Stray Rescue Welcomed Animals From St. Louis’ Shelter on July 19, 2010. At the time the front of the new facility was unfinished raw space.
Since that first day when the dogs were transferred to the kennels in the new facility the front has been completed.
Thank you to Randy Grim, the staff, and volunteers behind Stray Rescue for the last 15 years!
— Steve Patterson
The groundbreaking for phase one of the long-delayed Ballpark Village project was held six weeks ago today (see post). Suits grabbed shiny shoves and tossed dirt placed neatly in front of the stage.
And yes, workers have been busy the last six clearing the site and prepping for the infrastructure needed to support all phases of the project. Here are a couple of views from Three Sixty taken on March 15, 2013:
Eighth St will become two-way up to Market Street, leaving just 5 blocks between Market & Washington as one-way southbound. Walnut St will also become two-way between 8th and Memorial Drive, leaving just four blocks from Tucker to 8th was one-way eastbound. Hopefully these scattered blocks won’t remain one-way.
— Steve Patterson
Much of the talk about the proposed Downtown to CWE modern streetcar line has been focused on:
All valid topics, but today I want to zoom in to look at the route in the downtown central business district (CBD).
At this point in the streetcar process it isn’t known if the #99 Downtown Trolley bus route would remain, change or be eliminated completely. The draft report does note that operational savings could be realized through the elimination of a couple of bus routes. Eliminating the #99 would mean greater walking distances for service workers using transit since the proposed streetcar route has a more compact footprint, not a good thing for them.
East of 14th Street objectives that drove decisions regarding downtown alignments included:
- Get as close as possible to the center of the employment concentration.
- Minimize distance, physical and psychological, to major attractions, including the Arch Grounds.
- Reduce capital and operating costs.
- Minimize the number of curves to reduce noise and
- increase speed.
- Minimize the distance between tracks on one-way pairs. (The narrowness of the downtowtreets precludes double-track operation.)
- Eliminate impacts to MetroLink from streetcar construction.
- Lessen traffic impacts.
Application of those principles resulted, first, in the elimination of several options. Impacts to MetroLink during construction eliminated 8th Street and Washington Avenue. Traffic impacts, as cited by the City of St. Louis and the Missouri Department of Transportation, caused Broadway and 4th Street to be dropped, and the cost of extending the alignment from the downtown employment core to Memorial Drive eliminated that option.
This screening process resulted in a set of east-west streets that generally satisfied the evaluation criteria listed above. These included Chestnut, Pine, Olive and Locust Streets. North-south options were more limited and included 6th-7th Street and 9th-10th Street pairs. The former set was selected because it is closer to the heart of the downtown employment concentration and provides better proximity to major destinations. Olive Street is the logical eastbound half of an east-west one-way pair as it is a no-turn continuation of the alignment west of 14th Street. This results in a decision between Locust and Pine for the westbound segment. Locust was selected because of its centrality to the employment core, and because of its more pedestrian friendly first-floor uses, i.e., retail. Finally, the alignment south to Kiener Plaza addressed the strong desire from many stakeholders to provide direct and very visible pedestrian access to the Arch Grounds. (The plaza also provides a non-street layover point for streetcars.) In the next phase future coordination with the CityArchRiver 2015 project (draft study p14)
At Kiener Plaza a “layover point” is shown off street. This doesn’t fit with the latest concept for rebuilding Kiener Plaza. Such a change would need to be reviewed by the Gateway Mall Advisory Board, of which I’m a member.
Also not addressed is the use of 14th Street where it crosses the Gateway Mall (Market to Pine). Currently that is part of the “Civic Room” in the Master Plan. Currently 14th Street is frequently closed to traffic during major events like Taste of St. Louis and the Komen Race for the Cure. During these times the many bus routes that utilize 14th are rerouted on other streets but if 14th Street is used for the streetcar that means auto traffic may be rerouted but the streetcar needs to get through. This has major implications on the final design of the Civic Room and on event planning.
It was the relocation of the Saint Louis Law School that started all this, if Pine was used instead of Locust, that would be adjacent to the school. That said, I agree with the selection of Locust St. Yes, I live on Locust but at 16th so I won’t have a streetcar line directly in front of my building regardless.
It’s still early in the process but there’s lots to think about if this streetcar moves forward.
– Steve Patterson
Readers in the poll last week didn’t select any one option by a majority. The three routes presented as options, two being considered and another I’ve been advocating for years, each received a similar number of votes.
Q: My preferred route for a streetcar line is…
The ten other answers were:
When streetcars were first installed it was a private effort by real estate developers to make it easier for buyers to reach new development:
The Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb Historic District is located within the boundaries of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. The -715-acre District is a triangular area generally bounded by the intersection of Gravois and South Jefferson Avenues at the north, South Jefferson Avenue and South Broadway Street (south of Chippewa Street) on the east, Meramec Street on the south, South Grand Boulevard on the west, and Gravois Avenue on the northwest.’ Gravois Avenue is a major arterial street and historically served as a wagon, streetcar, and vehicular transit corridor. South Jefferson Avenue also was and is a major transportation corridor. Meramec Street is a major collector street. Mixed commercial, institutional, and residential use along these major city thoroughfares visually and historically defines the survey area. (National Register nomination PDF)
Today funding streetcars in developed urban areas takes more than available right-of-way, it takes enough demand to justify the investment in infrastructure. Often this means connecting some big dots, the in between will fill in over time with proper land use controls. The problem in St. Louis is our big dots are generally east-west between downtown and Clayton. What big dots exist north & south to guarantee ridership on a daily basis?
