SBC Continues to Redline Parts of St. Louis City

I needed to call SBC today to look at adding an additional feature to my phone service. After deciding not to change my service the person tried to push internet or tv service. Little did he know he hit a hot button for me.

You see, SBC’s DSL service is not available everywhere in the City of St. Louis. Some areas, including my house, cannot get DSL. For my internet access I had little choice but to go with Charter Communications (cable). My office on South Broadway in Carondelet is also unable to get DSL.

I find it unacceptable that our Board of Alderman and Mayor allow such a large public utility to continue redlining neighborhoods. How can we attract new residents and businesses without such a basic of modern life?

– Steve

“St. Louis” Companies That Don’t Have St. Louis City Locations

Today I learned that online investment broker Scottrade is based in St. Louis — well in suburban Des Peres. Their office is near the formerly blighted Westfield Shopping Town known as West County Mall. Scottrade has five St. Louis region branch locations; three in St. Louis County, one in St. Charles County and one in Metro East. But not in St. Louis proper. Hopefully if they decide to add a sixth branch it will be in the city.

Another St. Louis area based company lacking representation in the city is grocery store chain Dierberg’s. This is not such a bad thing since they build massive boring strip centers like competitor Schnuck’s. We’ll see urban stores from national chains like Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe’s before our big local chains wake up to changing attitudes.

Straub’s, with four area locations, has been around since 1901. Their West End location does a great job serving the needs of many customers. Downtown City Grocers does for downtown what Straub’s does for the West End although on a slightly smaller scale.

Local banks seem to be doing well but a number of them don’t have St. Louis City locations. As more and more residents flock to downtown and other neighborhoods it will be interesting to watch as new businesses open to serve their needs. Will it be the national chains or local businesses that fill the need. Unfortunately I think anti-city bias in the region will mean it will be local businesses and chains that will be the slowest to react to the increased demand in the city.

– Steve

The Best Urban Place In St. Louis – The Loop Market

Without question the best urban place in the St. Louis region is the “outdoor dining” space adjacent to the Loop Market. Many times over the years I’ve passed by and observed the best one can expect in an urban space — strangers interacting.

On Sunday, September 11th, I spent an hour hanging out in the little plaza area between the buildings. The view at right is taken from the sidewalk along Delmar. People just walking along the sidewalk have stopped to check out the scene, others play chess, kids play on and around the sculpture, a few people work on their juggling, a few others are playing hacky-sack and many are drumming. The majority of the people are simply hanging out enjoying this urban mix.

Nowhere else in the St. Louis area do people of all ages, races and economic class come together so naturally. This is not some “program” that artificially attempts to attract people for an event. Here people just come together.

But why here? Why this place? Looking at the space it is actually quite ordinary. No special paving patterns, no fancy graphics, not enough seating and on the West side – a rather blah building. To the North-West is a drab farmer’s market that from what I’ve seen isn’t the most popular. From this space you can also clearly see the large parking lot to the North.

Yet on Sunday evenings this simple square transforms into the best urban place in our region. No other place in our region brings together such a diverse group of people that doesn’t involve commerce or ticket sales.

Drummers and dancers always convene in the same corner of the square. I’m not sure why they picked this corner but for years this is where they gather. Could be acoustics? Perhaps just tradition at this point? The drummers bring their own chairs and stools while others stand the entire time. This is not some formal drumming group. If you hang out long enough you’ll see drummers come and go. The leadership is decidedly African-American but all races are welcomed into the circle. On Sunday a very young white guy was so moved by music he spent much of the time dancing in and around the circle.

A number of factors contribute to the success of this square. The proximity of students from nearby Washington University is a key factor but not the only one. The mix of stores and restaurants along the Loop bring together a good mix of people. If you want a $30 meal or a $3 slice of pizza on the go you are covered. But looking at the space when empty most people would have a hard time predicting its success. Many, including designers and planners, would likely suggest a makeover to “improve” the square.
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Kunstler Continues to Push Peak Oil Issues

James Howard Kunstler, author of now-classic books, The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere is pushing the peak oil issue on his blog which is known as Clusterfuck Nation.

