My Comment on City Arch River

As followers of City to River are undoubtedly aware, the National Park Service just concluded a one-month window to submit comments on the proposed City Arch River project. Basically, the outcome of this comment period determines whether the NPS will have to undergo a real Environmental Assessment with full Environmental Impact Statement or whether they can speed merrily along the current path.

The process thus far has been one of the worst planning processes I have ever witnessed. Public participation has been methodically curtailed: the public comment process for the finalist teams in the design competition was limited to two weeks; this ended before the majority of the public was able to view the entries. City Arch River's social media campaign was dead on arrival. Most troubling, City to River has pointed out that the winning MVVA proposal has been significantly undermined without public consent or awareness.

The text that follows is my official comment for the Environmental Assessment process. You can read City to River's official comment here.

Question 1:
Do the purpose, need, and objectives reflect what you think the NPS needs to accomplish with this project? If not, what else do you think needs to be accomplished?

The current City Arch River proposal addresses neither the majority of significant issues raised during the General Management Plan process nor half of the articulated goals of the City Arch River 2015 Foundation.
During the GMP Process key concerns such as access, connectivity, and boundary were raised (GMP §1.6, p.1-10). The NPS opened the door to rethink the difficult journey from city to park to river, how the riverfront might play a pivotal role for both visitors and residents, and the half-realized vision for the memorial might be broadened to encompass both banks of the river – achieving Saarinen’s vision after a six decade lacuna.

These intentions were supported not only by the NPS, but by the general public as well. During an energetic series of meetings, residents articulated their deference for the daring of the Saarinen monument and advocated equally bold new action. Public comment mandated including the Riverfront in the design competition (GMP §5.4, p.5.8), expanding the design competition beyond the park boundary to study better connections to downtown along Spruce, Locust, and Olive Streets (GMP §5.4, p.5.10), redeveloping the lifeless South end of the Arch Grounds (GMP §5.4, p.5.11), and multiple views supporting the removal of soon-to-be redundant lanes of I-70 and replacement with a pedestrian friendly at-grade urban boulevard (GMP §5.4, p. 5.14-15).

Building on these intentions, the City Arch River design competition included the following goals in the competition structure:

2. Catalyze increased vitality in the St. Louis region

4. Weave connections and transitions from the City and the Arch Grounds to the river.

5. Mitigate the impact of transportation systems

6. Embrace the Mississippi River and the East Bank in Illinois as an integral part of the National Park.

8. Create attractors to promote extended visitation to the Arch, the City, and the River.

As the NPS is undoubtedly aware, this EA process itself has removed the entire East Bank part of the project from consideration. In addition, requested park amenities along the riverfront and South end (water gauges, South skating rink/beer garden, underpass park) in the MVVA Plan have been removed from the original MVVA Arch Grounds. These changes remove much of the activities needed to energize the Arch Grounds while other functions have been displaced away from the Arch and River to Kiener Plaza. These actions are in direct opposition to the criteria established in the City Arch River competition goals, the NPS GMP, and through significant public input.

Question 2:
What concerns do you have about the potential impacts of the project to revitalize the park? How do you think these concerns could be addressed?

The most disturbing element of the revitalization project will be the effects caused by the removal of Memorial Drive and the preservation and illogical expansion of a redundant and soon to be de-designated highway. The removal of Memorial Drive, an action taken without public input, has never been subjected to public scrutiny or comprehensive study. Although curiously eliminated from the scope of this EA, the removal of Memorial Drive will require new highway ramps. Based on current practices these ramps will require a significantly larger infrastructure, will finalize the disconnection of the Arch from all but a select sliver of downtown, and will have ecological repercussions on the immediately contiguous arch grounds.

If the National Park Service does not want to risk turning the gateway to western expansion into a receptacle for windfall refuse from passing cars or an under-engineered arboreal carbon sink for truck exhaust, the NPS must undertake a comprehensive public study of the tangible costs, benefits, and management challenges – environmental, logistic, and economic – of removing Memorial Drive and lining the Arch Grounds with additional highway infrastructure. Such a study should thoroughly investigate at least the following options at a minimum:

1. Removal of I-244 (currently known as I-70) and replacement with a linear park/urban boulevard similar to the Embarcadero in San Francisco or the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston

2. Elimination of the proposed Washington Avenue SB entrance and NB exit and relocation of all exits/entrances to the Cass Ave. I-70 interchange

3. Elevation of I-244 to 24 feet above street level (similar to the Strada Aldo Moro adjacent to the old harbor of Genoa, Italy)

4. Maintenance costs of the status quo and attendant expenses in continually decreasing tourism.

Please submit any additional comments in the box provided.

The current challenge of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is fundamentally one of disconnection. Visitor numbers are slowly decreasing because, although a compelling experience, it is not enough of a destination to warrant repeat visits. It now exists solely for out-of-town tourists. The park must be made a vital and important part of St. Louis civic life in order to reinvigorate the park. The fortunes of downtown and the JNEM are inorexibly intertwined. A house divided against itself cannot stand, yet the current plan hardens the divisions around the majority of the JNEM boundaries. This sad result is largely the result of unreasoned local interference in a good design.

Residents of St. Louis care deeply about this opportunity, but until now we have remained sidelined by a shamefully anemic public participation process. The National Parks Service now has a chance to exercise true leadership and to openly and carefully evaluate the merits of the current proposal alongside other strong alternatives.

If the NPS can take that step, the residents of St. Louis will meet you. We have already accomplished the resurrection of one great city park with Forest Park. It is not too late; if we are presented with aspirational goals and a chance to make a difference we will do it again.

