Warming weather always gets me thinking of the 1978 Queen song, Bicycle Race:
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like
I actually have two bikes. One is an urban hybrid — “uglified” with stickers and such to reduce the odds of theft. The second bike is the opposite — still urban, but very handsome. I can tell you the last time I rode it — Saturday December 22, 2007.
12/22/07 - Stopped at Uma at 11th & Locust.Then visited Macy's, parking at 7th & Locust Finished trip at City Grocers at 10th & Olive.
I had recently moved to 16th & Locust so my total distance wasn’t that great. But as you can see I had to use other items to secure my bike while visiting stores. City & downtown leaders have been concerned, for decades, about providing massive quantities of automobile parking they overlooked the need for bike parking.
Despite the lack of bike parking it was a fun trip. At the time I was car-free, using my 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter to travel longer distances. The scooter was great but there is just something special about using a bike for transportation, getting from A to B to C under your own power.
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah
Fat bottomed girls they’ll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Six weeks after this December bike ride downtown I suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke (2/1/08). Although I cannot yet ride a bike, I’m optimistic that I will again. This bike is so stunningly beautiful I must once again ride it! Maybe next Spring?
Info on my bike:
Brand: Kronan (a Swedish brand)
Manufactured: Eastern Europe
Purchased from a San Diego bike shop
Single speed, coaster brake, 50 lbs! — old school. 3spd models available
New reproduction of WWII Swedish army bike
once again available in the US, order here (sorry no more orange), $500-$700.
Last July 9th I did a post called, “Washington Ave Suffering From Deferred Maintenance” which focused on nearly 10 missing street trees on what had been a very expensive streetscape. I included numerous pictures like this one:
But eventually they all got removed and replanted.
February 27, 2009
The newly planted trees are budding out too.
April 20, 2009
But they won’t all do well. The above tree is not planted correctly:
Not exactly centered
If this tree lives it will begin to grow into the grate on the right. Most of the other trees seem to be planted reasonably centered in the area provided. I happened to spot this one yesterday. Is it too late to move it?
One of the first things I discovered after I moved here in 2004 is that St. Louis has a lot of 4-way stops. Some appear to have replaced traffic signals, at intersections where the cost of maintaining them could no longer be justified (Jamieson & Fyler or Olive & Sutter, for example) – it makes sense given the city’s financial struggles over the past several decades. But there are many other locations where they seem to have been installed because someone (not a traffic engineer) convinced someone else in the city (likely the alderman) that doing so would make the neighborhood “safer” – Arsenal and Chippewa between Grand and Broadway are both classic examples*. A not-so-surprising discovery is that many people don’t actually stop at all our STOP signs, many just slow down, then keep going.
It turns out that one of the traffic engineers I worked with in Denver grew up in St. Louis and southern Illinois, and he enlightened me a bit on how things worked in an earlier time, after I sent him this picture: “In those days, the 1950’s, they used a lot of yellow stop signs and red ones they called boulevard stops. I think the idea was that the yellow ones were meant to be like a yield sign because you didn’t have to stop at them unless there was cross traffic. I remember my grandpa hollering at my mom not to stop at stop signs because you didn’t have to. It made her mad because he did not have a car nor a drivers license.”
My wife also informed me that one of her older, senior friends remembers when the standard practice at 4-way stops in St. Louis was two cars at time alternating, not just one, as is (supposed to be) current practice and law. Combine these two aberrations from current standards and practices, along with only token enforcement by the St. Louis Police and many people learning to drive/bad habits from their parents, it becomes easier to understand why a STOP signs here are viewed by many as only a suggestion! As both a relative newcomer and an occasional cyclist, I’d like to hear what natives have to say on this one – is it a quaint St. Louis tradition, a clash of generational values, or something else?
*Having become pretty active in neighborhood politics, I had suggested the addition of 4-way stops at certain Denver intersections. Since the city actually lets their traffic engineers design and manage a functional system, I quickly learned that 4-way stops are not the “preferred alternative”, that they were reserved for use almost exclusively at schools, where there would be a large amount of pedestrian traffic. The engineers found, as we see here, with 4-way stops, that a large number of drivers assume that the other driver will actually stop, so they can just slow down. They found, and secondary streets with moderate traffic, that alternating 2-way stops (E-W, N-S, E-W, N-S, etc.) was much more effective in both obtaining compliance and in balancing smooth traffic flow and safety than 4-way stops.
Local Architect Jim Zavist was born in upstate New York, raised in Louisville KY, spent 30 years in Denver Colorado and relocated to St. Louis in 2005.
