Candidates for Aldermanic President Not Impressing Me So Far

Incumbent Aldermanic President Jim Shrewsbury is facing a strong challenge from 6th Ward Alderman Lewis Reed in the primary election to be held on March 6th. Unless an independent petitions to be on the April ballot (deadline is February 12th, hint hint, nudge nudge), one of these two men will be the next President of the Board of Aldermen and the other will be out of political office, at least temporarily.
So far Jim Shrewsbury seems to be running on a platform of starting board meetings on time and following the law. Well, I would certainly hope so! Reed, on the other hand, is bragging about how much development has happened in his ward during his tenure. The problem I have with Reed on this issue is how he is trying to say he’d be a better board president because he has produced so many millions in development while Shrewsbury has not.

I see the President’s job to run the administrative side of the Board of Alderman and to vote on the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The President’s job is not to start doing development deals throughout the city. Shrewsbury needs better arguments than simply starting meetings on time or following the law. Reed needs to think about what it is the President should be doing and suggest how he is better qualified to do those things than his opponent. Reed needs to understand that if elected his days of brokering development deals are over.  Right now neither candidate is impressing me.

We’ll see how they do at tonight’s candidate forum sponsored by the 15th Ward Democrats, 7pm at the Carpenter Branch Library on South Grand (see map). On-street parking is available along with a small parking lot accessible off of McDonald (a one-way street so you’d need to enter from the West). A bike rack is located on the Grand side near the main entrance. The library is also along the #70 Grand bus line.

Loughborough Commons is Not Finished Yet

When I started writing about the failures of Loughborough Commons a few months ago I was reminded by Ald. Matt Villa (D-11th) that it is not finished yet. He is correct, work is still progressing even though the two main stores, Schnucks & Lowes, are open.

In addition to a number of possible out buildings and the need to finish an ADA accessible route to a public street it seems Desco is working to correct some of the poor planning on areas that were already finished. Yes, the not finished yet $40 million project is already getting fixes.

Above you can see a new black metal fence installed recently which blocks now former accessible parking spaces near the entrance. A similar parking arrangement on the other side of the entry remains.

From this angle you can see how the angle of the main entrance would make it a challenge to see oncoming cars if you were backing out of one of these spaces. Accessible spaces, such as these near an entrance, are ideal for many so they do not need to cross a main drive. Still, these must be designed and placed in such a manner that someone using them is able to easily navigate in and out of them. This is also an example of where the minimum sidewalk width required by law is just that, mimimum.

Before the change you can see how tight the space was. When extra shopping carts were stored in the area it completely blocked the sole planned walking route from Loughborough. Civil engineers are a critical part of any design team, they are necessary for a number of areas including water runoff concerns, accessing soil conditions, engineering curbs and other details on a given site. They are not, however, natural specialists in creating walkable & ADA accessible environments. Projects of this scale, especially those with over $14 million in public tax incentives, should have a consultant on board to ensure more than simple textbook minimum compliance. At this point I still question if they will be able to establish minimum compliance with respect to an accessible route.

Above is an earlier image between the Schnucks and the Lowe’s, but as of 1/1/07 nothing has changed here. Pedestrians, including those using walkers, mobility scooters or wheelchairs are directed into the pharmacy drive-thru exit! At this point these pedestrians have only a couple of choices, those who can will simply walk through the plantings/grass and those who cannot must either turn left and exit the drive-thru lane with the cars out into the main drive for the development or turn right and go head-on with the cars in the pharmacy lane for about 5ft (just outside of view in this image) until they get to what appears to be a drainage area which provides a break in the planter. In this direction someone will have to hope the cars leaving the pharmacy drive-thru lane see them. This second route would allow pedestrians to go down that direction but the slope is too steep for a return back to the Schnucks and out to Loughborough. And forget wheelchairs for a minute, what about young families pushing a stroller! We do want young families with kids in the area, right?

What is more amazing than having such major projects built without a planning/access specialist on the design team is the idea that we leave it up to our elected aldermen to ensure the public’s interests are being considered. With our 28 mini-cities with a city mentality we get varying results from ward to ward. Some aldermen seem to know their limitations and consult the city’s Planning & Urban Design Agency. Others, like Lyda Krewson, have ideal developers like Joe Edwards so these issues are rare. But folks like Ald. Matt Villa, who assured me before construction started that pedestrians would be considered, are clearly incapable of distinquishing between token gestures toward access and good community design. Yes, he is certainly a “nice guy” but that only goes so far — not even remotely close in the case of Loughborough Commons. And just think, Loughborough Commons is not even finished.