Walkscore Gains Full Transit Operability

WalkScore.com, the mapping website devoted to walkability, rolled out full integration of transit this morning. A search on WalkScore now results in the following screen.

The new TransitScore algorithm is based on three major parameters:

1. How close are you to transit (distance)
2. How readily available is it? (frequency)
3. Can it get to where I need to go? (this is the hard one)

While the first two criteria can be easily satisfied with existing geolocation and open transit data, the third parameter is hardest to quantify. The solution at the heart of TransitScore is to analyze the number of transit options within a half mile radius, the frequency of service, and the total number of businesses accessible by those lines (including calculating WalkScore at all stops along the route). For a discussion of the complete algorithm click here.

While the combination of these factors works well at a base level, ideally the TransitScore would depend on your destination. For example, if you live in a dense, walkable area that is well-served by transit, but those transit lines fan out into a low-density and under-served region, then the resulting transit score would be lower than a similar area with lines only extending into a mid or high density area. Furthermore, what if you live at the top of a steep hill or mountain and all the transit options are at the bottom? Geolocation would still indicate a high transit score.

WalkScore has anticipated this problem with a second new feature: WalkScore Commute. Accessible from the "Commute" tab on the results page this feature lets you use your starting point and specify an end point. The destination could be a job location or any other destination for that matter. The result gives a map with walking, cycling, driving, and transit durations (a la google maps) and an elevation graph such as that used by Veloroutes.org for several years.
Interestingly, given that the start point and end point are finalized, the commute function does not give a definitive walk or transit score. Since the algorithm is compromised by the aforementioned limitations, it seems that the lack of a Commute TransitScore/WalkScore is a missed opportunity.

In any case, the inclusion of full transit analyses into WalkScore is a major improvement. Since its inception WalkScore has caught the eye of the media and has become an essential instrument for emphasizing the power of walkability in the real estate market (pdf link). With the greying of the baby boomer generation, the importance of walkability cannot be understated and the importance of quantifying walkability has been recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

So where do we go from here? WalkScore is enabling web developers to embed maps, access data, and use their API. It is my hope that this move will make walkability as ubiquitous as Google Maps has made geographic data. In the near future WalkScore will be releasing open source code for their algorithm. It is my hope that this action will drive programmers to develop the next generation of wayfinding that will not only give you options for modes of travel, but incorporate externalities and facilitate spur-of-the moment side trips via mobile application. Since many people do not currently use transit due to its complexity, the seamless integration of WalkScore with mapping software and social wayfinding services such as Foursquare and Yelp has the potential to drive a large increase in ridership. Such a sea change will have the related effect of moving walkability from the realm of theory and analysis and into everyday life.

Realpolitik and Transformational Change for Saint Louis

Current I-70/Memorial Right of Way looking North from Spruce St. Photograph by author.

The next several years present a unique opportunity for the city of Saint Louis. As I have previously detailed, a series of ill advised post-war decisions severed the vital connection between Saint Louis and the Mississippi River. We now have a unique opportunity to fix these mistakes and enhance the potential of downtown while reconnecting to a vital identity for 21st century Saint Louis. The convergence of the first new bridge over the Mississippi in 40 years, renewed interest due to an international design competition, and an urban resurgence present a once in a lifetime opportunity. We must take advantage of these circumstances to remove the depressed and elevated lanes that sever the arch grounds and Laclede's Landing from the city, for this transformative change will become the driver for future incremental redevelopment on a scale not currently feasible.

In a recent study by Development Strategies the replacement of 1.2 miles of the existing 12 lane corridor with an adequately sized boulevard would open up to 500,000 square feet of developable land. These properties, in conjunction with adjacent vacant lots, could generate a value of $1.2 billion dollars in the next two decades. Based on this estimate, highway removal and redevelopment could provide as much as $6.3 million in annual property taxes to the city. An observer might bet that this windfall alone would be enough to attract political support, but they would have paradoxically long odds at this point.

In his 2009 presentation at TED Paul Collier prescribes a radical fix for global post-conflict recovery:

The reality is that we need to reverse the sequence. It's not the politics first; it's actually the politics last. The politics become easier as the decade progresses if you're building on a foundation of security and economic development. The rebuilding of prosperity ... The objective of facing reality is to change reality.

This matches the trajectory taken by City to River. The grassroots organization has found it far easier and more productive to engage those people and organizations who have a profound interest in the outcome. Unlike the typical convention center/stadium/museum attraction trope of urban development and more like the civic projects of a century ago, the development of an at-grade boulevard provides an armature for growth rather than a single deal to be closed. This potential and complexity requires a robust conversation with numerous parties and the negotiation of hundreds of varying interests. To echo Ed Morrison: If we were just building a convention center then "civic engagement [would be] a carefully circumscribed event, not a process; a meeting, not a collaboration." The problem with which we are confronted resulted from just such a hierarchical and artificial process -- to be successful our solution must be organic. City to River is developing what Morrison would describe as "complex public/private strategies [that] are developed in a “civic space” outside the four walls of any one organization;" and since January 2010 we have given over a hundred presentations to property owners, business associations, neighborhood groups, non-profits, design teams, and interested citizens.

The end result of this process has been a lengthy series of endorsements and a robust network of potential partners. This network includes non-profits such as the William Kerr Foundation, advocacy organizations such as The Open Space Council, The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, developers such as Spinnaker, LoftWorks, and Chivvis, The US Bank Community Development Corporation, Laclede's Landing Merchant's Association, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. For a full list of organizations that endorse the City to River boulevard concept please view the City to River Blog.

