No Van, Truck, or SUV Parking

Sometimes it is impossible to see oncoming traffic when pulling out of a drive. A van, truck or SUV parked on the street can present a real challenge for drivers of reasonable sized vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.

The City of Clayton has a few areas where the have wisely marked spaces on either side of driveways (private or alley) as “No Van, Truck or SUV Parking.” Certainly folks in Clayton are civilized enough to follow the rules?

Oh wait, what is that we see in the left of the picture?

Oh yes, a big and expensive Volvo SUV parked where the space is clearly marked. Nice. This person would likely feel bad if they caused an accident. Is parking a few spaces closer to your destination that important?

I’ve blurred part of the tag. As you can hopefully see this is a dealer plate although it doesn’t mean it belongs to a local Volvo dealer. Might be an Enterprise vehicle or similar.

If you are a law enforcement official and you can look up registration please email me and I will give you the full plate number along with the unedited image. I’d love to see them get embarrassed by having a cop show up at their office with a print-out of the picture…

If you drive a big SUV please keep in mind the rest of us cannot see through or around your vehicle. However, drivers of vintage MG’s might be able to see under some obnoxious trucks I’ve seen.

– Steve

Smoking Ban Clears the Way for Non-Smokers to Enjoy Going Out

As St. Louis County considers a ban on smoking in public spaces the rhetoric is increasing. Chief among the anti-ban comments is smokers won’t stay around restaurants and spend money. Unlike California we don’t have the weather for year round patio use to keep smokers spending money. So the scare tactic is smokers will quickly leave restaurants and won’t watch games at bars. BS.

A remotely valid argument is that while smoking doesn’t hurt business it doesn’t help either. That is, restaurants in non-smoking states grow at slower rates than restaurants in smoking states. It is hard to say if this is true as so many studies are being thrown around. Lets assume it is true.

What about the growth rate of lung cancer in states with smoking bans? It is too early to know the long term effects (pro & con) of a smoking ban. I think St. Louis County, St. Louis City and the entire State of Missouri should be give it a try. If it turns out in 2025 that the ban didn’t have the desired results then allow smoking again. In the meantime I can actually enjoy going out for a couple of decades.

Most restaurants have a non-smoking section but often I end up 5 feet away from the smoking section with nothing to keep the smoke away from me. As a lifetime non-smoker I just can’t consume food around smoke. It is not appetizing. Still other places are in the dark ages and they don’t even offer a non-smoking section. Like most people, I enjoy dining alfresco but smokers are on the patio as well. Trying to get a meal without smoke is not exactly easy.

Going out to a bar for a beer is a different story. I’m not trying to eat food so I am bit more tolerant. Still, after a couple of hours my throat begins to get sore. I just can’t take it nor do I want to learn. Coming home from a night out means my clothing goes directly into the washing machine. Visits to California are so refreshing.

I can imagine that it is tough for smokers to quit. Everywhere they go people are smoking. Hardly conducive to quitting. Perhaps if these smokers quit they’d have more money to spend in restaurants and bars on food and drink? Or they have more money to spend on other consumer goods?

So in all the talk about the smokers going home early so they can light up where is the discussion of us non-smokers that might eat out more. That we might stay for dessert knowing we are going enjoy the moment. Or that we might go out for drinks rather than meet for drinks at home. Yes, restaurants & bars may lose some smokers’ business but they will gain the business of non-smokers.

I’m not a prude. If someone wants to drink I don’t care. If they want to smoke some pot I don’t care. If someone wants to smoke cigarettes I don’t care. I begin to care when my personal space is intruded. I drink but I have friends that don’t. My having a drink doesn’t force them to taste the liquor. A person next to me smoking does force me to inhale the smoke. The two vices are different.

Banning smoking on a city by city or county by county basis is likely to cause smokers to cross boundaries. This is why the state of Missouri should have the courage to ban smoking in public places state wide. If smokers want to cross the river to smoke in Illinois then so be it. Or perhaps then we institute a toll on the bridges?

– Steve

Rising Fuel Prices Make Mass Transit More Cost Effective

Not surprising is the fact that as fuel prices increase we see an increase in riders on St. Louis’ light rail – MetroLink. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Increased ridership, of course, is great news. More ridership will mean greater support for mass transit. But a downside does exist as well.

First, the cost to the system will increase even though the MetroLink cars are electric. Increased fuel costs will result in higher costs on nearly every good and service in the country. More directly, the cost of the electricity to run MetroLink will increase as well as diesel fuel for the buses. This increase in costs will put additional pressure on the agency to maintain service. It is estimated increased revenues from more riders will not offset higher operating expenses. Some will call for ending public subsidy of mass transit.

For decades the public has been subsidizing transit in a much different form – sprawl. From efforts to keep fuel costs down to paying for highways society has been footing the bill for the privilege of driving a private car. Nothing is more subsidized than the private automobile on a public street or highway.

With a monthly ridership of over a million passengers just think if we didn’t have MetroLink. That is over 35,000 riders per day on average. Without MetroLink we’d have many more cars on our roads for those that could afford a car. The costs of additional wear and tear on roads must be taken into account. The environmental impact of additional cars adding to our region’s smog would also add to the costs. Plus where would all the cars go? Would we tear down more of our historic architecture for yet more parking garages? The price of not having good mass transit would just be too high. We must support and use our mass transit systems.

For me MetroLink just isn’t between my normal A-B routes. I would love to see a street car come down South Broadway to connect downtown to Carondelet. It would be great to walk the few blocks from my home to Broadway to catch a street car. Maybe someday?

In the meantime, I’m going to look at bus routes to get me downtown for the occasional lunch at Curry In A Hurry, public meeting or First Friday gallery walk. It is not going to hurt me to take the bus on occasion. Getting on my bike for trips offers even greater benefits.

Citizens for Modern Transit
Metro – bus & light rail service
St. Louis Regional Bike Federation

– Steve

Biking to Brunch on Cherokee

Two miles is a short bike ride for most people and that is how far away the new Shangri-La Diner (2201 Cherokee, 772-8308) is from my house. A rode my bright orange Kronan bicycle and met a friend who rode from her loft downtown. As we were locking up our bikes to a street lamp post a couple from Tower Grove South rode up on their bikes – they locked to the handicap ramp railing.

Four bikes on one street corner on a Sunday morning. For the hour and a half we were there I saw a number of cyclists riding in both directions on Cherokee. St. Louis is becoming a cycling town. We are becoming, once again, an urbane city. The signs of urbanity are everywhere.

St. Louis needs a major program to install bike racks in commercial areas. I’m not talking about a few racks here and there but hundreds each and every year. This is not a build it they will come idea, the need is current.

– Steve

Giving up Big Boxes & National Chains

I’m giving up big box stores. Like dairy products, this will take time to completely give up.

As it is I don’t go to the malls. The only time I go to a mall is to visit the Apple store in West County Mall. I hate the Galleria so much I haven’t been to see the Apple mini store there yet. I may never.

I despise Wal-Mart & Sam’s. I’ve never liked Lowe’s either. I thought Lowe’s was related to Wal-Mart but it seems they just have Wal-Mart like practices and equally ugly stores. During the battle to save the Century Building I gave up Schnuck’s since it was their development company, Desco, that was involved in advocating a parking garage over a marble building on the National Register of Historic Places (aka The Century). Desco is also behind the proposed Schnuck’s & Lowe’s at Loughborough and I-55 that includes taking of 18 homes.

Not a penny of my money will get spent in the new development. Same with the new development at the site of the old Southtown Famous at Kingshighway & Chippewa. Not a cent. I don’t want to reward the retailers and developers that build this crap in our city. The suburbs are full of horrid sprawl shopping centers. The city does not need to become like the suburbs. Are you listening City Hall?

Target has been one of my favorite stores since I was a child. No more. They are too Republican for me. The website BuyBlue.org gives Target a 17 out of 100 rating – not good. I emailed Target and got the following response from their “guest relations” department:

That sounds good enough until you look a bit further. In the last couple of years Target CEO Robert J. Ulrich gave $4,000 to Minnesota Congressman Mark Kennedy. The following is from Kennedy’s website on Family Values:

Is this part of Target’s business objectives? Target is touting lines by openly gay designers such as Isaac Mizrahi at the same time funding anti-gay congressmen like Mark Kennedy. Target executives also made contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Like I said, I am done with Target.

I do stop in to buy a few things at the Shop ‘n Save at Gravois Plaza a couple of times per week. I’ve discovered they are a bit too red-state for me so I will be making some adjustments and finding a new pharmacy.

My plan at this point is to focus my grocery shopping on Soulard Farmer’s Market, City Grocers, and German-owned Trader Joe’s (same owner as Aldi). The bulk of my dining out is limited to local restaurants so that won’t require any change. I buy music online through iTunes. I get my TV through Dish Network which had a good blue rating through a different site. Charter Communications, my high speed internet provider, also had a good blue rating (unlike SBC).

Home Depot will be hard to give up but I really don’t buy much there. As Spring planting season approaches I will look to local nurseries for starter plants. It will take time, thought and some good planning but I can change my shopping habits. We cannot afford to continue supporting big boxes and right wing stores. Our purchasing power speaks volumes.

I’m going to ask my firm, Schaller Realty, to join Build St. Louis – a local independent business association. I am going to use the site as a guide to find businesses and services. If you’ve got a local business and you don’t support right-wing candidates send me an email.

Oh yeah, I am writing this at locally owned Hartford Coffee. Good place, free wi-fi, check it out if you haven’t already.

– Steve