New Target Store Includes Bike Racks, Access Blocked by Shopping Carts

Big box retailer Target just opened a new store in the suburban St. Louis municipality of Dardenne Prairie in a center called, oddly enough, ‘Dardenne Town Center.’  Like most suburban centers this one has some good and bad elements.

View of Target approaching from sidewalk off Henke Road — Yes, a continuous sidewalk from a public street to a big box front door.  Landscaping, seen in the left of the above image, helps soften an otherwise harsh facade.  This type of greening can easily be included in strip/big box centers without blocking that all important visibility from major roads.  Note the extra shopping carts in the image.

Above we see a lone cart in the way of one side of bike rack intended for two bikes (one each side, parallel with the carts).  Someone arriving from the adjacent neighborhoods via bike could easily move this single car and secure their bike.  But what if more carts were here?

You see, Target made the effort to include a total of four such bike racks for a total of eight bike parking spaces.  Unfortunatetly, store staff uses these racks to help align their extra carts outside the store entrance.  The availability of bike parking depends upon the location/use of extra shopping carts.  This is a common, but avoidable, problem if only the planners, architects and engineeres on these projects gave more thought to shopping cart storage and bike parking.  With lots of extra room along the front of the store, bike parking could have easily been located elsewhere and have avoided conflicts with the carts.  Again, this is a brand new store — only open for a few months now.

The Dardenne Town Center was developed by Opus Northwest, the same developers at the Park East tower in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood. Thankfully, Dardenne Prairie is working with urban planners from the firm DPZ on a real town center.  Designers from DPZ already have suggestions on how to improve this newly built retail “power center” which includes a JC Penny, Shop-N-Save and numerous smaller stores and a few restaurants.

Even Governors Need to Wear Seat Belts

As you all likely know, last night New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine was critically injured as his SUV driven by state tropper was involved in an accident. From the NY Times:

Gov. Jon S. Corzine remained on a ventilator and was heavily sedated for pain today as he recovered in the hospital following a car accident Thursday in which it appears he was not wearing a seat belt, his spokesman and a doctor said.

New Jersey law requires the use of seat belts, but more importantly, so does common sense. Children often don’t know any better but adults should understand the risks. If you are traveling, unbelted, in a car (or big SUV) at 60mph and you are involved in an accident you will continue traveling in the original direction at 60mph until something stops you — the dash, the door, the windshield. And don’t count on those airbags to help you out, they are in fact a liability if you are not properly belted in.

Seat belts will not always prevent injury or death. At times, a seat belt will even cause some injuries. Overall, you and everyone in the vehicle is better off wearing a seatbelt. I know it is easy to overlook — I recently didn’t wear a seatbelt when I took a cab from the Civic Center MetroLink station to home when returning from an out of town trip. Perhaps you don’t want to ask a passenger in your car to wear their belt? We all need to remember that in a split second things can change dramatically giving you no time to react.

Please, buckle in those kids and yourself.  Best wishes to Gov. Corzine on a quick recovery.

Delor Ave Bridge Reopened Six Weeks After Collapse of Railing

It was six weeks ago, on March 1st, that a portion of the sidewalk and guardrail of the Delor Ave bridge over I-55 crashed down onto the roadway, blocking all four lanes of northbound traffic (see post). This past afternoon the barricades were removed and the bridge was reopened to traffic (vehicular and pedestrian).

The light gray portion of railing above is new to replace that which had collapsed. Thankfully nobody was seriously injured when the concrete fell to the interstate below.

From above you can see the new concrete sidewalk and railing. I’m glad the bridge is reopened as this is my direct route from my home to my office. I’ll drive or scooter across the bridge but you won’t catch me walking on that sidewalk!

The remainder of the bridge has small bits of new concrete in places as well as indicators where new steel was set to secure the balance of the sidewalk and railing. Apparently this design allowed water to get into the construction and rust steel that could not be inspected. A large number of other bridges along I-55 and some along I-44 use the same design. All are to be retrofitted to ensure the same does not happen again.

As I indicated last month, I am concerned about the amount of infrastructure we as taxpayers have to pay for. While existing infrastructure rusts we continue to build more and more, often on the outer edges of region. When we do focus on existing infrastructure, it is costly replacement projects such as the “New I-64“.

San Diego Spring Break: Urbanist Gone Wild

This week I am vacationing in sunny San Diego for Spring break from graduate courses at Saint Louis University. But I am never fully on break, yesterday I checked out a number of areas of the region and thought I’d share a few with you.

Above is an on-street motorcycle/scooter parking area in downtown San Diego. So while those on cars must pay $6 to park in the lot behind, those with more reasonable modes of transit were able to park for free. Really small and light scooters, such as my Honda Metropolitan, would still be vulnerable to theft if left in the above area not locked up. Still, this is a highly effective use of space.

Adjacent to a major trolley line is a small parking lot with a Flexcar, allowing members easy access to a car for those times they need one.