As the above list of supporters demonstrates, the network of organizations and individuals that support the idea of reconnecting the C.B.D. of Saint Louis with the Arch Grounds, Laclede's Landing, Chouteau's Landing, and the North Riverfront incorporates diverse sectors: development, real estate, advocacy, non-profit, business, and media. Although updates from the CityArchRiver competition have been regrettably sparse, a recent email highlights major supporters of the CityArchRiver competition:

Congressional leaders from both sides of the Mississippi River have officially voiced their support for the international design competition set to frame the area around the Gateway Arch. The nine Democratic and Republican members of the St. Louis area delegation from Missouri and Illinois have sent a joint letter to the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation, the group sponsoring the competition to select a design team to invigorate the Arch grounds and connect the Arch to downtown St. Louis, the Mississippi River and the Illinois side. The letter - signed by U.S. Senators Kit Bond, R-Mo., Roland Burris, D-Ill., Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., as well as Congressmen Todd Akin, R-Mo., Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., William Lacy Clay, Jr., D-Mo., Jerry Costello, D-Ill., and John Shimkus, R-Ill. - praises the competition as an event that will have "indelibly positive impact on our region."
...
The competition organizers say the official endorsement reinforces the region's commitment to making sure the vision of a new iconic setting for the Arch on both sides of the river becomes a reality. "We are thrilled that our region's lawmakers have joined to communicate their support and to recognize the significance of the competition and the Arch project," said Walter Metcalfe Jr., senior counsel with Bryan Cave LLP and a member of the foundation board.

While I echo Metcalf's sentiments, I hope that the signatory politicians will find the political foresight to meet the growing mass of City to River supporters by embracing the potential of replacing the obsolete highway with an at-grade urban boulevard.

Please consider leaving a comment supporting highway removal at the CityArchRiver competition website, please examine the competition finalists and give input during the comment period (August 17th-24th), and please contact your representatives and elected officials.

The time is now to reopen our front door!

A potential vision of the New Memorial Drive. Rendering by author for City to River.

STL: Catch the tale of the TIGER!

A recent op-ed in the Boston Globe by the previously mentioned economist Edward Glaeser outlines the pervasive anti-urban bias in federal stimulus funding.

In 2009, America’s five least dense states were awarded $1,100 per capita in federal recovery grants while the five densest states, including Massachusetts, got $561 per capita. President Obama can change the tilt toward low density. The most urban president since Teddy Roosevelt, Obama needs to fight for cities, not just as a matter of justice, but because cities, and the creativity that comes when humans connect and learn from each other in dense areas, are the best hope for the country.

While Glaeser's Roosevelt assessment is mildly dubious, his summation of funding distribution has been accurate and reflects a lack of organization and coordinated voice on behalf of urban constituents. While it was once easy to overlook the stereotyped urban minorities in the age of cheap oil, in the next fifty years increasingly interrelated energy and economic constraints will increase the profile of urban areas and tilt this balance back towards urban issues. A country strapped for resources simply cannot continue dissipating funding over vast swaths of land for negligible economic gain; whether by hook or by crook, funding will be concentrated in defined areas to maximize investment.

While the 2009 statistics reflect conventional subsidization, there is an emerging shift in pattern that indicates that federal departments understand the allocation dilemma. The recent announcement of the 2010 recipients of the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Grants reveal the changing landscape of government subsidy. Of the top 20 largest grants (ranging from $105 million to $25 million):

FIVE went to Passenger rail and light rail stations and infrastructure
FIVE went to streetcar/express and bus rapid transit projects
FOUR went to complete streets/streetscape Improvements
THREE went to freight rail infrastructure improvements
THREE went to highway redesign/construction

TIGER Appropriation. Image by Rob Vargas/Fast Company.

The city of Saint Louis was passed over for five submitted projects.

The Delmar Loop streetcar (previously discussed here) lacked the distance, development impact, and matching funding promised by the Tucson Streetcar.

The applications for unnamed Chouteau Lake improvements and the rebuilt 22nd street 64/40 interchange were long-shot submittals to bolster long-term speculative projects that could not meet the "livability" paradigm.

Another proposal was for the addition of truck-only lanes on Interstate 70 . Wisely, federal TIGER stimulus was not used on a twentieth century project designed to support the unsustainable "rolling warehouse" supply model.

The final application for TIGER funds was for a dense mixed-use Transit Oriented Development at the Forest Park/DeBaliviere Metrolink station. In this case, the TIGER funding was to extend the development through the acquisition of an adjacent strip mall. While it is impossible to pontificate on what the grant reviewers were thinking, the relatively small scale of this project in comparison to other submissions probably contributed to its unfavorable review.

What can we learn from our failure?
1. Planning cannot be done in a vacuum and projects must be coordinated.
The projects that are now being subsidized are large scale and increase their impact by coordinating development focus across multiple areas.

2. Traditional projects no longer cut it.
To be successful all projects must promote alternatives to the automobile paradigm. One of the criteria of evaluation was “enhancing community livability” and the results seem to have balanced the priority for public transportation to enable automotive dependance and the physical infrastructure that creates complete and walkable streets.

3. Pay attention to your residents
Over 25% of Saint Louis residents do not even own a car, let alone use a car frequently, yet 60% of our most innovative public projects require automobile usage for access and benefit. Is this a responsible vision or the result of responsible oversight and governance?

We must start developing for the approximately 8,900 residents who have no car at all, for thousands more who struggle to afford one, and for those of us who prioritize neighborhoods where you don't need a car to live. Weaning our urban areas from automotive dependance will secure our civic futures. Not only will we be healthier, but a recent report notes that we will be wealthier as well. In the report, Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities, Joseph Cortright describes a direct correlation between walkability and value:

In the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.

