Olive Open At Walton, Eastbound Only
Tonight I was able to drive eastbound on Olive from Euclid. Barrels blocking the street at Walton for years, have finally been moved. But only in the eastbound direction.
As I mentioned in a post last month, the eastbound side of Olive is in the 28th Ward while the westbound lane, still blocked, is in the 18th Ward. At this point I don’t know where this all stands — will it stay this way for a while? Will Olive get opened in both directions but other streets be blocked? Time, and a few phone calls, will tell.
I’m guessing the timing was not an accident either. Mayor Slay will be presenting a “Sprit of St. Louis” award to Bowood Farms (prior post, official website) at 1pm tomorrow (Wednesday, June 28, 2006).
I do think our city officials may finally be waking up to the fact a closed street grid means closed opportunities. You open up the grid, like it once was, and you can encourage more commerce and development.
– Steve
this is a good thing. maybe after those lovely cement pipes run thier course as “crime reduction tools” they could use them for something fun at the city museum. How about opening up Des Peres thru to Delmar? Would that flood Skinker Debaliviere with crime or help the eastward expansion of the loop?
I completely agree with you on this issue, Steve. Those, oh so attractive, white concrete rings give that gorgeous in-the-hood feeling. I realize that they are an attempt to reduce crime, and in some areas the residents actually like them (I suppose for their crime reduction, and not for their aethetics). But they’ve outlived their usefulness in some areas, such as the Towergrove East and Shaw neighborhoods. It is interesting to see, however, that some residents have tried to incorporate the rings into the landscape by decorating them and filling them with plantings. Let’s recall the barrels and get rid of the ghetto-feel.
Perhaps my several emails to Kennedy had an affect? It is good to see that the streets are becoming a grid system again…
[REPLY – That remains to be seen, the barrels that were moved are in Lyda Krewson’s 28th Ward. The barrels on Kennedy’s 18th Ward were still in place last night. – SLP]
Perhaps now those monsters will be removed near Gaslight Square and Botanical Heights.
Were they ever effective at crime reduction?
The barrels at Rosedale just south of Delmar seem very unnecessary. Maybe the residents are concerned about traffic, but one of the points of the grid is to spread traffic to multiple points. The barrels pretty much filter everyone to Skinker and Delmar, which makes crossing as a pedestrian all that much more fun.
Seems like the most value for your tax dollar to improve neighborhoods would be to remove these barriers. Can’t be that expensive to just get rid of them.
1. They’re ugly
2. They identify an area as “bad”, whether it is or not.
3. They appear to be a barrier to investment, not just traffic
Driving through the Shaw neighborhood is a pain and I avoid it. On the other side of the park Tower Grove South has similar architecture and no barriers and it seems to have redeveloped more evenly. Although some areas are better then other they blend together, in Shaw these differences seem more defined and I thing the barriers are to blame.
When I grew up in the Skinker-Debaliviere neighborhood in the early eighties those barrels at rosedale and the delmar alley made sense and I still like them there. Also what they did at Des Peres in between Delmar and Washington looks nice. A little greenary and a nice walkway. That part east of rosedale was very bad and I think that the work Alderman McGuire did, did help improve that section. I hope that those streets stay that way. The neighbors are used to it and though people still speed down Westminster to get through to places east of rosedale, I think it is nice. All those baracades have become part of the charm of the neighborhood. You can walk from St. Roch’s to Washington without having to walk in traffic. A nice thing for children going to the school and to church.
“in some areas the residents actually like them”
I have heard this is why they haven’t been removed in FPSE.
On this issue the city should just skip the public discussion and do it. Like taking a Band Aid off, it will hurt a little at first, but it will get better.
Street barriers – Here today, gone tomorrow.
Matt:
I was unaware of the support in FPSE, and was actually referencing the streets through and around Marquette Park, which is in the heart of the highest crime the city has, according to police officials. I personally dislike the barrels, but it should be up to those that live in the area and are effected by the crime and use the local streets.
Although some of the barriers in the BPW/Gravois Park/Dutchtown area placed for 6 months last year were a real pain, I think they did help cut down on crime ever so slightly. However, since they didn’t consistenly barricade the sidewalks as well, many crazy drivers would just drive up onto the sidewalk (at high speeds) to get around the barricades. I saw this happen several times at Juniata and Minnesota (just east of Gravois).
In the case of Marquette Park, rather than barricades, I’d like to see South Compton plowed under between Osage and Gasconade, thereby connecting the playground and rec center east of Compton with the ballfields west of Compton, making it a complete park. The traffic counts just aren’t enough to justify that street anymore.