Kansas City Through A Pedestrian’s Eyes

Fellow cyclist Brent Hugh takes a critical look at Kansas City from a pedestrian perspective on his website. Calling it the good, the bad and the ugly he shares many of the same points I do about St. Louis. The sad reality is we can go to nearly any city in the U.S. and see the same problems repeated. Click here for Brent’s look at Kansas City.

Brent also has a segment called Sidewalk to Nowwhere which takes a look at similar issues in other towns in Missouri.

– Steve

A & M Bicycles Launches Website/Blog

One of the oldest bike shops in the St. Louis area, A & M Bicycles, has launched their first website at www.ambicycles.com. Part website and part blog, the site is just getting started.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have no financial interest in A & M Bicycles nor am I being compensated for talking about the shop here. i just like going there. Owner Karl Becker is a wealth of information on bicycling and life. I know I’ll get a straight answer from Karl. I was the driving force behind getting his new website started. How is that for being a dedicated customer?

I’ve bought two new bikes at A & M — a Raleigh mountain bike about six years ago and a custom Surly road bike last Fall. Before having the new Surly I bought a used Trek 720 from Karl that got me through several years at very low cost. I’ve also had Karl assemble a bike I ordered online (the orange Kronan regular readers have seen numerous times). Right now Karl is building a commuter bike for me based on a used Cannondale hybrid.

If you are interested in biking in St. Louis check out A & M Bicycles — on the web and in person.

– Steve

The Future of Downtown St. Louis Depends Upon [insert latest project here]

Tavia Evans reports in yesterday’s Post-Dispatch that RGGA’s Dick Fleming is tossing out yet another scare tactic about the future of downtown:

That is funny. Last year all the downtown “advocates” said the future of downtown depended upon tearing down the historic Century Building for a parking garage serving the Old Post Office Square. Before that downtown depended upon a new Cardinals baseball stadium. A convention hotel was going to save downtown too. Don’t forget an arena for the Blues. And the football dome, that was the key to saving downtown.

I’m sick of it. These guys are worse than the local TV news. They couch all these projects as a must have so that nobody will speak out against whatever project they want to publicly fund.

The writing is on the wall. Federated is buying out May Company with the building next door to St. Louis Centre. The mall’s new owner, Barry Cohen, is saying it can be made to work as a mall, perhaps without the skybridges. Can another round of good money after bad be far behind?

Back to the Post-Dispatch:

Cohen bought the mostly-empty mall in August at a foreclosure sale, reportedly for $5.4 million; St. Louis Centre was built in the 1980s for about $95 million.

Massive public supported real estate projects sure don’t hold their value very well do they? Would you buy a house if the value 25 years later would be less than 10% of the purchase price? No wonder people such as Fleming must work overtime to sell the public a bill of goods.

If we are to believe them downtown will be in ruins if we don’t support the project of the year. I hope us in the general public are not stupid enough to believe this load of BS. I know I can see through it – although it keeps getting thicker and thicker.

Downtown is well on its way because of the work of residential developers and businesses like City Grocers. This is what makes downtown great. They add true value, not just take our tax dollars for a ride.

– Steve

Missouri Botanical Garden’s New Parking Lot Not Pedestrian Friendly

The Missouri Botanical Garden is putting the finishing touches on two new parking lots at the corner of Shaw & Vandeventer. These lots will serve as overflow lots for the gardens which are two short blocks to the East (along Shaw). Events such as the upcoming Whitaker Music Festival attract thousands of people with most arriving by car.

A number of years ago the gardens attempted to raze a couple of blocks of houses in between them and the highway. Thankfully, that plan was scraped after they received complaints. So, they looked to the West at a corner with very marginal buildings. They were neither urban or worth fighting to save. But, when starting anew I like to think we’d build back in an urban fashion. Not here.


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Bike Parking an Afterthought at the International Institute

St. Louis’ International Institute serves thousands of new immigrants each year. Unfortunately, it seems these new Americans adopt cars for transportation just like the rest of us.

A few years back when the International Institute redid their building on South Grand they forgot more than just windows. They forgot a bike rack.

They do have a rack — well somewhat. They have the tired old “dish drainer” type rack, one of the worst. It was clearly an afterthought (nothing pre-planned should be done this poorly).

When I was biking home yesterday on Grand I spotted this bike locked to the rack. I’m not sure if it belongs to their staff or a client.

The owner only locked the front wheel to the rack. This bike doesn’t have quick release hubs so you’d need a wrench to undue the front wheel to steal the bike. The lock the owner uses is good — a short cable loop. But, due to the poor design of this rack the owner cannot use the rack and lock properly. One must be compromised. I personally would have taken one side of the rack or the end and locked the frame to the rack.

The rack is halfway into their planting space despite a large area of concrete at the building entrance (which faces their parking lot rather than the street).

Anytime you’ve got a dish drain bike rack sitting in a planting bed locked to a lamp post with a rusty chain you send the message that bike parking isn’t very important.

– Steve