"These findings are significant for policy makers,” said Carol Coletta, President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, which commissioned the research. “They tell us that if urban leaders are intentional about developing and redeveloping their cities to make them more walkable, it will not only enhance the local tax base but will also contribute to individual wealth by increasing the value of what is, for most people, their biggest asset."

A new round of TIGER Grant is on the horizon. Will we forge intergovernmental partnerships to create coordinated projects that increase walkable streets, enable Transit Oriented Development, and expand a resilient multi-modal infrastructure to support commerce and industry?

The stakes are high and every round we lose puts our metropolitan competition further ahead of us.


A View of the Future? Image by Andrew J. Faulkner.

Of course, any amount of Transit Oriented Development will be meaningless if we allow our public transportation system to be crippled. If you or your family and friends are a registered voter in Saint Louis County Support Proposition A in April.

City and River Pt. II: TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!

This is Part II of a series advocating for the reconnection of Saint Louis and the Mississippi River.

I have already examined the importance of the Mississippi River to the identity of the City of Saint Louis. But why is this historical identity important?

Identity is important because it is the one inducement Saint Louis currently has to attract new residents.

For its first two centuries Saint Louis has relied on its major transportation routes and geographic location as an economic inducement. With the rise of globalization, this will not suffice. As globalized trade decimated the manufacturing lifeblood of the city, governmental focus turned to finance and technology in order to attract well educated residents and maintain tax bases. However, the digital revolution of the past two decades has broken the location-based restraints for this significant segment of the population. Before this time period you had to live in some proximity to your job; now you can work anywhere a suitable communications infrastructure and well-connected airport exists.

If you could live anywhere in the world, why would you live in Saint Louis?
We must develop a compelling answer to this question to survive, but given the rate of out-migration of our graduates we have not.

The increased level of competition evident in this century is problematic because, as economist Edward Glaeser understands from studying Boston, the "ability [of a city] to regenerate itself is hinged upon its ability to attract residents, not just firms." In short, a reserve of talent is necessary given the increasing vicissitudes of the economy because skilled and educated workers can react more quickly to massive change and prevent urban decay.

If there is one strategy Saint Louis must embrace, it must take strong action to attract and induce new residents to move here. While policy and subsidy may prove effective, we must overcome an overwhelmingly negative national image first. Until recently, the city has focused on strategies of beautification and tourism promotion rather than creating vibrant livable communities. Over twenty years ago reporter William Allman assessed his native city:

“Coming back to St. Louis after many years ... the city’s surface has changed considerably...
[T]hese changes, while putting a shine on the old city, are merely cosmetic. The downtown areas seemed designed primarily for tourists”.
Allman, William F. “St. Louis” U.S. News & World Report, vol. 107. December 18, 1989: p.49-50. As quoted in Beauregard, Robert A. Voices of Decline. p. 222

While this mentality is still present in the city, (one snarky commentator described the visionary implementation of City Garden as "putting lipstick on a pig") the influx of 3,800 new residents downtown in the past decade (a 40% increase) marks a turning point for the city. With a modest residential population downtown and amenities beginning to develop, a bold, unifying stroke is still needed.

As I discussed in part I, the riverfront provides the authenticity and ability to attract residents by differentiating Saint Louis from numerous other competing cities. In addition, the reconnection of city and river has the potential to create an unrivaled amenity by serving as a hinge between the revitalized urban space of Gateway Mall with the Arch grounds/riverfront and the regional Great River Ring beyond. The imperative for connection in this area has been in the news for several years as a result of the Danforth Foundation's plan for a three block lid over the depressed lanes of I-70.


The 3 Block Lid would not change the miserable condition under the elevated lanes of I-70. Image by City to River.

While the lid concept is appealing, it is a band-aid solution to a much larger problem. Lids require expensive retrofitting and engineering and entail increased inspection and maintenance. The lid concept should only be used as a last resort. When we examine the use of I-70 alongside with the plans for the New Mississippi River Bridge, better alternatives present themselves.


New highway routings planned for the new Mississippi River Bridge. Image by Andrew Faulkner/City to River.

An examination of the bridge plans reveals that a four lane interstate will be constructed to carry I-70 from the junction of I-70/I-64/I-44/US-40 at St. Clair Avenue in East Saint Louis. From there a new 4 lane roadway designated I-70 will travel north in parallel with Illinois route 3, cross the new bridge and rejoin the current routing of I-70 around Cass Ave. This routing makes eminent sense as the new corridor will have the potential for eventual expansion to 6 lanes.

With the opening of the bridge, the downtown lanes will become a spur connector and duplicate the linkage of eastbound I-44 with westbound I-70. According to MODOT the downtown lanes are one of the least travelled sections of interstate in the Saint Louis area. Currently the majority of the 73,000 vehicles per day in this section is traveling through Saint Louis to points west. With the rerouting of I-70 it is probable that that amount of traffic could be reduced by greater than 50%.

Given the imminent reduction of traffic on the depressed and elevated segments of I-70, is their contribution worth the depressing effect they have on acres of surrounding property? What could we do instead of maintaining an obsolete eyesore?

We could demolish this section and replace it with an urban boulevard. With synchronized traffic lights, boulevards in many cities throughout the country carry in excess of 40,000 vehicles a day without problems.


Replacing the existing I-70 and Memorial Drive configuration would free land for new development. Image by Andrew Faulkner/City to River.