Grand has a few dots:
Okay, suppose you connect these via streetcar — that’s a mile and a half length. Not bad, but you’d still have to run the #70 (Grand) MetroBus to reach areas north and south — an additional 7.5 miles. Even my longtime preferred route of Olive/Lindell to Vandeventer to Delmar doesn’t have enough dots to get funding.
But between the Option 1 & 2 being considered I have a strong preference for #1 — the double track on Taylor Ave option rather than the Euclid/Forest Park/Taylor loop.Establishing a double track on Taylor Ave sets up a perfect scenario for north-south expansion. Below is one concept:
The dots aren’t there for an initial north-south line but extending a couple of miles here and there every few years would eventually build a system. The current proposal calls for a north-south piece at 14th Street, going up to St. Louis Avenue. The double track on Taylor of Option 1 provides an ideal spot for a second north-south line further west. Expansion could happen to reach new development projects.
Yes, what I’ve shown above would take decades to construct. That’s how long-term planning works. For further reading on streetcars please see a 65-page literature review of Relationships Between Streetcars and the Built Environment.
— Steve Patterson
Plans were presented to the public last week to built a 7-mile modern streetcar line in St. Louis that would:
Metro is part of the planning process and this would become part of our transit system. But I know some of you still question the effectiveness of the streetcar over the bus. To be fair, here is a skeptical view that I happen to agree with.
Streetcars that replace bus lines are not a mobility improvement. If you replace a bus with a streetcar on the same route, and make no other improvements, nobody will be able to get anywhere any faster than they could before. This makes streetcars quite different from most of the other transit investments being discussed today.
Where a streetcar is faster or more reliable than the bus route it replaced, this is because other improvements were made at the same time — improvements that could just as well have been made for the bus route. These improvements may have been politically packaged as part of the streetcar project, but they were logically independent, so their benefits are not really benefits of the streetcar as compared to the bus. (source – highly recommended)
He’s right that streetscape improvements are just as important as the mode of transit, but funding realities mean a complete makeover of 7 miles for a bus isn’t very likely. Even if it was, a streetcar is a better choice for other reasons:
Streetcar vs. Bus
Buses are excellent local and regional public transportation options, but they will do little to spur redevelopment and economic investment in Downtown LA. This is due to the inherent flexibility of bus service, as routes change regularly to accommodate varying needs; in addition, buses contribute to nerve-racking pedestrian experiences due to heavy street-level emissions and noise pollution that discourages active use of sidewalks. Streetcars do the exact opposite. They provide developers and business owners certainty that the routes will not change, and are considered preferable to buses by residents, visitors, and employees as they offer more amenities, highly reliable routes and timetables, and enhanced urban experiences.
Buses and streetcars do, however, work together to connect access points within regional transportation networks. For example, sidewalks can be designed to specifically accommodate both vehicle configurations; in return, a transit stop effectively doubles its value within a regional transportation network. (LA Streetcar)
And…
While it’s true that streetcars require a much larger initial capital investment than buses, that capital cost is offset by significant operational savings year to year. In the long term, streetcars are more affordable as long as they are used on high ridership routes.
Streetcars have higher passenger capacity than buses (even bendy ones), which means that if there are lots of riders on your route, you can move them with fewer vehicles. Fewer vehicles means more efficient use of fuel and fewer (unionized, pensioned) drivers to pay.
Streetcar vehicles themselves are much more sturdy than buses, and last many decades longer. While buses must generally be retired and replacements purchased about every 10 years, streetcars typically last 40 years or more. For example, Philadelphia’s SEPTA transit system is still using streetcar vehicles built in 1947. (Washington Post — recommended)
Even in Portland the value of streetcars have been debated, critics questioning claims of Mayor Hales:
So that brings us to the ruling. Hales said “streetcars carry more people than buses … you attract more riders who don’t ride transit now, and actually the operating costs are not any greater than the bus.” Whether these arguments make a persuasive case for the necessity and usefulness of a streetcar system is, of course, up for debate. The statement itself remains factual. While, there’s some missing context, it’s nothing significant. We rate this claim True. (PolitiFact Oregon)
For a detailed look at operating costs of streetcars vs bus click here. Labor tends to be a big factor why streetcars are cheaper to operate.
For the poll this week I want you to vote on your preferred route. I’ve included “don’t build” as an option as well as my idea of Olive to Vandeventer to Delmar: described here.
The poll also has the two options from the study (p17):
My views on a St. Louis streetcar are evolving, more on Wednesday March 20. The poll is in the right sidebar (mobile users need to switch to the desktop layout)
— Steve Patterson