I don't buy the "warzone" image argument. Maybe a rural person who saw the barriers would agree but I doubt any US urban dweller would. Street racing and street lawlessness is ubiquitous throughout this land. If someone from Atlanta saw our barriers they would probably just relate it to their own observations.
If the barriers work, lane reduction should be a no brainer.
Maybe reversing as much as possible of whatever was done to downtown streets in the 60s (widening, oneways, unnecessary curb cuts, sprawling no-street-parking zones etc) would be a good starting point.
Blocked streets should be the absolutely last ditch resort if all else fails. Completely blocked streets are inequitable no matter what reason you use to justify them...
The Downtown CID should have lobbied to implement a MODESA (super TIF where state incremental taxes are also involved) a long time ago to implement a pedestrian & bike friendly Downtown that still catered to cars, but emphasized bike/ped connectivity ... simultaneously reducing vehicle speeds to no greater than 25 MPH on any Downtown street. Additionally, one ways, where possible, should have been converted to two ways.
Until a Downtown CID puts something like this together the barricades, or some nicer looking version, are important to keeping Downtown quieter, safer, etc.
Leadership in this town is pathetic, including leadership amongst major stakeholders in Downtown.
Certainly a lot of the good, the bad and the ugly can be discussed as far as downtown goes. What I see as the positive trends and on the how the city can capitalize. Especially if the new infrastructure bill gets passed and a POTUS include to swing more grant money back into urban cores.
First, yes BPV & Busch stadium seem two blocked with urban barriers but then again it has great transit access, is a short walk to the refurbished Arch Grounds/Courthouse and Purina Campus/Soulard neighborhood just down the street.. Lease rates on OCW are great and for Cordish/DeWitt the next phase forward is 2CW and probably the best spot to see a new high rise residential go downtown. What would improve upon things, go after and secure funding for Choteau Greenway/Brickline to continue to tie things together downtown as well as active street/bike/sidewalks improvements.. The new mayor active engage with Purina from building a bigger presence to pursuing a more dense campus and or conversion of some of its lots to future mixed use development is a no brainer. The freeway barriers are not going away but intertwined in that mix is some pretty good connectivety to Arch/River, Soulard & Lafayatte neighborhoods.
Second, Square anchoring and establishing NOW District is the type of development the city needs to rebuild jobs base in the Core. Jobs leads to employees who need housing and maybe just maybe you finally get some of the last big buildings in Jeff Arms and Railway Exchange finally developed. What would help immensely is Enterprise and WWT lending presence in the NOW District in my opinion. Once again, seek the funding for street/bike/sidewalk improvements.
Third, Convention Center upgrades will not get St. Louis into the big boys of convention but it is long overdue and will continue St. Louis success as a mid tier convention location with iconic landmarks nearby. Conventions brings visitors, create foot traffic, visit sites and support a lot of hotel stays & taxes. However, as a few noted it continues the super block development. So what would be the next logical step. Time to formalize a plan to replace the raised section of interstate with blvd that finally puts in the street grid connecting Covention Center/Wash Ave to Landing, near north river front. Here is the chance for city to propose its own freeway removal project
Finally, without a doubt between MLS stadium, Jeff Corridor/removing failed parkway once & for all and NGIA you have a huge impact unfolding. I think other comments have it right. West downtown and Midtown have huge opportunity to boom in the near future. I also think that small ball developments filling lots with mixed use and well design/well place townhomes will go a long ways. You still got the same prime real estate for high rise residential in around Busch/Arch Grounds and CWE so need to believe that every lot needs to be more, just filled. Once again take the parkway out of Market & Forest Parkway from West Downtown to CORTEX.
So all in, continue to push to improve the infrastructure you want to keep, continue to add the non vehicular infrastructure/brickline and with a little bit of a push try to take another small chunk of freeway when the current POTUS is looking to spend big now because the current investments offer unique clusters of success in different parts of downtown. Finding ways to bind them to each other and near downtown neigborhoods will only make it better.
Visited the new little shop in the Dorsa space. The coffee was a bit... rough, but I think it will fit well into the hole left by wash Ave post closing. Spoke to the barista and according to her the space Nextdoor will eventually become an event space and there will eventually be a bar/lounge opening in the rear.
I drove through downtown north-south and east-west yesterday afternoon twice each way. I was impressed by the number of people out and about! There were some street barriers, both for traffic calming and construction, but all told it only took about 10 minutes each way, which in my experience is an extremely short amount of time to transit a central business district in a car.
