Charter School Doesn’t Play Well With Neighbors

Charter school Ethel H. Lyle Academy is located downtown at 15th & Washington (and another at Jefferson).  That is all good and well until the dropping off and picking up of students conflicts with the others in the diverse area.  The school has solved that problem — they just put out a sign in front of their building claiming the public parking as theirs and theirs only.

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The charter school is a business – but not the only business in the immediate vicinity.  Other businesses are across the street and in the next block East just across 15th.  Residents also live in the area and guests have a reasonable expectation to park on the street if a space is free.

Be it restaurant valets or charter schools, we can’t have every business in dense urban settings thinking they have the right to take public parking to the exclusion of others.

I’m not sure how long they’ve been in this location but they had to think about this issue when they made the business decision to open here.  As adjacent storefronts, offices and residences fill up the demand for parking is only going to increase.  Furthermore, the city needs the revenue these meters generate.

Violators Will Be Towed

Determined to keep the blocks of Washington Ave East of Tucker as an unfriendly 4-lane highway, the city is threatening towing for parking on the street:

Ever since parking was allowed on the 1000 block and the Southern half of the 1100 bock the city has insisted, foolishly, on clearing the street for a morning and afternoon rush. At first it was only an hour but it didn’t take long for it to be two hours in the AM and two in the PM. So from 7am-9am and from 4pm-6pm nobody can park on the street between 10th and Tucker. The blocks East of Tucker are no parking 24/7.

For a couple of years now the city has been ticketing people parking in these spaces and presumably blocking the mad rush of people heading both East & West on Washington. People ignore the restriction and park there anyway. So recently the city taped notes on the meters to alert people not to park there during these maddening rush periods. The problem with the notes is that they are taped to the meters. Taped! We are a real city right? The notes also don’t mention the no parking times are only Monday-Friday.

Restaurants such as Kitchen K, Mosaic, Beso, The Dubliner, Mizu Sushi Bar (as well as other businesses) don’t need to have their customers chased away from 4pm-6pm. An early dinner al fresco at Kitchen K, Mosaic & Beso is ruined by having cars and buses flying by in the lane next to your table. A row of parked cars serves as a nice barrier between traffic and enjoying dinner.

Ticketing cars during this period was bad enough — now they are going to start towing? This is bad public policy! We need to extend on-street parking to the Eads Bridge to support retail along Washington Ave, not have it disappear for four hours each weekday.  Towing cars will really endure so many people to Washington Ave.

Great Pizza If You Can Get To It

One of the most urban things is the ability to grab a slice of pizza while on the go. I’ve enjoyed slices in NYC, Philly, Boston, San Francisco and elsewhere, sometimes at 3am. A single slice can also solve a pizza craving without ordering a full pizza.

In St Louis the by-the-slice choices are limited. You’ve got Racanelli’s on Delmar & on Euclid. You’ve got Feraro’s Jersey Pizza in Soulard and recently Bridge & Tunnel Pizza downtown on Washington Ave. a storefront or two East of Tucker.

I need to preface this with the fact that I like B&T Pizza. But the design of their entry does not comply with the ADA — when I’m in my wheelchair I can’t open the door to get inside. The staff there is nice and they come open the door for me. B&T Pizza are tenants in the building — my beef is with the building owner, the architect and the city.

When designing doorways that open toward you there is supposed to be 18″ of clearance to the handle side. This allows a wheelchair user to pull up and grab the door handle and get the door open without having the door hit the chair. Without this room to swing the door open it is impossible for a chair user to open the door.

Button-activated motorized openers such as the one at a potentially difficult door at City Grocers eliminates this problem. But the entry to Bridge & Tunnel is not an old historic entryway. Prior to the recent renovation of the building the space was an auto drive to an interior courtyard. The entrance is entirely new, yet it doesn’t comply!

The ramp shown above was the subject of a post in December 2007.  By sticking out the way it does I believe it poses a trip hazard to someone just passing by on the sidewalk.

I like the place, it is good, inexpensive and quick. They’ve got calzones now too. But I don’t like that I can’t get in the door on my own.

The opposite door into the apartments is a mirror of the problem.

Again these doors & doorways are all new yet I can’t get through them because of their placement. Both need to be retrofitted with electric openers to bring these into compliance. The city has got to do a better job of catching what is simple access issues.