Bike Station Needed Downtown

Brian Spellecy of the blog, Downtown St. Louis Business, recently emailed me about bike stations.  He was thinking about one for St. Louis and it got me thinking about one again.

Nearly four years ago on October 14th, 2005 I did a post (Four Flavors for the St. Louis Riverfront) reviewing the four riverfront proposals and their inclusion of a bike station:

The plaza is already built across from the Old Post Office and it lacks even a bike rack.  Scratch that location off the list.  Two blocks of the Gateway Mall are now the wonderful Citygarden.  Two more blocks off the list of potential sites.

Remaining would be on or under part of the two city blocks that contain Kiener Plaza & the Morton May Amphitheater.  This would be an excellent spot for offering bike rentals as well as food & drink sales via a connected kiosk.

Another is under the block containing the ‘Twain’ sculpture by Richard Serra, immediately west of Citygarden.  Like Chicago’s Bike Station in Millennium Park, our station could be underground with a simple glass structure above grade.  This would add a new level of activity to that block without competing visually with the Twain sculpture.

Of course a bike station can be fitted into an existing structure as well.  A bike station provides secure bike parking, lockers, showers and often bike repair services.  The idea is to provide a place where workers can bike downtown, shower & change for work. We have a number of buildings with vacant ground floor space that might be well suited for such a role.

The ones I know of are not owned by the municipality — rather they are part of a not-for-profit organization.  Some cities likely help out such as getting the facility built and then leasing it to a group that manages the day to day operations.

Ideally we’d determine the center point of the greatest concentration of downtown workers and locate the bike station at that point.

If we want more cyclists/fewer cars downtown providing a bike station is a step in the right direction. A great facility could be viewed by businesses as a bonus to their workers — a reason to stay downtown or to relocate downtown.

– Steve Patterson

24/7 Old Post Office District Closed on the Weekends

Part of the justification offered for razing the Century Building, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was that it had to be sacrificed for parking for the Old Post Office  – the centerpiece of a 24/7 district.

It has been a couple of years now and I’m still waiting for the area to get beyond 11/5:

The Pasta House Pronto,  located in the Old Post Office, is not offering 24/7 fare.  Granted, the customers are not there.  But if they were, they’ve got plenty of parking.  Most of the exciting 24/7 areas I know of in other cities are known for their numerous businesses and shortage of parking.

Non-profit, government  & library tenants also aren’t known for their contribution to 24/7 living.

When the Schnuck’s grocery store, Culinaria, opens next week I hope they maintain at least the daily 7am to 9pm hours that City Grocers has had for years.  My fear is they will cut back on days and hours within a year.  I hope my fears prove unfounded.

Maybe they will be open 24/7?

– Steve Patterson

Street Repaving Presents Accessibility Problem

In the short time span between the opening of Citygarden and the All-Star game the city repaved Chestnut street between Citygarden and AT&T.  Generally new paving is a good thing, except for those of us using wheelchairs.  Certainly during the time that old asphalt is removed and new installed streets can be difficult to cross.  But once the new asphalt is down it should be good, right?  Wrong.

The repaving changed the relationship with the ADA ramp at 10th & Chestnut.  As you can see in the above picture the footplate on my chair now hits the ramp on approach from the street.

Similarly, the footplate hits the asphalt when attempting to enter the crosswalk from the ramp.   I’m alerting the appropriate officials about this issue so the excess asphalt at the corner can be shaved off.

This is not the first time I’ve had to do so — it is a recurring problem.  It is hard to capture in a photo without a chair as I’ve done above but anyone with any sense should be able to see the problem.  The street paving crews must be reminded to pay attention as they are putting down new asphalt — now many other ramps out there have the same issues?  I can’t check each and every ramp in the entire city.

Thanks to my friend Marcia Behrendt for taking the above pictures.

– Steve Patterson

Accessing One Memorial Drive

The other day I had a meeting st the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the St. Louis regional MPO. The building houses a number of firms as well as KMOV Channel 4 and KMOX radio.  I’ve been here numerous times before — including one in my wheelchair.

As you approach the building entry, above, you see the revolving door and individual doors to each side.  Obviously a wheelchair is not going through the revolving door.  So two choices remain.  Many buildings have door openers that can be activated by button — a nice feature.

There is the button just below the black square.  Interestingly they didn’t put the opener on the door on the left with the level sidewalk.  They opted for the door with the angled sidewalk.  In my power wheelchair this is not a major problem but anyone in a manual chair would have issues.  When walking with a cane I often use the openers to help with doors but I wouldn’t even think of walking near that button.

So often designers making decisions don’t realize how bad their choices are.  This door was probably selected over the left door because it is closer to the elevators.  The person that made the decision on which of the two doors would get the auto opener had a 50/50 chance of getting it right… or getting it wrong.

– Steve Patterson

Area Around Busch Stadium is Busy

Today I went by Busch Stadium.  People were everywhere.

I hadn’t seen the area this busy since that night in October 2006 when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PzC0Wo0OU

Play ball.

– Steve Patterson