A boulevard would also be cheaper than the lid concept. The depressed lanes currently feature five bridges and a half mile of elevated viaduct that require annual maintenance. While a boulevard would also require maintenance, it would not be as expensive as the elevated and depressed lanes. Furthermore, the removal of I-70 opens up the potential for revenue generation through new development. Currently, the transportation corridor consists of 4-8 traffic lanes and four interstate lanes that add up to between 200 and 250 feet in width. A sufficient boulevard designed to carry the predicted traffic in this area would only need to be 6 lanes and would only use 70 feet of width (or 90 if it included on-street parking). That would free between 110 and 180 feet per block for 19 blocks. That would create 16 acres of government-owned developable land in a prime location to sell or lease, and this could be used to pay for highway demolition and offset the cost of building the boulevard.


Reopening Our Front Door: Washington Avenue and Memorial Drive. Image by Jeremy Clagett/City to River.

The transformative power of demolishing a highway to reconnect the city and river cannot be ignored either. While Saint Louis is gaining momentum towards walkability, simultaneously reopening our front door to the river and creating an urban and walkable spine downtown will send a message to the region and the nation that this city has finally learned from our mistakes.

The construction of the Ronald Wilson Reagan Mississippi River Bridge and the demolition of the obsolete lanes of I-70 for a more walkable alternative will position our city for a more vibrant and sustainable future. We must take action for the future of the city and

TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!!

The grass, perhaps, is greener?

St. Louis skyline at night. Photograph by author.

My adopted city of Saint Louis has increasingly been the focus of national media in the past six months. While coverage formerly focused on Saint Louis being designated as America's Most Dangerous City in 2006 or dwelled on the sordid tale of Michael Devlin. Compared to these stories almost anything would seem an improvement, especially for a city with notoriously low civic esteem. While a lack of vision and regressive attitudes still constitute the largest challenge to Saint Louis, the view from outside has begun to change markedly.

While the summary demolition of Charles Colbert's San Luis Apartments was viewed with concern outside the city, the NorthSide project has been commended for its visionary scale with the caution that "If it's done right, it could be transformative" and potentially an example to the rest of the Rust Belt. Whether that example is positive remains to be seen, but eyes around the nation are watching and we must demand a higher standard and cannot allow this opportunity to become a failure.

Saint Louis CityGarden -- a project by the Gateway Foundation designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz. Photograph by author.

City Garden, the most significant improvement to the city of Saint Louis since the restoration of Forest Park, and like Forest Park, is an extremely positive example of the utility of public/private partnerships in the face of diminished local planning. City Garden has received glowing reviews in a number of sources from parenting and travel magazines to industry publications. East West Gateway's Great Streets pilot program on South Grand has provided momentum for a sorely overdue assessment of the urban design of commercial corridors in the city and provides a vision for a move away from the strict prioritization of single-occupant automobile transit on city streets. While the trial narrowing of Grand has gotten the most attention, the participatory process leading to the proposed option set an excellent local example by combining education with participation.

Visitors to the UrbanNexus conference included Sarah Szurpicki of the Great Lakes Urban Exchange and Sharon Carney of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance pictured here with Jeff Vines at Chouteau's Landing. Photograph by author.

Perhaps it was the growing national recognition of a changing attitude that brought Next American City to St. Louis for a conference. I was honored to be invited to participate on a panel of emerging voices in the Vanguard Regional Roundtable. As Michael Allen has noted, the Next American City conference was fated to be in both chronological and philosophical opposition to another event: the hearing on the McKee NorthSide TIFF request.

The latest public exposure is perhaps the most striking: Richard Layman, author of Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space is examining St. Louis Metro's Moving Transit Forward planning campaign. As a transplant to St. Louis I find the transit issue infuriating. While most outsiders will readily admit that both the St. Louis Metrolink light rail system and MetroBus system is effective and even unexpectedly good for a city of St. Louis's resources, the local perception is that public transportation here is defunct, unworkable, and that ownership of an automobile is essential for daily life. At a recent conference on urban issues Alvin Reid, editor of the St. Louis Argus compared the MetroLink to a toy. As an example of a functional system he pointed to Washington's metro system.

This is exactly what makes Layman's post so interesting. The subtitle is "St. Louis regional transit planning process as a model for what needs to be done in the DC Metropolitan region." Layman focuses on the efforts of metro to educate the public as part of the process. This is a long overdue effort. In hindsight it was poor communication and an inability to justify the importance of Metro funding that doomed last year's Proposition M. In a vacuum of information it ceased to be an initiative on badly needed expansion, and instead became a referendum on past problems. Metro must take an active role in justifying its importance to the region and in educating residents. To echo Layman, another needed step would be to clarify the subsidization of automotive transportation to eliminate the transit-welfare stigma. Despite the antipathy towards transit frequently evidenced here, it is gratifying to know that Metro's ambitious and inclusive new initiative is at least recognized outside of the Mississippi valley.

For the first time in years Saint Louis is receiving noteworthy attention on the national stage. With attention comes increased expectations. We must build on the foundation of participatory involvement and education evidenced in the best projects of this past year, reject negativity and insecurity, and advocate for a city that can once again serve as an example to the region and to the nation beyond.

The heights of irony: protecting our children in a "ClusterF**k Nation"

There was recently an interesting article on anti-urban media bias from Greater Greater Washington, a blog focusing on urbanism in Washington DC. Dissecting the Washington Post coverage of Fairfax County Virginia's proposed incorporation as a city, the blog emphasizes how the article's authors repeatedly use codewords for city such as "blight" and "crime". Furthermore, they revealed their biases in an illustration of the difference between a city and a county through an explanation

"which juxtaposes suburbs ‘where Washington goes to walk the dog and water the lawn’ with something ‘many have tried to avoid: high-rise offices, blight, crime and housing that's more likely to have a balcony than a back yard.’"

