No surprise, but most who voted in the Sunday Poll favored an occupied building to replace a condemned parking garage downtown:
Q: The parking garage at Tucker & Locust, built in 1967, was condemned a few months ago. What should be the long-term outcome? (PICK UP TO 2)
Raze for new building w/zero parking 22 [34.92%]
Raze for new building w/some parking 21 [33.33%]
Renovation of structure, reopen garage 6 [9.52%]
Raze for new parking garage 5 [7.94%]
Unsure/no opinion 3 [4.76%]
Other: 3 [4.76%]
Apartments, parking, ground level retail.
Restaurant
Traditional incremental urbanism
Raze for surface parking lot 2 [3.17%]
Nothing, leave as is 1 [1.59%]
Raze for open space 0 [0%]
I was very happy nobody voted for “Raze for open space”, because we’ve got more open space than we need. I have to wonder about the person who voted that leaving a condemned parking garage is the best long-term outcome. Really!?!
Even in the short-term I’d oppose a surface parking lot. If built properly, it would likely stick around until fully depreciated — which isn’t short-term. We need to build on many of our existing surface lots to reduce holes in our urban fabric. A case could be made for a new parking garage on the site. At this point I’d give little chance the existing garage will be renovated — the repairs are just too costly.Without a doubt, a new building, with or without internal parking, is ideal.
The New Jersey-based entity that owns the condemned garage likely doesn’t care about what’s best for creating a more urban St. Louis, but I don’t care about their bottom line! In the Downtown Neighborhood Association’s Planning & Zoning Committee I’ll advocate for a position on this site that opposes just letting it sit or a surface parking lot, supports a building.
For over a decade I’ve written about pedestrians, including pedestrian deaths. It’s difficult to visit the sites and write about how the area could be designed better, but nothing like the pain experienced by the families & friends who’ve lost a loved one. Most recent was Bapi Gupta:
Gupta’s mother, Genie Dee, and Georgie Busch, who lost her daughter, Amber Wood, in a hit-and-run accident in the same location in 2012, are hoping to bring change to the stretch of roadway.
The string of fatalities and near misses has many calling for slower traffic in the area.
“Why is it 35 miles an hour here? Why isn’t there a stop light up the street here, which they took down, by the way,” said Michael Chekoudjian, the driving force behind a change.org petition asking for changes to the area. (KMOV)
With 3 fast lanes of traffic heading south, trying to beat the lights cars are exceeding the speed limit by 20 to 50 MPH. This is very Dangerous in an “Entertainment District” with as many as a 1000 people in the streets at times and as we know by the hit and run death of “Amber Wood” at the 700 block of Broadway in April of 2012 this is a very dangerous stretch of roadway. We the signers of this petition want Mayor Slay to put a stop to this speeding on this dangerous stretch of road in the name of “Amber Wood” NOW!
First let’s look at a couple of recent suggestions offered by family & friends:
Lower the posted speed limit: Motorists currently exceed the 35MPH speed limit, they’ll drive the same speed regardless of the posted limit. This is because people drive at what they perceive to be a safe speed based on the design of the road. If you want to lower the speed — you must change the design! More on the design later.
Traffic signal at previous intersection: The previous light at Cerre St was removed when a new ramp onto Eastbound I-64 made it a dead-end street. Putting a signal back doesn’t make sense. However, a flashing yellow signal overhead would be a good idea, changing to red if activated by a pedestrian wanting to cross Broadway.
There are things that should change, let’s take a look:
A lot of the traffic on Broadway gets on Westbound I-64 before getting to the commercial district where pedestrians have been struck & killed.Approaching Cerre St from the North.After many get on the highway the remaining traffic now has more room, so they can speed up. Looking South from from just South of Cerre St, three wide traffic lanes in one direction plus parking lanes on both sides. This is designed to move cars quickly, not a good design for the commercial district just beyond the elevated train tracks. The vehicles you see are a deep line stopped at Gratiot St.This is the pedestrian environment across the street from the Broadway Oyster Bar.Looking East at Gratiot St we see the traffic light is green but the pedestrian signal is “don’t walk” Broadway Oyster Bar is on the left. Also not the curb bulbs out into both Gratiot & Broadway.