^Oh, that is brilliant. I particularly loved the before/after in Paris and the street transformation animation. And it's particularly painful seeing Salt Lake City implementing things we aren't doing yet, since that place is so incredibly car oriented, even by comparison to St. Louis. If they can do it we can do it better!
This past weekend was pretty sour for Downtown along Washington. I am not referring to the swarming of a cop car or teenager getting shot at Tucker and St. Charles(?). Rather, racers and cruisers using Downtown as their personal track.
From Friday evening to Sunday evening, it felt like there wasn't ever more than a 25 minute interlude between excessive engine revving, racing, and burnouts until early in the morning. These occurrences, coupled with the roving motorcycle/ATV/rider mower group that makes up their own road rules barreling through Downtown offers a very negative picture of the neighborhood. I know that closing the streets with Jersey barriers is a controversial opinion on this board, but it feels like things are spiraling out of control. I know that some people have asserted that it makes the neighborhood look like a warzone and will scare visitors away. I think it would be fair to say, however, that the insane driving and gunfire coming from these cruisers will also scare visitors away. They (the cops? Street Department?) still close the 1200 block of Washington typically on Friday and Saturday but also actually closed the 1100 block of Washington this Sunday around 10 PM as well. I hope this is a sign of them consistently closing several blocks along Washington again. Obviously, the closing of just a few streets is not the whole solution for the problem, but it at least felt like it helped previously.
Yes, the noise and such does come with the territory to a certain extent. With that being said, it was (in my experience from 2017 onwards) never, ever close to this level until 2020. I would be lying if I said it didn't significantly contribute to my decision to leave Downtown once my lease ends this summer.
I've only witnessed the ATV group on several occurrences myself. I've watched the snapchats and instagrams, and yeah, it's embarrassing. Yes, far more embarrassing than the ugly barriers.
I used to be in car culture from 2004-2014, give or take, and we raced all of the time. But it was usually out in pretty empty locations because we knew we were going to get slammed by the cops (the tickets you get from it are not light at all). Granted, this was in the County at the time, but still, it's the lack of enforcement (in my eyes) that is contributing to the lack of deterrence. Losing your license is not fun. Though, that wouldn't be enforced either, it seems.
At any rate, there is obviously a fine line to tow in enforcement, and the history and trauma of this region with predatory policing. I have a wildly different experience as a county kid growing up after Fast and the Furious ruined the culture similarly on Lindbergh. We wanted anonymity because of the enforcement. The lack of enforcement drives the recklessness, visibility, and level of brazen. This is no longer predatory policing, though, to enforce these laws when folks are being injured, dying (directly or indirectly), businesses are likely losing business from bad press. I can't imagine how it must feel to be a visitor staying in a Downtown hotel. Gunshots, tires squealing. Ah yes, the family fun we've built our Downtown around.
I just want to know when a) we're going to get multi-modal implementation which might help to naturally put some pressure on the issue, b) when folks are going to be actually ticketed (tough I'm sure if they're still not even doing court dates, which is ridiculous in it of itself), c) and if, this is going to affect the major employers still in Downtown after the pandemic.
I'm not going to sit and say this is a public health crisis like dozens of teens and children being killed in St. Louis. But it isn't something you just sit and throw your hands up at. And we all know local media loves to bash Downtown, so this is par for the course.
The Downtown streetscape need a complete refresh, but in the meantime I'll take 100 speed bumps ASAP.
Cruisers flock to downtown because it seems like >half of them actively run social media accounts about their cars and downtown makes for the coolest pictures. A mix of speeds bumps and expensive tickets focused downtown would probably solve this problem pretty quickly.
GoHarvOrGoHome wrote:The Downtown streetscape need a complete refresh, but in the meantime I'll take 100 speed bumps ASAP.
Cruisers flock to downtown because it seems like >half of them actively run social media accounts about their cars and downtown makes for the coolest pictures. A mix of speeds bumps and expensive tickets focused downtown would probably solve this problem pretty quickly.
Speed bumps basically everywhere would be good with me in the city, but especially here.
It's an investment that overtime will be significantly less expensive than officer enforcement.
Speed bumps would never get approval along Washington, Broadway, or Market. They might work on disrupting some travel/behavior on smaller streets, but not sure it would be enough to breakup the worst of it.
A group of drone enthusiasts should take to the sky to assist in monitoring illegal behavior. