Metered Parking: Downtown To Be Treated The Same As The Rest Of St. Louis Starting July 1st

The free ride downtown will soon be over. Effective July 1st metered parking downtown will no longer be free, the Treasurer’s press release:

The facts got a bit twisted in the local media:

For decades, flashing “expired” signs went unenforced in downtown parking meters on Saturdays. But City Treasurer Tishaura Jones announced on Tuesday that the city will end the long-standing policy and start requiring people to pay for street parking on Saturdays.

Starting on July 1, Jones said, downtown motorists will be required to pay for using parking meters on Saturdays, from 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. To help ease the change, violators will be issued warnings on the first two weekends of July. (stltoday)

7am? Went unenforced? To be fair to the paper this “violations” view came from the treasurer website:

Effective July 1, 2013, the Parking Division will begin enforcing parking violations, including expired meters, in Downtown St. Louis on Saturdays.  

Yesterday Jones replied to my email inquiry, indicating:  “The previous policy was the first two hours were free.”  However, Jones’ statement doesn’t jive with with the current meters:

Jones indicated these “tags will be updated shortly. They be replaced before July 1.” Over downtown 3,275 meters need changing with only 7 business days remain before July 1st. As indicated, this decision was made on May 9th so it is reasonable to expect all to be updated in 7 weeks time. Still, I’m bothered by the apparent confusion as to what the policy has been.

Maggie Campbell, who recently resigned as President of the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis, was an advocate for free parking seven days a week. I sat on a downtown parking committee with her a few years ago and we disagreed on this issue. I agree with parking experts like The High Cost of Free Parking author Donald Shoup (video) and Parking Management Best Practices author Todd Litman that pricing should not be free, but set to create turnover.

I think Jones may be confusing the 2-hour limit with free saturday parking. In theory the limit for most downtown spaces is two hours, after which the enforcement officials would drive around putting a chalk mark on tires and ticketing vehicles that hadn’t moved in two hours — regardless if the meter had been paid. It is this time limit that has never been enforced anywhere in the city. Two very different issues a banker might get confused.

A puzzling part of this change is who has authority to set policy, her or the Board of Aldermen. Jones directed me to Missouri statute RsMO 82.485:

It shall be the duty of the supervisor of parking meters to install parking meters, collect all parking meter fees, supervise the expenditures for repairs and maintenance, establish and supervise a parking enforcement division and a parking meter division to enforce any statute or ordinances now or hereafter established pertaining to the parking of motor vehicles, including automated zone parking and all other parking functions, and to make all disbursements on any parking contracts, including employment, consulting, legal services, capital improvement and purchase of equipment and real property which may hereafter be made by such cities, subject to audit in the manner provided by state statute.

The treasurer’s website also references RsMO 82.487, relating to the duties of the parking commission. Who is this parking commission anyway?

The Parking Commission consists of the following:

• Tishaura Jones (Treasurer)
• Carl Phillips (Parking Administrator)
• Todd Waeltermann (Director of Streets)
• Ald. Freeman Bosley, Sr (Chair of Streets Committee)
• Elaine Spearmon (Comptroller’s Office representative)

Meetings of the CITY OF SAINT LOUIS PARKING COMMISSION are open to the general public and held every second Thursday of each month at 10:00 a.m. in Room 220 City Hall, 1200 Market Street, St. Louis, MO 63103.  Please call 314-622-4700 for more information.

Yet the Board of Aldermen has passed numerous ordinances related to parking, such as Parking in the Third Ward or Parking Meter Division Employees relating to pay scale of employees.   Hopefully Tishaura Jones will be successful in doing what she campaigned on, removing parking from the Treasurer’s office. Bankers should not determine parking policy.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: How Should We Address Auto Congestion In Forest Park

Last week Loop businessman & Loop Trolley backer, Joe Edwards, said he thinks we’ll eventually see cars banned in Forest Park. He’d like to see an electric powered trolley (aka vintage streetcar) on tracks circulating within the park. I know weekend traffic in the park can be so bad the #95 (Hampton) MetroBus reroutes to avoid going through the park. Cars are banned/limited at times — like the annual Ballon Glow.

Traffic can be obnoxious in Forest Park, ruining the pleasure of being outdoors to some. I recall flying back to St. Louis one night a few years ago and lighting in the parking lots stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise dark park.

Currently the Forest Park Trolley does a decent job for those of us who enter the park without a car.

Still, the vast majority drive into the park rather than use public transportation. This has prompted the St. Louis Zoo to buy the former hospital site across I-64/Highway 40 for additional parking with plans for a gondola to transport patrons back and forth. By eliminating some, or all, of the surface parking between the zoo and the highway the zoo can expand to the south with more exhibits.