Today (4/3/09) at 4pm Mayor Slay will officially open The Old Post Office Plaza. This is more open space in a downtown with too much open space but not enough quality urban public space. And though it may look like it, this plaza is not public.
This 3/4-acre plaza is owned, not by the city, but Downtown Now/The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis. The plaza is to the North of the Old Post Office, across Locust between 8th & 9th (map).
Don’t confuse this new private plaza with the private plaza one block East, that unused plaza will soon become another parking garage.
The plaza is considered a key piece of the emerging Old Post Office Square, which includes the renovated Old Post Office building across the street at 815 Olive St. and Roberts Brothers Properties’ planned $70 million, 24-story residential tower adjacent to the Roberts-owned Mayfair Hotel at Locust and Eighth streets. (source, August 2007)
The plaza’s designers, BSN Architects of Toronto, describe the project:
The winner of an invited architectural competition, this new public Plaza celebrates the adjacent historic Old Post Office of St. Louis and actively engages the surrounding urban form. A dramatic three dimensional armature is proposed to provide substantive user amenity and involve the public in the unfolding urban drama of the revitalized downtown. Its morphology incorporates surrounding built features into a dynamic stage for public life inspired by an operatic interpretation of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus.
Yes, some architects actually talk like that.
A year ago the project hit a snag which delayed completion:
Underground construction debris has caused design changes and a three-month delay of the Old Post Office Plaza.
Construction crews working on the $8.2 million Old Post Office Plaza at Ninth and Locust streets downtown hit a snag in recent months when they uncovered concrete, steel and other debris beneath the ground.
The St. Nicholas Hotel, built in the 1850s, was formerly located on the site. The hotel was demolished in 1974, but remnants were left behind. “They simply let it collapse into the ground,” said Kozeny-Wagner President Pat Kozeny. “There’s structural steel, even the building’s elevator.” (source, March 2008)
In August 2008 construction was well underway:
A couple of days ago it now looked like:
As you can see it is mostly a hard surface plaza. This, I believe, is appropriate for an urban context. Except for the fact we already have the Arch grounds, Kiener Plaza, Gateway Mall, Baer Plaza, etc… We need less open space to help create more urban space. This block, like all the others, used to be filled with buildings.
When it came time to renovate the Old Post Office a 2nd time, the need for immediately adjacent parking was cited by potential tenants. So although this site existed to the North of the Old Post Office, we instead raze the marble-clad Century Building which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Some said a garage could not be built on this site. I say BS.
Hardscape plazas can be interesting. No doubt Dundas Square (Wikipedia, map) in Toronto was an inspiration:
Above: Dundas Square in July 2006
Dundas Square is a wonderful urban space – very dynamic. When I visited Toronto in July 2006 my hotel was just a couple of blocks away. I saw the space on normal days as well as packed for a large annual event.
I haven’t been in the Old Post Office Plaza yet because it has been fenced off as construction was being completed. I’m looking forward to experiencing the space this afternoon. I did roll by along the sidewalk on the South edge:
It is shiny & new. It is more interesting than the old collection of surface parking lots. But from the outside looking in I could see (not see?) one glaring omission: bike parking. Holding large events in a vibrant urban area naturally draws crowds on bikes. Well designed spaces make sure cyclists have a place to secure their bikes. Such was the case at Dundas Square:
Yet this new $8 million + facility doesn’t have a single bike rack that I could see. I guess everyone is expected to drive to the plaza to help justify the garage that replaced the historic Century Building?
The ribbon cutting is 4pm today with activities this weekend.
As of Monday, the St. Louis region has a smaller mass transit system:
MetroBus and MetroLink light rail service has been drastically scaled back due to budget limitations at transit agency, Metro.
The issue, like many, is very complex. The short take is Metro has too little money to provide the limited services we used to have. Rather than more frequent service, to make transit more attractive, we are getting less.
How did this come to be? Metro’s expensive legal battle (& loss) over the most recent MetroLink expansion is an easy scapegoat. But the fact remains that public subsidy of the private car has been ever increasing while transit agencies must fight for crumbs.
The Bi-State Developmemt Agency, known as Metro since February 1, 2003, has been underfunded since its formation sixty years ago in 1949. Forty-six years ago today, April 1st 1963, Bi-State took over transit routes from the St. Louis Public Service Company and “14 other local bus operators” as part of a $26 million dollar bond issue (Source: Streets & Streetcars of St. Louis: A Sentimental Journey by Andrew D. Young).
Capital funds are easier to find than operating revenue. Public mass transit is an important part of every strong region. We need to fix our system and soon.
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historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
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