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While this is an egregious and perhaps malicious example of anti-urbanism in reporting, many other examples can stem from overly sensational reporting or from the natural biases caused by a set lifestyle. For example, since reporters presumably represent an average cross-section of the american population, it is not unreasonable to assume that few reporters walk or bike to work. Thus, the act of driving colors their view of the world and that coloration inevitably seeps into their writing.

There are, however, some stories that are so ridiculous as to overwhelm whatever personal urban or anti-urban bias a reporter might have. The events of May 15th in Saratoga Springs, New York are one such event. Andrew J. Bernstein reports the events occurring on National Bike to Work Day:

Janette Kaddo Marino and her son, Adam, 12, wanted to participate in the commuting event, so the two set off to Maple Avenue Middle School on bicycles May 15. The two pedaled the 7 miles from their east side home, riding along a path that extends north from North Broadway straight onto school property.

After they arrived, mother and son were approached first by school security and then school administrators, who informed Marino that students are not permitted to ride their bikes to school.

“Unbeknownst to us there is a policy,” she said, “but it wasn’t in any of the brochures given to us.”

School officials took her son’s bike and stored it in the boiler room. They told her she would have to return with a car to retrieve the bike later in the day.

I will ignore the possible legal ramifications of illegal seizure of private property and examine the school environment. Maple Avenue Middle School, like the vast majority of educational facilities in the country, is built on the periphery of Saratoga Springs. While this location presumably made consolidation easier and facilitated a larger athletic complex, it put it out of easy reach for the majority of students.


Maple Avenue Middle School in relation to Saratoga Springs.
View Larger Map

Maple Avenue Middle School aerial.

The school was built in 1992 on busy US Route 9 (Maple Avenue--bucolic in name only) to facilitate bussing students not only from the city, but from the suburban developments ringing the former resort town. Two years after the school was built the school district issued Transportation policy No. 741 forbidding students to ride or walk to the school.

The school was designed to accommodate 1,800 students (in a middle school-- that averages to around six hundred students per grade!) divided into four sub-sections, each named for one of the Saratoga Springs Lakes. The school, from the aerial is all but indistinguishable from a minimum security prison and the urban design reinforces the idea of containment. There is no clear path to the entrance and the school sits nearly a hundred feet back from the road behind parking lots. Route 9 is atypical of high-traffic rural routes, despite being an undivided two way road, it does have ample shoulder room at least a lane wide. This is immaterial however, the route Mrs. Marino and her son took was on a quiet neighboring street that dead-ends into the school property.

The principal, one Stuart Byrne, explained that the prohibition on self-transportation to school is, of course, designed to protect students:

“I would be a nervous wreck every day if kids were riding to school,” he said. “Traffic isn’t bumper to bumper, but it’s non-stop. He said the district’s policy does not allow students to ride or walk to schools outside of the city’s urban core.

While traffic is one concern, Byrne said he also worries about children traveling unsupervised through the community. He noted that students are under school supervision until they are dropped off by the bus or picked up at the end of the day.

“If you look at the North Broadway route that the parent used that day: (Even if) there were going to be some exceptions or monitoring (to allow riding to school), you’re still going into a substantially wooded area,” he said. “I don’t know how you say to the community at large that is a safe area.”

In one statement the principal has raised every parental boogeyman from traffic accidents and abduction to fear of the wild to substantiate the need for continuous monitoring and control.

Of course, the public health implications of policies that prohibit walking and riding are not considered. According to Dr. Richard Jackson, one third of children born in the past year will contract Type II Diabetes if current trends continue. The Centers for Disease Control just reported that the rate of clinical obesity in adults in the United States has hit an all-time high: 26.1 %. Type II Diabetes causes an average of a 15 year reduction in life span and considerable related health problems. Today diabetes costs the US medical system $218 billion dollars annually. If Jackson's prognostication holds true that cost will rise by one hundred and fifty times by 2059 to $32,700,000,000,000. Can our nation afford that cost?

There is a solution. Jackson points out that walking more than 10,000 steps a day (roughly 4 miles) helps diabetics control blood glucose levels and prevents the onset of Type II diabetes.

This brings us back to upstate New York and Maple Avenue Middle School. While nearly 60% of students walked to school in 1973, now only 13% do. Undoubtedly, while many children can no longer walk or bike to school due to ill-conceived sprawling and car-oriented communities and the growing trend of school consolidation, it is also worth asking whether misguided policies shaped by our overly-litigious society and over protective attitudes prevent another segment of the school-age population from living a more healthy way of life.

Mrs. Marino has not given up. She has biked with her son several times and, as of 9 June was petitioning the school district to join the Safe Routes to School Program.



The ironies to this story are many. To begin with, the photograph above shows that, despite Transportation policy No. 741, there is clearly a crosswalk in front of the school that appears to connect to a well used path. Whether a cross-walk on a two lane country road without a traffic light or a stop sign is an invitation to frogger is an open question. Secondly, Kaid Benfield of the Natural Resources Defense Council notes that Saratoga Springs was commended only a week ago by Business Week for being an "anti-suburbia" where "you can walk to work and shopping".

In a greater irony Saratoga Springs is, of course, the chosen home of anti-sprawl post-peak oil zealot James Howard Kunstler. [As a side comment I have always wondered how he rationalizes living in a town of 28,500 with a tourist-based economy that will inevitably be disconnected from all markets and even workshop-based industry if the future is as dire as he predicts.] In any case, Kunstler has yet to acknowledge the story brewing in his own backyard.