Earth Moving at the Old Sears Site on Grand

Via 15thWardSTL.org comes news that some activity is taking place on the old Sears Site, the very one Pyramid had hoped to switch for a McDonald’s.

Pyramid has started pushing dirt around on the former Sears site in preparation for construction of their proposed Senior Housing apartments. They appear to have staked out the corners of the building (perhaps in preparation for soil testing). At this time they do not have a building permit (per Geo St. Louis), nor have they appeared in front of the Board of Public Service for any variances.

It looks like we are continuing our pattern of pushing projects through the system with little public input.  Ald. Jennifer Florida’s last update on her blog was October 27, 2006 — just shy of two months.  Where is all the planning for South Grand? Where is the input from citizens on the future of our commercial corridors?  Seems like as soon as the pressure is lifted in this town things go back to “normal.”

ADA for Accessible Streets, Day 1

Today I attended a seminar on new guidelines regarding accessible streets — making sure all citizens can use the public space. We focused today on the physical sidewalk design, ramps and crossings. Tomorrow we will be looking at signals.

I want to thank Mayor Slay, Board of Public Service President Marjorie Melton, the Starkloff Disability Institute, and the Pyramid Companies
for putting together this excellent seminar. No, seriously. The speakers have been top notch and this has shown me that I need to know a lot more about this subject and I know all the engineers in the room certainly need to know more. This clearly demonstrates to me the City saw a lack of knowledge in a critical area and decided to take a very pro-active step to help raise the bar. Very commendable.

In a funny way, however, for the small sum of $100 they are helping me better understand new regulations relative to accessibilty in the public-right-of-way which I will turn around and use to be critcal of future projects. But maybe, just maybe, this will be good. They will have a better understanding of the new rules and knowing that I will be out there with my camera (and soon a new digital level) they will hopefully take the time to get it right.

Granted, they have projects already in the works at this point so I know something started next week will have been designed and contracted a number of months back. But future projects such as MLK streetscape and the Euclid streetscape will need to comply, no doubt!

I realize now I had only a very basic understanding of a portion of accessibility issues. We learned about differences between manual and powered wheelchairs, persons who walk with a cane or walker, people with various types of visual disabilities. In the afternoon we broke up into teams and went out around the hotel (downtown Hilton) looking at intersection design. Reports were mixed on both older sidewalk areas and new areas such as my team’s corner at Busch Stadium. Even at Busch some slopes were beyond the limits and details were off, but nothing major. The encouraging thing was seeing the engineers from HOK and the City talking with expert Bill Hecker (shown below with level).

The agency responsible for setting standards for accessibility is the U.S. Access Board. It should be noted that after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 they followed closely with standards for a number of areas including public buildings. Their guidelines help architects the exact specifications on things such as bathroom design, hallways and all manner of details in building open to the public such as restaurants, office buildings or civic structures. They’ve also had rules governing site design so you get things such as accessible parking spaces and connections on private developments. Yet, they are just now establishing guidelines for the public-right-of-way.

Yet another federal law requires that when local governments are repaving roads, they must make the sidewalks accessible. They’ve been using earlier guides for this purpose. Most likely your nearby corner has a ramp from the sidewalk to the street-level at the intersection. If not, don’t be surprised if your street doesn’t get repaved anytime soon. Most of the ramps that St. Louis has installed over the last 10 years don’t meet the new guidelines.

I took a break from writing this post, I just had to visit a couple of places (Southtowne Center & Loughborough Commons) to see if the intersections were as bad as I remembered. Yes, yes they are. But on the way I passed by some work being done at Gravois & Gustine. I’ve hesitated taking pictures of this yet because it is not done and didn’t want people going all ‘Matt Villa’ on me.

The cover in the PAR (Pedestrian Accessible Route) is not bad if done right. However, what you cannot see from this angle is how the concrete tapers off in a couple of directions, something we learned today could cause great instability on a wheelchair or someone using a cane/walker. From a lower angle you can get a better idea of what went wrong with this nearly finished project involving new signals and access ramps:

I fully anticipate that there will be mistakes, as we see above. It will be up to those designing the intersection to make sure the expectation is clear and the person inspecting the work must understand what is necessary. There will be times where the letter of the law cannot be met, where it is infeasible. At these times they need to show they considered alternatives and they did the best they could considering the circumstances. So while I do intend to buy a digital level I know it won’t all be perfect. I’ll be looking for more obvious mistakes, ones that some good ole common sense could have prevented. A really good example of that is just down the street at Gravois & Meramec:

Here we see brand new accessible ramps for crossing both streets and a brand new signal pole blocking a new sidewalk section. Can someone please tell me the logic behind adding accessible ramps only to block the sidewalk with the traffic signal? This is a good example of where someone along the process should have said, “Uh wait a minute guys, this doesn’t look right.” And the best time for that (read: cheaper) is while the project is still on paper, not set literally in concrete!