I sat here for a few cycles to time the lights. For vehicles the light is green for about 38-40 seconds. However, the pedestrian signal is “walk” for just 4 seconds before it begins to flash! It flashes for 10-15 seconds before going to a solid don’t walk, but the traffic signal remains green. Having such a short walk time with a longer traffic time encourages pedestrians to go for it rather than wait on the longer Broadway signal. The pedestrian signal timing needs to change immediately! Ok, let’s cross.
Looking North we see how the “curb bulb” encloses the end of the parking lane on the East side of Broadway, Why wasn’t the curb on the West side bulbed out as well?
Based on my visit, here are my suggestions:
Immediate solutions:
Change pedestrian signal timing at Gratiot.
Short-term solutions:
Reinstall traffic signal at Cerre St., on yellow flash, changing to red if activated by a pedestrian.
Restripe Broadway, narrowing the 3 drive lanes.
Add a solid white lane to separate the outside drive lanes from the adjacent parking lanes.
Change pedestrian signals to have a countdown timer.
Long-term solutions:
New streetscape, putting the road on a diet with curb bulbs at all corners. Include mid-block planters in the parking lanes.
Return 4th & Broadway to 2-way traffic.
More observation, at different times, is needed. But this area must change or we’ll see more pedestrians hit.
On October 28, 1965 the last piece of the Arch was lowered into place, so October 28, 2015 is the 50th anniversary of that event.
I’ve been posting the following image when discussing the CityArchRiver project for nearly 3 years now, the view is looking East from the Old Courthouse.
2012 rendering of Luther Ely Square extended over the highway, leading to the future Arch/museum entrance
Two weeks ago, looking out from the 7th floor balcony of the CityArchRiver offices, I saw the work underway.
Construction on Luther Ely Square with the Old Courthouse in the background, the red line indicates the central sidewalk area
At first I thought we were going to have lots of people crossing 4th Street between Market & Chestnut — going to & from the Old Courthouse and Luther Ely Square & Arch. But as I put the rendering into this post I looked closely at the bottom and it looks like a wall is shown keeping pedestrians from crossing 4th Street mid-block. Or it’s a cut-out to pull over and drop people off — not sure.
Looking North along 4th, with Luther Ely Square on the right, temporary Jersey Barrier wall on left.
If there isn’t a wall people will cross mid-block. If there is a wall, pedestrians will be taken via a circuitous route.
Plans for the 50th anniversary will be announced shortly, but Luther Ely Square is supposed to be completed by then. The riverfront work maybe — the high river level has delayed the project. If they can clean the mud off the work area quickly then it to should be complete, in a few weeks we’ll know. Plans will include a festival the weekend before October 28th, and a ceremony that day.
Remember the original landscaping wasn’t finished until the early 80s, here’s a look from May 1982:
It has been almost five years since the CityArchRiver competition was reduced to five finalists.
On Tuesday I wrote about the condemned parking garage at Tucker & Locust, which led to discussion in the comments about what should/could happen. Perfect poll topic…
Please assume the list choices aren’t necessarily government imposed or funded, could be entirely private — you can wave a magic wand. You may pick two, one can be your own.
Early Monday morning a car hit planters & scaffolding on the Tucker sidewalk, at Locust.
A car crashed into the side of a downtown building just before 1:00 Monday morning near Tucker Boulevard and Locust Street. (KMOV)
KMOV’s report says after inspection the building was “deemed safe.” More accurately, the car didn’t damage the building, but it was condemned months ago.
Garage at Tucker & Locust, December 2014. The two planters hit Monday can be seen between the carsJust before 7am, a worker looks at the damage to the scaffolding.The two planters now shoved back against the previously condemned building
This scaffolding has now been in place for more than a year. All the work had been inside, but that stopped months ago.
On July 1, 2014 just before the scaffolding went up along the Locust sideDecember 2014
The scaffolding was in place to prevent debris from falling to the public sidewalk below. With work stopped, I have to wonder how long it’ll remain in place? Is there a point where the city will force the owner &/or contractor to remove it from the pubic right-of-way?
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