Noxious Weeds Outside St. Louis’ Gateway Transportation Center

The city-owned Gateway Transportation — home to Amtrak, Greyhound, and Megabus — has a landscaped area between it and the adjacent Civic Center MetroLink station. The landscaping has never been noteworthy.  I was at the ribbon cutting in November 2008, but my exterior landscaping pics aren’t that old.

On the 7th of this month we were at the station early to catch our train to Chicago. I stopped to snap a pick of the…weeds.

Less than a week later I came down to the area the morning after the Blues won the Stanley Cup. I was quiet at Enterprise, but I really noticed the weeds from the MetroLink platform.

I sent these images to a landscape architect friend, she said it might have been intended as a native garden — but she sees “some thistles (noxious weed).” All landscaping requires regular weeding, something this hasn’t had.

The city issues citations to homeowners for less than this. If a homeowner had this as their yard the city would come mow it and send them a bill. This looks completely unkept, neglected.

It would be nice to see more attention paid to this area since it’s in such a highly-visible location. I can only imagine what our guests from Boston must’ve thought.

I don’t know if this landscaping is the responsibility of the city’s comptroller, Metro, or some other entity. I’ll send this post around today and hopefully someone will step up and get the landscaping cleaned up. Or the city will ticket itself?

— Steve Patterson