CBD Traffic Survey Limited to Select Few!

Earlier today I asked what happened to the CBD Traffic Study announced a month ago. Well, it seems the surveys were sent out to a select few.

The following letter on ‘Downtown St. Louis Community Improvement District’ letterhead was dated July 19, 2005:

The goal of the study is to identify measures that would improve vehicular access and circulation through the Central Business District (CBD) while at the same time enhancing the safety and attractiveness of Downtown for pedestrians and improving pedestrian access to street-level retail. The study will result in a plan that is intended to be implemented in conjunction with the installation of new traffic signal controllers in the CBD in late 2005 and in conjunction with the completion of major downtown developments.

As a member of the Downtown Partnership Board of Directors and/or the Transportation Committee, your input on the enclosed survey is important for the study. It would be greatly appreciated if you would complete the attached survey by July 26, 2005 and mail or fax to:

St. Louis, MO 63103

Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Laura Lock
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What Happened To The CBD Traffic Study?

A month ago I posted the following from the mayor’s blog:

It has been a month and I’ve yet to find someone that has been asked to participate in the study. Has anyone seen the questionnaire? If so please let me know.

The mayor’s site from July 5th said: “Downtown Now is currently conducting a stakeholder survey designed to evoke input on these issues from downtown’s customers.” Could they have jumped the gun on the announcement?

My pessimistic side thinks the “study” is being performed in a vacuum — given only to those pre-determined to give the correct responses of “I love one-way streets” or “We can’t have parking on Washington Avenue because it will slow traffic.”

Recent Posts on Traffic & Parking — mostly Washington Avenue:

> July 20, 2005: New Poll on Washington Avenue Parking

> July 18, 2005: Observations and Traffic Counts on St. Louis’ Washington Avenue

> July 15, 2005: Downtown Partnership’s Jim Cloar Takes Action to Keep Parking off Washington Avenue
> July 5, 2005: Mayor’s Office Shares Details About the CBD Traffic/Access Study

> July 3, 2005: New St. Louis CBD Traffic Study
> July 1, 2005: East Washington Avenue: To Park or Not To Park?
> December 28, 2004: New Washington Avenue Streetscape Falls Short of Expectations

– Steve

Thoughts on St. Louis’ Proposed Riverfront Makeover, Lid Over I-70 and Mississippi River Bridge

Three separate public spending projects are being planned that have a direct affect on downtown St. Louis. These are a new riverfront streetscape design, a lid over I-70 to connect the Arch grounds to downtown and a new Mississippi bridge to relieve congestion on the Poplar Street Bridge (aka PSB). I’ve got a solution that will help solve issues with all three. But first lets look at each project.

I detailed my thoughts on the Riverfront on July 1st so I won’t elaborate here. The St. Louis Business Journal ran a story yesterday entitled, ‘Danforth Foundation to fund downtown “lid” study’, which gives good coverage of the issues around the project. No question that trying to walk from downtown to the Arch is a nightmare. Interstate I-70 and Memorial Drive are just not pedestrian or bicycle friendly.

Back on January 3rd I did a long post on the proposed river bridge. I started off my piece with:

Basically I argued against building the bridge at all. With the coming ‘peak oil crisis‘ I think traffic will be less of an issue just because we, as a society, won’t be able to afford to drive as much or transport goods via truck. But, at this point convincing people that we don’t need a bridge is like convincing Rick Santorum that two men marrying won’t hurt his marriage. So I’ll go along with the new bridge but only with a couple of caveats.

[Photo from the 8/2/05 public meeting showing the proposed “North Interchange” would slice through the existing street grid with no regard to the city. Sorry for the color of the picture.]

My main caveat is that I want the spaghetti of lanes and on/off ramps (shown above) to simply be abandoned. First, this design dates back to the day when a highway/parkway was planned on the West edge of downtown — connecting I-44 to I-70. You can see remnants of this to the West of Union Station where ramps to/from I-64 end at nothing. With development in Lafayette Square and along Washington Avenue it is clear we are not going to see such a highway. This is a good thing as such a loop would have isolated downtown from the rest of the city. But it seems the folks working on the proposed Mississippi River Bridge never got the memo that the rest of the loop highway has been abandoned.

