St. Louis Region About as Swift as Ford Executives

Ford Motor Company has announced a 3rd quarter loss of $5.8 billion dollars. That is billion, with a “B”. Seems they were caught off guard that demand changed and people wanted smaller and more efficient cars. They don’t expect profit from North American sales until 2009.

I think leaders in the St. Louis Region (not just the city) are in the same boat, although here they are still not clued into the changes. Sure, Ford made the small Focus but put their attention behind the SUVs: Explorer, Expedition and now cancelled Excursion. Locally we’ve given a token effort to creating mass transit but it really doesn’t meet the needs of most. The real focus locally has been on highways, the more the better. All over the region we are building highway after highway and pushing sprawl development at the edges and older core areas. We are still “investing” in regional infrastructure that assumes cheap oil and everyone driving a locally assembled Explorer. But guess what, we don’t make that Explorer anymore.

While the new highway projects abound we are looking at rebuilding Highway 40 (aka I-64) for hundreds of millions of dollars and everyone seems to be in agreement we need a new billion dollar bridge across the Mississippi River even though existing bridges such as the Eads are seldom at capacity. The assumption locally is we will continue on the same path — more people and more cars driving ever more miles each passing year. That is exactly what Ford thought: people will simply continue to buy SUVs and bigger and bigger capacity with little regard to fuel efficiency. They raked in the profits for a while, some say as much as $10K per SUV on the larger models.

Just as Ford is losing billions in a single quarter I think the so-called leadership in the St. Louis region is not looking at the overall health of our region. They are on the same path they have been for decades — sprawl and highways. As a region we cannot afford to be caught off guard as Ford (and GM) have been. All this infrastructure we are building must be maintained and the more we have the more those costs will escalate. Many of the original MetroLink stations from 1993 are showing signs of deterioration. Where is the funding to maintain this infrastructure?

We cannot grow our region with more highways and bridges. Sure, we can grow literally in terms of how much land we consume but we will not see appreciable growth in terms of overall population and more importantly, new money, based on all these spread out highways and river bridges that help suburbanites avoid older core areas. We need new money. We need business that attracts customers from outside the region so other cities, states and countries send their money here. Without new money we are simply taking our existing money and spreading it ever thinly. As Ford has found out, the thinner you are and the later you begin to address the issue the harder it is to recover. I fear our region is going blindly in the same direction and a decade from now we may be in a world of hurt. We’ll have lots of new highways and such but we will be calling for mass transit and shorter commutes.

An auto company can close plants, layoff or buyout workers and scramble to get new models to market — often remaking some they’ve been selling in Europe or Asia. In a few years their fortunes could be quite different. What can a region in two states with multiple counties and numerous municipalities do in such a similar crunch? Nothing quickly, that is for sure. Transit projects take at least a decade if not more. A locally funded in-street modern streetcar system could be done in 5 years or so but will we have the local funds if things turn sour?

Meanwhile Ford is losing market share to global leaders such as Toyota and Honda. Toyota may soon surpass Ford in terms of total production. Again, our region cannot afford to fall further behind in market share for people and jobs in the global economy. We are all excited at the moment about the World Series but the reality is people are choosing to live in other regions and that is where the jobs are going. Ford recently hired a new chief executive to help them turn things around but our region doesn’t have a single CEO. Instead, our region’s leadership competes internally to see who can land the next big box store by giving away all the tax revenues the project might generate. Missouri and Illinois are fighting over how to fund the billion dollar bridge that is billed as balancing the region by encouraging more sprawl on the east side.

St. Louis’ Mayor, Francis Slay, and his director of Planning and Urban Design, Rollin Stanley, poke fun at St. Charles County for its “New Urbanist” projects, claiming we have old urbanism in the city. Meanwhile in the city Slay and Stanley seem to be content with replacing our old urbanism with auto centric development better suited for St. Charles County. Until Slay and Stanley get their own house in order I don’t see them having any room to criticize others. The fact suburban areas such as St. Charles County are beginning to embrace urbanism should be a sure sign the tide is shifting. Our region is the Titanic headed toward the iceberg and our elected captains are giving the ship full power and holding a steady course.

One Down, Three to Go

Regular readers of Urban Review will note that I am not a big sports fan. In fact, I have complained about the large crowds of people on game days — they rush in to the venue (Busch Stadium, Jones Dome, Scottrade Center) before the game and then rush out afterwards. Sure, some hang out before and after and spend money but the bulk do not. I was also not so happy about the process we went through with the Cardinals over funding of the new stadium. I was, however, reasonably pleased with the final stadium (read my review).