UPDATED - Streetcars: things just ain't what they used to be

There has been much consideration and discussion here in Saint Louis about Joe Edwards's plan to reintroduce a streetcar on Delmar Boulevard. The conversation here has been the duplicate of a similar debate raging in my birthplace of Columbus, Ohio. In the case of Columbus, financing was never fully established and that uncertainty, combined with the economic downturn, led to the project being put on indefinite hold.

There are some major differences between the proposals for streetcar lines in Columbus and Saint Louis. In Columbus, the effort was led by a task force formed by the mayor. In Saint Louis, the impetus has come from a private developer, Joe Edwards, who has been the key player in the incremental revitalization of the Delmar Loop. In this case the politicians involved seem to have caught trolley fever and were extremely disconcerted to learn that even in Portland fares only make up 16% of total funding. While this is not earth-shattering if you consider streetcars another form of transit (streetcars pay a larger percentage through revenue than interstate highways for example) but troubling if this is envisioned as merely a novelty.

More tellingly, the philosophy behind each proposal has been different. The lines in Columbus were conceived to connect the 40,000+ population at Ohio State University with jobs downtown and the entertainment and nightlife destinations in the Arena District and Brewery District. The initial plans also involved connecting Columbus State Community College and the Columbus College of Art and Design. As Mayor Michael B. Coleman stated:

I think connecting the Ohio State University to the Brewery District, and the Arena District to the Discovery District, which is CCAD area and Columbus State, is something I think will add to the value of the city, and will be an element of the quality of life to young professionals finding Columbus as a place they want to stay. And anywhere that streetcar is located, you will see restaurants, retail, offices, and residential, all along the line. It will be the spur and difference-maker for economic development in our downtown, in addition to getting around. So it’s a huge catalyst for vibrancy, a huge catalyst for economic development, and a huge catalyst for just getting folks around…

In comparison, the Loop Streetcar connects an already developed area (named one of America's 10 Greatest Streets in 2007 by the American Planning Association) with Forest Park and would run a mere two and one quarter miles. Of this length, only around eight blocks have any potential for the streetcar to serve as a catalyst for significant redevelopment. The Columbus proposal would have been greater than five miles in length, would have connected five distinct economic centers and could have provided the catalyst for over thirty blocks of undervalued property.

The difference is stark, and it is clear that the proposed Loop Trolley (just the use of the term trolley instead of streetcar makes it clear it is planned solely around nostalgia) is meant entirely as a tourist attraction rather than as real transit. This is dangerous for two major reasons. First, as a tourist vehicle, it is especially susceptible to bad publicity. People tend to act much more strongly to entertainment and non-vital establishments once a problem has occurred. Compare the shopping malls to grocery stores; non-essential venues such as shopping malls are exceedingly susceptible to bad publicity. A failure of the Loop Trolley could set back surface transit in Saint Louis for thirty years to come. Furthermore as commenter "Adam" noted at Saint Louis Urban Workshop the brevity of the line is a huge liability in terms of operational sustainability :

When you build only one line, that one line has to absorb all the overhead for operating a streetcar system. It has to have a carbarn; it has to have the electrical substation; it has to have a dedicated trained staff to drive them. And, perhaps worst of all, if there's only one line, it has to be completely shut down for any street maintenance instead of being able to shunt around maintenance on an alternate line. Look at a map of most major cities, including St. Louis, before World War II. Streetcar lines ran up and down practically every major street. They didn't cost $30 million for one mile because resources were shared across many lines (also because labor was cheap). Frankly, $30 million for a single mile along existing streets is absolutely absurd. That's more than $5000 per foot--unless the rails are made of truffles, what is costing that much?

Setting aside the majority of these concerns, how could the proposed streetcar be improved?

It is clear that the trolley backers have not studied the ways trolley traditionally functioned in their proposed study area. A few design changes would have a great impact in recreating a successful streetcar urbanism and increasing safety along the route.

Loop trolley - conceptual rendering.

Looking at the conceptual rendering it is evident that the streetcar is proposed to run in the traffic lanes of already-congested Delmar Boulevard. While running the trolley in traffic lanes romantically hearkens back to the big city urbanism we know from grainy footage, by the time neighborhoods like the Delmar Loop were designed, it was clear that headtimes and safety were improved by separating surface transit from cars.


As this undated image shows, the handicap of streetcar systems is its general inability to detour in the event of accidents

The lushly landscaped boulevards we know today were a design response to this issue. Instead of running in traffic lanes, the streetcars were given a dedicated right of way in the center of the street. In some cities streetcar actuated traffic lights stopped cross-median traffic. The result was increased safety and efficiency for surface transit.


Video from separated ROW of Illinois Terminal Company interurban streetcars, Venice, Illinois.

Former streetcar right of way, now landscape in median, Wydown Bvld..

While not every potential streetcar route has enough width to support a separated system (streetcars typically need at least eighteen feet for unidirectional service) many of St. Louis's boulevards are in excess of 54' in width and some, such as Gravois are in excess of 75' in width. Additional space can also be made on streetcar arteries by limiting parking. Currently Delmar between Kingsland and the Wabash (metrolink) tracks has two lanes of parallel curb parking, two traffic lanes, and a continuous center turn lane (known as a "suicide lane"). The street width from the Wabash (Metrolink) tracks to the end of the line is approximately 48' from curb to curb. In this instance it would make sense to split the line and have one direction loop to the north using Vernon Ave. to avoid overly crowding Delmar and drastically reducing system efficiency.

