Poll, Street Vendors in St. Louis

One of the great things I love about dynamic cities is the diversity of choice when it comes to dining. These cities have a range from affordable street food to cloth napkin fine dining.   Here in St. Louis we’ve got the latter nailed but we are lacking on the former.  Street food, in my view, is a prerequisite for achieving the 24/7 downtown our leaders speak about.

Last year around this time I wrote on the same subject.  My intro was:

Bustling sidewalks and numerous food vendors are hallmarks of great urban streets. Food vendors sell everything from hot dogs, pretzels, nuts, ice cream, water/soda, kabobs and all sorts of other street food. In St. Louis our laws severely limit food & other street vendors leaving our sidewalks less than lively than they could or should be.

Downtown St. Louis has a limit of 10 vendor permits.  Outside of downtown there are only a couple of spots where vending can legally take place.

This week’s poll (upper right of main page) is about street vendors.

So take the poll and use the comments below to share your thoughts on the subject.

Street vendors come in all shapes and sizes.  Some form of regulation is certainly necessary but I feel we’ve gone too far by limiting the number of permits to 10 for the central business district.  I’ve never seen all 10 out at the same time.

If you agree that downtown and other parts of the city could benefit an increase in the number of street vendors, please take a moment and contact 7th Ward Alderman Phyllis Young.  Politely ask her to introduce legislation before the Board of Aldermen to allow more street vendors so that we can begin to activate our sidewalks.

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Bill Before Missouri Legislature Could Stall Revitalization Efforts in St. Louis

Tax credits can be an effective tool to accomplish certain goals. For example, the federal mortgage deduction is meant to encourage home ownership.  But in truth the fed is subsidizing home ownership.  Tax credits are a trade off — a credit in exchange for something of value.

But an amendment tacked on to Missouri’s jobs bill (SB45) could severely limit the state’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit that has helped St. Louis, Kansas City and towns throughout Missouri since taking effect on January 1, 1998.  The landscape in Jefferson City is changing daily so I know I don’t have the latest.  But know that the very tax credits which have been a key player in renovation projects downtown and throughout the city, may get limited.  We need this tax credit to continue the redevelopment of historic buildings in St. Louis and in communities across the entire state.

Further reading:

• Missouri Coalition for Historic Preservation and Economic Development
• Ecology of Absence post
• St Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial
  
• Culprits are Sen. Brad Lager (R-12) & Sen. Jason Crowell (R-27)

Tax incentives that produce results (jobs, reinvestment in established areas, etc) should be expanded – cut capped.

Mass Transit in St. Louis Needs a Bailout

As of Monday, the St. Louis region has a smaller mass transit system:

MetroBus and MetroLink light rail service has been drastically scaled back due to budget limitations at transit agency, Metro.

The issue, like many, is very complex.  The short take is Metro has too little money to provide the limited services we used to have.  Rather than more frequent service, to make transit more attractive, we are getting less.

How did this come to be?  Metro’s expensive legal battle (& loss) over the most recent MetroLink expansion is an easy scapegoat.  But the fact remains that public subsidy of the private car has been ever increasing while transit agencies must fight for crumbs.

The Bi-State Developmemt Agency, known as Metro since February 1, 2003, has been underfunded since its formation sixty years ago in 1949.  Forty-six years ago today, April 1st 1963, Bi-State took over transit routes from the St. Louis Public Service Company and “14 other local bus operators” as part of a $26 million dollar bond issue (Source: Streets & Streetcars of St. Louis: A Sentimental Journey by Andrew D. Young).

Capital funds are easier to find than operating revenue.  Public mass transit is an important part of every strong region.  We need to fix our system and soon.

Poll, Population Goal for St. Louis in 2050

The population of the City of St. Louis is currently less than any point in the 20th century.  Our population is what it was way back in the 1880s.

Our population decline was as spectacular as the climb.  Both were the result of a number of factors.  My poll this week, visible in the upper right corner of the main page, is asking what St. Louis’ target population should be by 2050.

“The U.S. has nearly 305 million people today, and is projected to reach 400 million by 2039 and 439 million in 2050.” [Wikipedia]  With the U.S. population expected to rise substantially in the next 40 years, mostly in larger regions, what might we expect for the City of St. Louis and the St. Louis region?

I think St. Louis should work to keep pace with the overall growth in our national population.  That would put us at 508,000, roughly, by 2050.    Such an increase isn’t going to happen overnight and it won’t happen if the regional population doesn’t increase as well.

Greater St. Louis has a population of 2.8 million.  If our region were to grow at the projected national rate we’d have just over 4 million by 2050.  Of course some regions will grow more while others will grow less. If the city and region do not grow at all that would be shocking and very telling of major issues.

I think at both the core and regional level we can take actions today to ensure things are rosey by 2050.  A strong urban, walkable, transit-cvonnected core is important to the future health of the entire region.  Our actions could have the reverse impact — causing us to miss a great opportunity to fill in our core (city + inner suburbs).

So thae the poll and share your thoughts below.

Missourians Against Red Light Cameras

This just in from local singer and anti-red light camera activist Jesse Irwin:

The bill that would ban red light cameras in Missouri, SB211, is being ambushed. It was granted a premature, unexpected hearing by the Senate Transportation Committee scheduled for this Wednesday, February 18th at 8am at the capitol in Senate Conference Room 1. We have to keep them from killing the bill before it gets to the senate floor. I need people to do one of three things.

1. Call or email one or all of the senators on the committee. You can find them here:

http://www.senate.mo.gov/09info/comm/tran.htm

Let them know you don’t like the cameras and you support the passage of SB211

2. Give me a written statement saying they do not like these cameras, etc. You can fax it to 968-5981 or send it to irwinjes@webster.edu. I  will take it to the capitol for you and enter it into the record

3. Ride to jeff city with me on Wednesday morning to sit in on the hearing.

There is a lot of big money trying to stop us, so we are going to have to be loud and persistent.

I am organizing a group of people who will be driving down to attend the hearing. If anyone is interested in going and would like a ride, they can send me an email at irwinjes@webster.edu or call me at 314-775-5760.

Thanks again,

Jesse Irwin

http://www.redlightcameraban.com/

Now that I’m driving a car again I’m concerned about the cameras.  Not that I might get caught doing something I shouldn’t — that a camera might falsley cite me.