San Diego’s trolley system has some interesting differences with say Portland’s streetcar.  In reality, technology these days is developing and blending so quickly the differences between streetcar, trolley, tram and light rail and getting muddied. In the downtown area the trolley acted pretty much like a streetcar, stopping every 4 blocks or so.  However, as I took a suburban line toward Mexico the distance between stations could be measured in miles and the trolley acted more like a regional light rail system.
Above is a trolley with 3-4 cars at their 5th Avenue station.  The first thing you will notice is no raised platform.  The very front door includes a ramp for those needing wheelchair access.  In the extreme left of the image you will see a regular door open with a couple of steps and a final step slides out when the door opens.  Given how the wheelchair requirement is handled as a special case, the remainder of the system is pretty simple.  I did notice people boarding with bicycles or child strollers having difficulty.  Someone with physical disabilities but not in a wheelchair would also have issues with this set up.
Like St. Louis’ lightrail system, this operates on a honor system basis so their are no gates.  Just buy your ticket and board.  Unlike St. Louis, however, you must pay more for the greater distance you are traveling on the system.

When you approach a stopped trolley the doors do not open.  You press a button on the side of the vehicle to activate the door.  Similarly, from the inside when you reach a stop you press a button to open the door you wish to exit.

I took the above picture while riding their trolley, showing a large area of downtown that has been rebuilt at a high-density residential neighborhood. Being adjacent to their CBD with easy transit access to other areas makes this a desirable place to live. However, I understand developers in other parts of downtown have gone too far and they have a glut of condos, more so in high rises.

This is just around the corner from the prior picture. In the foreground you can see the track and the yellow “stand behind” line. Here the street width was divided up to allow a single flow of one-way traffic with on-street parking on one side.

A few blocks away two new buildings surround the existing trolley line. The building on the left is a good 20+ floors while the one on the right is more like 8 floors. Again, cars and rail transit don’t mix here but by creating a narrow space it works well.

I took San Diego’s Blue Line trolley all the way to the Mexican border. The building in the background on the right is the customs office for those crossing the border on foot or bicycle.

To get to dowtown I took a city bus while runs along a major street just a block from my friend’s house.  I noticed they have several brands/models of bus but most are what we will have eventually, a “low-floor” bus pretty much like those used in our region by Madison County Transit.  In these buses the floor is very low and when the bus stops it lets out some air on the suspension system and the floor is pretty well even with the curb height.  This makes boarding & unboard much easier and faster.  At the rear of the bus you get an area that steps up a bit above the rear axel.  Like the trolley system, you pay more depending upon where you are going.

I’ve got lots more to see while in San Diego including a couple of grocery stores with underground or rooftop parking.

Bike Parking a Good City-Wide Issue for Lewis Reed

The city faces many big issues all needing attention, including things like our outdated zoning and city charter. Michael Allen has a nice commentary on the big issues still facing us today, the day after a big election. He’s right, our political system needs a major re-think. But that is not what has kept me awake (it is 3am). No, I’m looking for some real & simple areas where Board President-elect Lewis Reed can use his new city-wide status and majority of the board support. Bike facilities came to mind.

Reed, during the campaign, rightfully bragged about being a founding alderman with Bike St. Louis, a series of on-street urban bike routes throughout a limited area in the city. Basically, those aldermen willing to part with some of their funds helped shape the routes through their wards. Interestingly, it is all south of Delmar. But I am not looking for more bike lanes or share the road signs, I want bike parking. Urban cyclists use their bikes for errands but need places where they can secure their bikes at they make their trips.

Here is where Reed, working with Mayor Slay’s office, can make a difference:

• Make it easier for private property owners to place an approved bike rack in the public right of way.
• For projects with public funding & public parking, require bike parking.
• For projects requiring a public parking lot, such as a shopping center, require bike parking regardless of any public funding.
• And finally set up a program such as Chicago’s whereby the city provides and installs bike racks along major commercial streets based upon a request from local cyclists or business owners.

Let’s examine these areas in more detail.

Currently for a building owner to place a bike rack in the public right of way (say on the outer edge of the sidewalk in line with street trees and lamp posts) they must jump through many hoops. You see, the city considers such a bike rack placed by a private entity to be an enchroachment into the public space. In reality, it would be an amenity such as a bench or trash can. Our current view of bike racks pretty much eliminates the possibility a building owner will opt to place a bike rack in front of their business. Policy changes within the city can reverse this without costing the city.

Similarly, for projects that require public parking we should look at mandating bike parking. This is especially important for those projects receiving subsidies from the public. In these cases, we should look at some ratio of reducing full sized auto spaces in exchange for providing bike parking. Throughout the country numerous cities have similar requirements, including Springfield MO. Issues such as rack type, dispersement and placement would need to be written into an amended parking ordinance.

Ideally we as a city would fund bike parking along public rights of way, perhaps through parking fees at meters and city owned parking garages. The more cyclists we have, the less demand we have to provide on-street spaces, vast surface lots and costly parking garages. Commercial streets such as Euclid, Martin Luther King, South Grand, Cherokee should all have bike racks among the city-provided amenities, just as is the case along Washington Ave downtown. This, unlike the others, requires funding. So this may need to be a stated goal while the others are implimented in short order.

Bike parking will not be a watershed moment that turns the city around. However, it will add to the quality of life for those who use the bike racks and set us apart from the balance of the region which simply cannot match the urbanity of our commercial districts.

As subtle as they may be, bike parking is something of importance to the “creative class” which seek out other cities while overlooking St. Louis. We need them as residents as well as the jobs that always seem to follow them around.