So here we are with the Cardinals holding out their hands, asking the city for more money to build out their vision of Ballpark Village (I’ll address the RFT’s version of Ballpark Village in a separate post). Last night the Cardinals handily won the first game of the 2006 World Series. Game two, played in Detroit just like last night’s game, just started. As much as I hate to admit it, I too am getting caught up in the excitement of the World Series. There, I said it.

Games three & four will be played here in St. Louis at the new Busch Stadium (Tuesday & Wednesday, 8pm). Game five, if necessary, will also be in St. Louis (Thursday). Should they be required, games six and seven will be back in Detroit. While some would like the Cardinals to shut out the Detroit Tigers by winning the first four games I’d rather see a fifth game be played. Why? Money:

St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA) Chief Economist Bryan Bezold estimates that the total economic impact of each home World Series game will be approximately $4.5 million; $2.4 million of this total will be direct spending in and around Busch Stadium, and $2.1 million of it will be in indirect spending, as those dollars circulate throughout the region.

This additional World Series economic impact comes on top of the $241 million impact of the Cardinals inaugural regular season and the $3.1 million per game economic impact from the previous rounds of playoffs, at the new Busch Stadium.

So yes, I’d gladly trade off the Tigers winning a single game so that we can have three games played in St. Louis rather than just two, we need the extra $4.5 million in the economy from game five. Of course, I’d rather the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series, it would be a perfect conclusion to the first season in the new stadium. The added attention will only help the local economy.

I also think a World Series win for the Cardinals would go a long way toward getting the wealthy team owners the public welfare they are seeking for the new Ballpark Village development on the site of the old stadium. But we shouldn’t get too carried away. The World Series will bring in less than $14 million total, much of that direct spending going to the Cardinals, yet they are seeking hundreds of millions in subsidies.

However, If they win the World Series this year I say we give them the $600 million or so they are seeking. Sure, why not. But, for each year they do not go to the World Series we reduce the subsidy by $100 million. So, if they were to keep winning the World Series it would be our pleasure to help out. If they start losing games and not winning the World Series we simply start taking back the money. This, of course, could be modified with adjustments for overall regular season record, advancement in the playoffs and making it to the World Series. So, making it to the World Series would help them keep more of the subsidy than not evening advancing to the playoffs. Incentives should be tied to performance.

Play ball.

UPDATE 10/23/06 8am — Looks like we”ll be having a game five in St. Louis. The fun starts Tuesday at 8pm.

Valet Video: Cones & Sign in Bike Lane

The valets were out in full force tonight: Central West End, Midtown, Washington Avenue, Downtown, Lafayette Square. In the CWE they had cones running around the new fountain on Maryland Plaza — some event or new venue in the courtyard space behind Design Within Reach (the new rooftop place?). Cones also blocked off various empty spaces on both sides of the street. Also across the street and to the east were more cones and a sign at Bar Italia. And a few doors east of there cones blocked spaces for Sub Zero on Euclid. I didn’t stop.

I did, however, stop at Dante’s on Olive just west of Compton. Here the valet company was taking numerous spaces but the real offense was the placement of their valet sign and cones within the bike lane. Cyclists, especially those doing so at night have many things to worry about (such as drunk drivers) they don’t need to have an obstacle course placed in their path.

Here is short video (under a minute):

I actually talked to the very courteous and professional valets as well as a patron of the bar that said he was a buddy of the owner. The valets, as I said, were professional. The owner’s buddy couldn’t believe I cared about this issue and was razzing me but in the end we actually had a series of conversations that were very pleasant. He was really funny too, great sense of humor. While I was there I noticed many people arriving, most on foot (presumably not wanting to pay $5 to park when they could just walk a block). The crowd was really diverse in age and appearance which made me think this might be a cool place to hang out some evening.

Just a block east on the south side of Olive ‘The Loft’ also had a sign in the middle of the bike lane. All the usual suspects downtown had cones out although many on Washington Ave no longer had them on the street. Over on Locust Ten14 had cones everywhere around 11:15pm. They had a long line to get in the door, not sure if folks who valet get preference for entrance or if you valet then wait in line. The new place downtown, Dolce, had cones on two blocks of Broadway and adjacent to the new Marquette lofts.

Aldermen are now looking into this issue and hopefully will come up with a workable ordinance in the next month or so.

McMillan Seeks TIF Financing for suburban-style Walgreen’s in City

Today the St. Louis Board of Aldermen approved three board bills relating to a proposed Walgreen’s at the NE corner of Grand & MLK. Last week I wrote about a fourth bill to rezone some of the property so the medium box and massive parking lot are in compliance with our suburban-oriented zoning codes dating back to 1947 (see post). You can tell how quickly change happens around here huh?