Kunstler’s entry from today addresses the foolish thinking that hybrids will allow us to continue our auto-dominated society:

Kunstler’s latest book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century, is on my reading list. From what I’ve read from the blog so far Kunstler is highly pessimistic about the future. Although maybe he is simply being realistic?

First up is home heating costs for this winter. It will be a serious issue and tragically we’ll have stories here in St. Louis of people dying because they couldn’t afford to heat their homes. But high natural gas prices will lead to higher electricity costs. Both will mean higher costs of goods and services. Can you say recession?

As a region we simply cannot continue subsidizing sprawl. All the experts predict the number of cars and auto congestion will continue to increase. I disagree. Within 20 years our auto ownership and traffic congestion will be less than, or equal, to today.

Yet our political leadership is moving ahead on massive auto subsidizing projects while more sustainable transportation projects take a back seat. The rebuilding of I-64 (highway farty to natives) and a new Mississippi River Bridge are just two examples.

Based on cost estimates to build two miles of street car lines connecting the Loop to Forest Park you can get about fives times as much coverage with street cars over light rail. For a cool billion dollars we can get a new bridge, the proposed Northside & Southside MetroLink extensions or 4-5 times as many street car lines covering much of the city. Currently the bridge is the highest priority. It should be the last priority.

The claim is we need the bridge and auto capacity to grow our economy. This, of course, assumes the cheap gas auto economy we’ve been used to. My feeling is we need to shift away from subsidizing the dead-end auto “experiment” and build a first-class mass transit system. Reactionaries will attempt to read into my views that I want to ban all cars from St. Louis but that is not the case. I want to shift the balance back to a sustainable means of moving people from place to place. That is walking, biking, and street cars.

Twenty years from now large McMansions in Chesterfield will be vacated like homes of Lafayette Square were thirty years ago. The difference will be that the vinyl clad boxes in suburbia will not be worth saving. Transit will be the key and the wealthier will move closer to mass transit and the poor will be left on the fringes struggling to get to jobs. Bedroom communities will be the hardest hit and will become the new ghettos. At least the poor can now get on a bus (or several buses) and get to the jobs. In the future we’ll finally have mass transit for the wealthier in the core and the poor will be on the edge with substandard service as they try to get back into the core for work. The new Mississippi River Bridge will be little comfort.

Man, I’m as pessimistic as Kunstler!

So what do we do? Again, I think we need to move now to connect as much of the city to mass transit as possible. But if my prediction of the wealthier moving to the core you are correct to wonder won’t this just serve the wealthy in the future? Well, yes and no. My thought is if we plan a network of streetcars to connect the city and inner-ring suburbs we can build denser neighborhoods around transit that accommodate all income levels. Waiting until the crisis point and we’ll see the affluent get transit and the poor get the shaft. If you don’t believe this can happen just turn on CNN for continuing coverage on Katrina.

Unfortunately we will probably ignore the warning signs and come into this crisis as unprepared as we were for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Major sprawl projects like the bridge and rebuilding of I-64 will be started or at least “funded” when the experts finally realize we need to support dense neighborhoods and mass transit rather than continue to subsidize private autos. Despite all logic against continuing these massive and misguided projects they will go forth simply to create needed jobs.

Enough of my rant because the Daily Show with Jon Stewart is about to start…

– Steve

My First Few Days With The Honda Metropolitan Scooter

I knew when I picked up my scooter on Sunday I knew that I’d like it. But, I don’t just like it — I love it! With the exception of driving with a friend to Trader Joe’s in Brentwood on Monday I have not driven my car or ridden in another car. I’ve done about 65 miles so far running errands, meeting with clients at properties, attending other meetings, and even joining a group of friends for dinner on The Hill last night.

