave this debate for another day with a few exceptions below.

The first meeting was held last night on the Northside at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, the site of the old Sportsman Park baseball stadium (history) and next door to the once thriving but now closed Carter Carburetor factory.

Another meeting will be held tonight, June 14, 2006 from 3:30pm to 6pm downtown (906 Olive) and then a third on Thursday evening, June 15, 2006, from 5pm to 7:30pm at the Missouri Botanical Gardens (Monsanto Research, 4500 Shaw). Click here for more info.
… Continue Reading

Will The Rest of St. Louis Soon Join the 21st Century?

I live in a quiet South St. Louis neighborhood less than 6 miles from downtown yet, as of today, I still cannot get DSL service. As a result, I’ve had high-speed internet through Charter Communications (cable) for the last few years. Admittedly my service is faster than DSL but it is also more costly. It has baffled me that AT&T (then SBC) was not pressured into making sure all of St. Louis was equally covered.

It looks like this inequity will soon be rectified, from the St. Louis Business Journal:

AT&T Missouri is investing $28 million to bring Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) high-speed Internet access to Missouri consumers in 15 additional cities this year, Gov. Matt Blunt said Tuesday.

Blunt made the announcement with Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons and House Speaker Rod Jetton. The project is slated to be completed by the end of 2006.

The campaign will expand DSL coverage, served by AT&T Missouri, in: Kirksville, St. Joseph, Smithville, Kansas City, Moberly, Harvester, Manchester, St. Louis, Wildwood, Park Hills, Springfield, Republic, Joplin, Union and Neosho, Mo.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don’t know what areas of the city are not covered as AT&T would never release any maps in response to my inquiries last year. It sounds like whatever areas are not currently served that they will be in short order. This will be very helpful for the perception of parts of the City of St. Louis that seem like third world countries for not having DSL availability. Lacking DSL hurts home sales in an area as well as the ability to attract businesses.

Now if only we can get a large part of downtown served by wi-fi we’d be all set.

– Steve