So what are some of the options for dealing with congestion?

• Bans cars at peak times or all the time
• Construction of a electric trolley on a track, as Edwards suggested
• Construction of an electric bus system with overhead wires like the trolley but no track
• Run the existing trolley bus more frequently

Some will object to overhead wires and/or tracks, but others object to all the cars.

So this is the poll topic this week, the exact question is: How should we address auto congestion in Forest Park? I’m allowing you to pick up to 3 choices from the list. The poll is in the right sidebar.

Please take a moment to vote in the poll then share your thoughts in the comments below.
— Steve Patterson

W1W May Payoff Someday

I haven’t spent much time around the airport since the latest runway opened in 2006. Planned years earlier, it opened as flights at Lambert had been dropping. By 2008 the thought was get cargo flights:

The RCGA’s Susan Strauder, vice president for infrastructure and public policy, said the $1 billion W1W runway, considered a boondoggle by some in light of the drop in passengers, offers increased opportunities for the airport for expanded service. (stlbeacon)

But that hasn’t materialized either.

Last week at lunch at India Palace overlooking the airport I saw one small jet take off on the new runway. A few larger jets, mostly Southwest Airlines, took off from an older runway. Sad to have all that concrete without the flights.

Also, old streets in the area no longer connect. I compared 1958 to 2007 on HistoricAerials.com, massive changes. In 10-20 years we’ll know if the $1 billion dollar W1W runway was a good investment, right now it doesn’t look like it was.

— Steve Patterson

Tragedy Can Happen Anywhere

Yesterday a tragic even occurred on Cherokee Street:

Four people were shot to death after an apparent murder-suicide inside a Cherokee Street building Thursday afternoon.

Ambulances and police cars responded to the scene at 2715 Cherokee Street at 1:29 p.m. The Cherokee Place Business Incubator is housed at that location and is home to many individual businesses. (KMOX)

What we must all remember is there are unstable individuals everywhere who settle disputes with guns. This is not a reflection on the people who live or work in the area where these individuals snap. I have seen Cherokee Street blossom in the 23 years I’ve been in St. Louis. One of my first jobs upon arrival was working for an antique store east of Jefferson, almost nobody went west of Jefferson in 1990. This doesn’t change my positive view of Cherokee.

The suburbanites reading this may think this is another city shooting and that these types of things don’t happen in their community. Again, these things happen everywhere.

Less than a year ago:

The shootings happened Monday morning in the 700 block of Hawbrook Road, in Glendale, Missouri a wealthy suburb about 10 miles west of St. Louis.

Mitchell Murch II called police Monday to say his wife Catherine, 42, had killed the couple’s two children, then herself at the family residence. (KMOV)

Glendale is wealthy compared to much of St. Louis but it pales in comparison to Frontenac.  In 2003 my then-boss and I met a couple at their home, they were considering hiring us for a remodeling project . We didn’t get the job, disappointing because we had another project in the same subdivision.  Two years later came this news:

Three people are dead following a shooting and high speed pursuit in the west St. Louis County suburbs of Town & Country and Ladue. Police say a man, identified as John Alexander of Frontenac shot and killed his estranged wife Kelli Alexander, 35, also of Frontenac and the caregiver of their children 29 year old April Wheeler of St. Charles, who is a friend of the family. John Alexander shot his wife, who was in her car with their three children, outside a home in the 2600 block of Bopp Road shortly before 6 p.m. Friday night. Video: Police Press Conference Corporal Jeff Myer, spokesman for the Town & Country Police Department, says police received several calls about a possible shooting outside a home on Bopp Road, which is just south of Clayton Road in Town & Country. (KSDK)

I sat at their breakfast table just a couple of years earlier! Do his actions put at black eye on Bopp Rd? No, these things happen everywhere. Wealthy neighborhoods don’t have immunity from senseless tragedy.

The families of yesterday’s victims have my deepest sympathies.

— Steve Patterson

Picking Up Trash A Good Way To Volunteer

Returning to our loft from a visit to Union Station last week, my boyfriend and I decided to check out the Meeting of the Waters fountain by Carl Milles in Aloe Plaza.

Timidly DFS asked me if I minded if he picked up some trash while we were there. Mind? Of course not! Knock yourself out…

A few times since he’s gone back to Aloe Plaza, and parts of the Gateway Mall to the east, to pick up more trash. He’s been looking for the right volunteer opportunity and helping clean the Gateway Mall seems to be a perfect fit.

Picking up trash allows him to volunteer on his schedule and doesn’t require coordination with others. DFS hasn’t even lived in St. Louis for four months but already he’s making a small impact. DFS is the perfect boyfriend for me!

— Steve Patterson