Happy Labor Day!
Going to watch the Labor Day parade today? The last day of bike racing in the Gateway Cup? Gotta work?
Whatever you do today, have a great Labor Day!
— Steve Patterson
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MX Movies To Open Downtown This Fall
I’m excited to have movie theater opening downtown. MX Movies is opening on Washington Ave between 6th-7th as part of the Mercantile Exchange, in the former St. Louis Centre building.
From the St. Louis Cinemas website:
St. Louis Cinemas will open a 3-screen, luxury movie theater at 6th and Washington in autumn of 2012. The MX Movies experience will be unlike anything else in St. Louis. In the heart of downtown’s newest entertaining, dining, retail, and residential district, the 3-screen move theater will feature crystal clear digital project, love seats in the theater, high-quality in-theater food service, and a lobby restaurant and bar.
More than just a movie theater, the MX Movies experience includes:
- 3 screens with crystal clear digital projection
- High-quality in-theater food service
- Love seats in the theaters
- Lobby restaurant/bar
Our Grand Opening will be announced later in the summer, so check back often.
St. Louis Cinemas also operates theaters at the Moolah, Chase Park Plaza and Galleria. I’ve been to all of these but I usually go to the Chase. I look foreword to another option. In-theater food service? Perfect!
— Steve Patterson
Gateway Cup Bicycle Racing Weekend Starts Tonight
Tonight is the start of the 21st annual Gateway Cup bicycle races, four different events today through Monday.
Friday night is always the Tour de Lafayette, a great evening event.
Locations for the other days have varied, but all are daytime events.
- Saturday is the Tour de Francis Park in St. Louis Hills.
- Sunday is the Giro della Montagna on The Hill. Afterwards is the Giro Pasta Dinner “Sunday, September 2nd 4:00-8:00pm: St Louis Bocce Club 2210 Marconi @ Bischoff on race course. Menu includes all the Pasta you can eat, plus 2 meatballs, salad, Italian Bread, and dessert. $7 adults/$4 children. Tickets available at the door.”
- Monday is Benton Park Classic in…Benton Park, the neighborhood, not the actual park.
Please consider biking or taking public transit if you plan to watch these events, parking is limited. Some bus routes will be rerouted due to the races to plan accordingly. The races happen rain or shine.
— Steve Patterson
Metro’s Disconnect With Riders, Pedestrians
On Monday August 20, 2012 the Grand MetroBus stop and Grand MetroLink stations reopened. On the overhead speakers in all stations Metro, speaking in transit jargon, announced the Grand station was open for “revenue service.” Really Metro, revenue service?
From dictionary.com:
jar·gon [jahr-guhn, -gon] noun
1. the language, especially the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group: medical jargon.
2. unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; gibberish.
3. any talk or writing that one does not understand.
4. pidgin.
5. language that is characterized by uncommon or pretentious vocabulary and convoluted syntax and is often vague in meaning.
What’s the big deal, so they used transit agency speak? The use of technical jargon by any business shows it doesn’t know how to communicate with its customers. If they announcement had been that Grand was “open for service” nobody would’ve thought they didn’t have to pay since they didn’t say “revenue” before service. Metro has problems relating to those of us that use transit, largely because Metro employes drive instead of use transit.
From the joint City/Metro press release:
On Saturday the ribbon cutting was held for the Grand viaduct (bridge).
WHERE: South end (Chouteau side) of Grand Bridge.
(VIP and media parking will be available off Papin Street.)
The public is encouraged to take the #70 Grand MetroBus or MetroLink to the Grand Station. Parking at the new Grand MetroLink Station Park-Ride lot is also an option. The lot is located at Scott Avenue and Theresa Avenue at the northeast end of the bridge.
At least they mentioned transit after parking. I took transit to the event, but not the #70 MetroBus or MetroLink. I caught the #32 just two blocks east of my loft downtown and it dropped my off right at Grand & Chouteau, much closer than the MetroLink or rerouted #70.
But the real problem is how Metro didn’t connect their new work to the city. I’ve already shared this concern with folks from Metro, some who were in agreement with me and others with the attitude that created the disconnect. Let me show you what I’m talking about.
What is there to connect to east of here? Lots actually, including a Metro facility. I doubt those who designed the station, parking lot and sidewalk ever bothered to walk around the area before starting the design. Designers must literally put themselves in the shoes of those that’ll use what they design.
I continued on Spruce to Compton. This would be a good route for people going to the Chaifetz Arena, Harris-Stowe and Sigma-Aldrich.
I took lots of pictures and some video at the Grand viaduct/bridge ribbon cutting but I’m not going to show you those. The speakers all talked about how great it’ll be for pedestrians. True, it’s a massive improvement as I acknowledged here. I’m just furious the most basic/obvious pedestrian connection wasn’t planned for yet again.
To Metro engineers/planners/designers: Transit users are pedestrians when arriving & leaving transit stations. We come from and go in all directions. Able bodied pedestrians take the shortest route — a straight line. This isn’t complicated stuff.
— Steve Patterson
Union Station “Festival Marketplace” Opened In 1985
St. Louis Union Station reopened 27 years ago today as a “festival marketplace.” Roughly translated that means cheesy mall in an old space built for some other purpose, in this case an old train shed. Actually part of the train shed is used for hotel rooms and meeting space, under the south end is parking and part is used for retail shops and food court.
In the poll last week I was pleasantly surprised by often readers had been to Union Station in the last year, I thought many more would pick “0”.
Q: How many times have you been to St. Louis Union Station in the last 12 months?
- 0 116: [54.21%]
- 1-3: 78 [36.45%]
- 4-6: 12 [5.61%]
- 7-10: 4 [1.87%]
- 13+: 3 [1.4%]
- 10-12: 1 [0.47%]
Still more than half did indicate they hadn’t been to Union Station in the last year. To my knowledge the hotel does well so hopefully someone will buy the place and rethink it once again.
— Steve Patterson