I filled up the tank (1.3 gallons) 65 miles ago and the fuel gauge is reading nearly a half tank. The savings benefit is real. An unexpected benefit of riding the scooter has been some new insights and perspectives on the urban environment.

Accelerating to 30mph is pretty easy but getting above that to 40mph takes quite a bit of time. As a result I have tended to avoid major streets like Grand and Chippewa. Taking other streets that in my car I’d find tedious are a joy on the scooter.

As I make my way through our wonderful grid of streets I find myself taking in more of our rich architecture. The same is true when I bicycle around the city. The difference is when I’m bicycling I’m often distracted by pedaling and hydrating. The scooter involves zero physical exertion so I can focus more while still being able to quickly stop and check out interesting details.

All too often people think of St. Louis as a collection of red brick buildings. So much so that anytime a new brick building is built it is skinned in standard red brick. But the reality is we have a lovely diversity of brick colors ranging from beige to orange to purple and every possible shade of red. I think city officials and developers should be required to use a scooter for a week just to learn more about our city.

I find myself acting like a bicyclist sometimes and riding more to the right of the lane. I have to remind myself that I am riding a motor vehicle and thus I should act like it. One rule of riding a bicycle or motorcycle is that you are supposed to place a foot on the ground to indicate you’ve come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign — every stop sign. Well, that just doesn’t happen often when I’m bicycling or scooting. In both cases I will put a foot on the pavement to indicate to a motorist that I have stopped. In most cases it is just a waste of energy. From an environmental perspective we must begin to replace our 4-way stops with roundabouts.

One-way streets throughout our neighborhoods also present challenges for using the street grid. Several times yesterday I found myself having to go a number of blocks out of the way due to one-way streets. As an example, I was on Morganford just North of the Bevo Mill and trying to head West to the Post Office. Three blocks in a row were one-way in the opposite direction.

Parking has presented some other issues. Large motorcycles are able to be seen when parked on the street in residential areas and their size can usually justify taking an on-street metered parking space. But if I park in a metered space I can just see some massive SUV crushing it and not even noticing. For lunch at Mangia Italianio on Grand the other day I parked on the sidewalk near their outdoor seating area. The small scooter size doesn’t require much space. But most of our commercial sidewalks are too narrow to accommodate bikes, scooters, cafe tables and pedestrians.

Other cities have designated motorcycle parking spaces. At left is an example from San Francisco where one meter takes care of about 8-10 numbered spaces that are marked on the pavement. It should be noted that roughly 8 motorcycles/scooters can fit in one auto parking space. I’ve seen similar examples in Chicago and New York.

Theft is another concern that I have, although only slight. Most scooters, mine included, have features that would make it difficult to just wheel the scooter away. But the lighter the weight the more it is possible to pick up and place the scooter in a truck. When leaving the scooter unattended for long periods it is recommended to chain to something more secure, such as a bike rack. Of course, that brings up other issues. Should small 49cc scooters be allowed to use bicycle racks for security?

Scooting on a sidewalk is simply not a safe thing to do. But places you’d expect to see scooters like St. Louis University’s campus has removed streets from the grid. If you are a SLU student and commute to campus a scooter would certainly be more efficient and would lessen the need for all the parking garages around the campus. But how do you get to class: do you pay to park your scooter in a campus parking garage and then walk to class, slowly ride your scooter on internal campus sidewalks, walk the scooter up hills on campus? Other campuses such as the University of Wisconsin in Madison are taking pro-active steps to work with a rising number of scooters, click here for story.

As Americans realize we don’t need a 3,000lb+ 5-passenger vehicle to pick up a loaf of bread or gallon of milk we’ll see more and more motorcycles, scooters and bicycles in use. It is imperative to our region’s sustainability that we accept and embrace these modes of transportation before $5.00/gallon gasoline shocks us into crisis mode.

– Steve