East of the Wabash tracks the situation is far different. Both Delmar and DeBaliviere have ample street width due to their conscious planning for transit in the early 20th century. The street width is 75' on Delmar and 72' on DeBaliviere allowing in both cases for two dedicated tracks in the median and four traffic lanes with bike lanes or expanded sidewalks on either side. To get an idea of how a revised Delmar streetscape might appear we can look to St. Charles in New Orleans.

Neutral ground on St. Charles Ave. at Calhoun St., a transit right of way and pedestrian refuge.

St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans falls roughly between Delmar Boulevard and Gravois in street width. However, due to the streetcar right of way the street is humanized to a much greater extent. Please also note the picture above was taken in the midst of rush hour gridlock and shows how the neutral ground can create a space for recreation while diminishing car/streetcar contact and greatly increasing system efficiency. Such a right of way could also be flanked with bike lanes to increase efficiency.

In future posts I will propose realignments to the Loop Trolley route as well as future expansions, and examine the often overlooked urban design traits and infrastructure that enabled streetcar-based transit to be so successful, and assess what lessons we may learn from these examples to apply to the revitalization of our cities.

7.9.09 UPDATE:
I was unable to attend the forum on the Loop Trolley, but the presentation is online here:

Alex Ihnen, as usual, has thorough coverage at his blog.

I left the following comment:

While the added expense of running the trolley in the median is certainly an important consideration, I am concerned there is no conceivable way the Loop Trolley will be able to maintain efficient service competing with traffic on Delmar in the Loop during peak hours without separation. Note that Portland's "Streetcar System Concept Plan" (http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=46134) expects an average speed of 7 mph riding in traffic as compared with 15mph in a median right of way.

If lanes are used, there should be a one direction bypass such as Des Peres/Rosedale/Vernon/Kingsland because any accident on the Loop with current levels of congestion would shut down the entire system. Ideally it would be best to limit street parking to one side and remove the continuous center turn lane. While politically divisive this would only eliminate around 100 parking spaces which could be accommodated in future development. The implementation of the Loop Trolly is a serious commitment to transit and should not be hindered by the automobile preference that currently dominates the region.

Stoplight Urbanism Pt. I

Many of the interventions that have most radically reconfigured the urban environment are also those which paradoxically have evaded examination and refinement through their ubiquity. On a walk or drive through the city recent interventions such as parking meters, traffic lights, signage and one-way streets remain out of mind due to their prosaic and common nature. While some degree of control is of course necessary, there has been little inquiry into the effects of the present systems and into the possibilities that exist beyond the current reality. The following series of writings on the traffic light seek to detail its history, to examine its effect on social life, and to explore alternatives to the automated device. While almost any such element in the city could have been chosen, the traffic light poses an intriguing subject at the confluence of philosophies of control, technologic determination, and modernization.


For millenia movement through cities and villages was regulated by mutual interest and rooted in a notion of common-law that began to be restricted with the enclosure movements of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Under such a system no traveller had a superior right over another; no person or vehicle had dominance and all spatial claims to the space of the road were recognized to have equal value. Such informal systems did not end with the enclosure movement or industrial revolution, they continued decades into the early twentieth century.

While in many western countries the establishment of the primacy of the automobile led to a drastic shift in custom and space, in developing nations the assimilation of motorized transportation in society has been unable to change customs regarding road use. In this regard, Stanford Gregory’s comparison of the informal driving practices of Egyptians with the linguistics of pidgin languages is fascinating. As a modern western observer, Gregory paints the typical first impression of chaos but is able to “discern an order in the madness,” which he believes is clearly emblematic of “social interaction at a fever pitch” [Gregory, 337]. Such intense systems of concession, predicated in intense interaction, result in the ability to change formation instantaneously and avoid obstacles and stoppages as they occur. These fluid dynamics utilize the whole of human reaction and intellect and exhibit a complex relation of communication and instinct not present in the smartest mechanical control.

In the developed world the industrial revolution initiated an era of technological determinism in which centuries of developments in civilization were rejected or radically reconfigured by an increasing reliance on totalizing rationalism and a preoccupation with efficiency through mechanical means. The technological pace of development was far faster than ever seen in human history. As a result of this pace, nothing other than the easily quantifiable instantaneous result was considered to have value. In the face of the accepted perfection of the machine, humans, especially those of lesser breeding and education, were considered to have little value.

The first traffic signal in human history was installed on December 10th 1868, outside the Houses of Parliament in London. The signals were intended to protect Members of Parliament crossing the busy street. They also helped to afford them a degree of separation from those whose interests they ostensibly represented. Like many traffic control devices, it had its lineage in railroads, who had been using semaphores for several decades. The London signal was a combination of a standard railroad semaphore arms and gas warning lamps but was not automatically controlled. The signal acted as a mechanical appendage of the constable who stood on the traffic island by telegraphing his orders to the mass of carriages, carts, and pedestrians. The signal was a technological aid but not a technological determinant. The London Signal was also an epitomization of the uneasy relationship between human and technological control: less than a month after the signal was installed the gas lamps exploded injuring the police officer “who had thought he was in control” [Pile and Thrift, 262]
and the age of the machine in traffic control had begun.

To be continued in Part II.

Works Cited

1. Gregory Jr, Stanford W. “Auto Traffic in Egypt as a Verdant Grammar.” Social
Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 48, No.4. 1985: 337.

2. City A-Z. Ed. Steve Pile and Nigel Thrift. New York: Routledge, 2000. p. 262.