This project is either the responsibility of MoDot or the St. Louis Board of Public Service, I’m going to ask tomorrow. MoDot, you will recall from a post earlier in the week, just ripped out 300 ramps along Lindbergh because they were not constructed at the proper angle. Moving a newly installed traffic signal is not so easy. If anything is clear to me it is this workshop on accessibility did not come soon enough, I’m glad it is here now.

Helpful Resources:

• U.S. Access Board’s page on public rights-of-way. (See 2005 revised draft guidelines)
• U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access

Update 12/15/2006 at 6:00am:

Last night I forgot to quote some of the text from the invitation about this event. I posted it back on November 17th but I think it is worth repeating:

“Compliance is no longer a guessing game. There is a right way, a wrong way and a best way. Architects, engineers, other designers, developers, builders, contractors, and city inspectors and officials now have a chance to make our community a model. This seminar will provide an opportunity to learn about the new guidelines — from experts in the accessibility field who helped develop the guidelines, and by experiencing what happens when accessibility is not addressed.”

The bold emphasis is theirs, not mine. However, it does appear many have simply been guessing (and poorly). It was repeated a number of times at the event and deserves notation here — the standards set by the government are the minimum for compliance. Minimum. Not ideal, not best practices, and certainly not a world leader for modeling accessibilit. I think we need to work on getting to minimum compliance!

Update 12/15/2006 at 9:00am:

The intersection work being done along Gravois is the handy work of MoDot — the folks about to spend $500 million on highway forty.  Let’s hope it is better planned than these sidewalks.

Power Shift on Cherokee Street

Earlier today control of the Cherokee Station Business Association shifted to a new and diverse group (see prior post):

In front from L to R is: Minerva Lopez (VP), Karen Abounader (board member), Patavee Vanadilok (board member). In back from L to R is: Jason Deem (Pres), Will Liebermann (Treasurer). Not pictured, Andrew Liebermann (board member).

The meeting was long and not without conflict. The new group provided roughly 20 proxie votes from business owners that could not attend the mid-afternoon meeting. SLDC staffer Harry Bennett and Ald. Ken Ortmann saying they’d need an opinion from the City Counselor’s office before they could accept the proxies. After long debate the new group, thinking they had enough votes anyway, dropped the issue.

And boy were they right. I watched as Ald. Ken Ortman and Ald. Craig Schmid unfolded and counted the ballots. Basically the old guard ran a full slate of candidates (same officers I believe) and the new group did the same. Based on what I could see it was a good 4-1 margin of victory in favor of a change of leadership.

Part of their victory, I believe, was the fact they ran a diverse group of people for the positions and you could tell from the packed room their base of support was as diverse as the street itself.

One of the issues that I think sent them over the edge was the recent paving of three vacant lots owned by the association. All three were paved over at a cost of $9,687.18 per the Treasurer’s report handed out at the meeting. The report shows another $2,471.06 in wrought iron expenses.

The new board felt these lots should have remained as grass and that for this type of cost they could have been maintained. They also mentioned to me their concerns about water runoff with the impervious paving. Though not designed as parking, you can already see a car parked on this lot. Perhaps that is where the wrought iron fencing will come into play? Still, that is a lot of their improvement fund to be used — roughly 40% of their total.

Aldermanic candidate Galen Gondolfi was present at the meeting although he could not vote as his property is just a block or two beyond the boundaries of the CID (Community Improvement District). Interestingly, new board member Patavee Vanadilok was also not able to vote. As an attorney she is not required to have a business license and only those with a business license can vote. Yet, she was able to be elected and serve on the board. One of the priorities of the new board will be to revise and update their bylaws to fix past loopholes and simply items that were unforeseen when the organization was first established.

The next trick will be to get someone interested in re-opening the old upstairs bowling alley on Cherokee Street. Yes, Cherokee had a pretty awesome bowling alley at one time. Mr. Edwards, can we talk over a taco?

BTW, I had planned to attend the E&A meeting on the TIF for St. Louis Centre (see post) but this meeting ran too long. For coverage of that meeting check out Lucas Hudson’s report over at the ACC.