Here are the four bills related to the same project:
BB152, introduced 6/30/06; BB237 & BB238, both introduced on 10/6/06; and introduced a week ago, BB249. It was the last one, BB249, that I wrote about last week as it pertains to zoning.

BB152 relates to blighting the area while BB237 & BB238 both relate to the establishment of TIF financing in the amount of $1.2 million, from what I can discern from the wording. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not very knowledgeable about the minutia of these various tax incentive agreements. But, I am learning out of necessity. Today I looked at BB237 and realized that “Attachment A” was not, in fact, attached online. I requested this document from Jim Shrewsbury’s office and I got it a shortly thereafter. The attachment was the TIF Agreement which contains the bulk of the details.

I’ve reviewed this document now and see nothing relating to any design standards, other than saying the project will meed state and local codes. It does not seem to reference the Federal American’s with Disabilities Act. Nor does the document seem to have any mention of other potential requirements such as provisions for bicycle parking (a 2-bike rack is a reasonable request don’t you think?). Requiring the new project to have street trees in the public right of way between curb and sidewalk would be nice — although this is potentially a city issue and outside the agreement. However, sidewalks from the public walk to the front door is certainly relevant to this agreement. Bike parking and clearly delineated sidewalk access to the new Walgreen’s is not pie in the sky kinda stuff. Sure, I’d prefer an urban corner but short of that we still need to provide basics for those not driving a car. It is these types of agreements where such requirements, minor costs in the big scheme of things, should be incorporated. Alas, it would take Aldermen that understand such issues and have a desire to provide something besides a self congratulating grand total of development project costs.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I am a very minor consult on the campaign of Pat Herod who is running against Ald. Mike McMillan in the November general election for the county position of License Collector. This post is unrelated to any consulting for that campaign.

Making Cities Accessible to All, Including Active Wheelchair Users

I often write about sidewalks in my posts, making places pedestrian-friendly. Along those same lines I’ve mentioned accessibility, making it feasible for someone in a wheelchair to get from place to place without a car. Some readers and much of the public seem to have the notion this is not a worthy goal, that those in wheelchairs are too frail to wheel six blocks to the grocery store. Today’s reality is that many wheelchair users are anything but frail and are quite capable of living independent & active lives.

Colt Wynn was planning to be a Navy Seal when he suffered an injury, while in high school, that left him paralyzed from the waste down. Today he is a champion body builder. Wheeling down to the store is likely no big deal to someone like him, provided he was able to remain on sidewalks and not have to risk further injury by placing himself in the path of cars. Many active wheelchair users compete in the Paralympics, play tennis, basketball or other sports. I read about one athlete that has the use of his legs but after a surgery for a brain tumor he is unable to maintain his balance and therefore spends most of his time in a wheelchair. These people are active and fit adults seeking fulfilling lives. It is human nature to seek to be independent, this is no different for those in a wheelchair.

Here is the description of a book entitled Life on Wheels: For the Active Wheelchair User:

Over 1.5 million Americans use wheelchairs for a variety of causes: a congenital condition, traumatic injury, or disease. People who depend upon wheelchairs for mobility are in varied situations. They might live independently or need attendant care; live alone or with family; be employed full-time or no longer working. Despite differences, people dependent on wheelchairs face some similar medical issues and a need to cope with changed circumstances. Life on Wheels: For the Active Wheelchair User is for people who want to take charge of their own life experience while using a wheelchair. Author Gary Karp, ergonomics consultant and long-time chair user, describes:
• Medical issues (paralysis, circulation, rehab experience, choosing the optimal wheelchair, scientific progress toward a cure)
• Day-to-day living (keeping fit, skin care, bowel and bladder care, sexuality, home access, maintaining a wheelchair, wheeling technique, insurance)
• Psychological and social issues (grieving loss, self-image, adjustment to life change, friends, family, asking for and being helped, cultural attitudes, history of disability, and activism)

Granted, relative to the total population of the U.S. the total number of wheelchair users is virtually invisible. For the rest of us we can simply go about our lives and not really be worried about such a small percentage of the population. Until that is, we become one of the few, even if only temporarily. So while you may not be in a wheelchair or even walk to the grocery store some people do, either by choice or out of necessity through lack of a car. Still others see the folly in driving two blocks to get a few things easily carried. An accessible city and region is a small step we can take to ensure our population is able to have independent lives.

For more on the federally mandated Americans With Disabilities Act click here.