The proposal would cut a massive tunnel extending to 14th Street – a tunnel that would divide Old North St. Louis from the rest of downtown. In 2005 we don’t need to be further dividing one part of the city from other. In fact, we need to do the opposite by reconnecting areas that have been cut off from another during the last 50 years or so.

I attended the public meeting tonight on the new bridge. While the consultants from URS Corporation were helpful none could tell me the numbers of vehicles expected across the new bridge vs. the PSB. But I did manage to get the basic concept. I-70 in Illinois would be redirected across the new bridge so that traffic on this highway can avoid the existing PSB. This includes truck traffic heading West on I-70 toward Kansas City and vice versa. I got the distinct impression this new bridge has little to do with getting workers into downtown St. Louis. No, this bridge is about making it easier for East/West traffic on I-70. This, the theory goes, will free up capacity on the PSB that downtown workers will use. Yes, some will use the new bridge to get downtown because it will be more convenient from where they are coming in Illinois. Based on the design, if you are coming any highway in Illinois and want to go West on I-70 it will make sense to use the new bridge rather than the PSB.

Again the point is we don’t need half the bridge capacity directed to 14th Street just a few blocks North of the pedestrian intersection at Washington Avenue. It is time to acknowledge we are not building a West loop around downtown so the bridge proposal needs to be rethought. That is the stage they are in now but mostly due to budget constraints. I think if they had their $1.6 billion in hand they’d be ready to destroy our street grid in the name of progress. Thankfully highway money just doesn’t appear like it used to.

I think most people will agree that we can have the new bridge to get I-70 traffic off the PSB bridge and we don’t need all the capacity going into North St. Louis. Who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars can be saved? Regardless of money, I think we need to save our street grid for connectedness. They’ve got a few more public meetings at this stage of the game. In September we are supposed to see a presentation on a revised and cheaper bridge. If you want to share your thoughts on the new bridge you can email the project managers at info@newriverbridge.org.

But here is where this project can relate to the lid over I-70 at the Arch and the riverfront. Stick with me on this one…
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August Issue of ‘The Healthy Planet’ Now Available

The August 2005 issue of ‘The Healthy Planet’ is now available at local businesses such as 10th Street Italian (504 N. 10th) and MacroSun International (1310 Washington Ave). Check out my ‘City Scene’ column on page 12.

– Steve

St. Louis Needs Greater Density To Be Competitive

Everywhere I go I hear the phrase, “We need to reduce density.” Reducing density is thought to solve problems. However, most of our urban ills come as a result of lack of density.

Throughout the entire world it is density of population that sustains a city. Without a minimum number of people in a given area things such as mass transit and the corner store cannot be economically feasible. St. Louis is not exempt from logic that applies the world over.

Some of the arguments I’ve heard for the reduce density theory are:

1) People don’t like to live on top of each other. By tearing down every other house it will open things up more. People will be more willing to live in the city then.

2) Fewer owners is better. Converting a four-family to two townhouses will give you only two owners compared to four if converted to condos.

3) Converting a four-family building into two townhouses will reduce density and make areas more attractive to home owners.

4) Problem areas have too many people. We need to thin out the area to solve issues of crime.

The real issue in St. Louis is a lack of density, not too much. In some of the so-called bad areas where density is often cited as a problem the real culprit is overcrowding. Density is a greater number of living units in a given area while overcrowding is too many people in a given unit. It doesn’t matter if the unit is a 500 sq. ft. efficiency or a 2,000 sq. ft. townhouse.

Some of the world’s celebrated cities have substantially greater density than St. Louis — Paris, London, Tokyo, and Amsterdam just to name a few. In North America cities like New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver all have higher densities than St. Louis. It takes density to support local retail stores (mom & pop, big box and everything in between). It also takes density to support mass transit and to shift from a gutted auto-dominated city to a pedestrian & bicycle friendly city.

We must embrace density.

– Steve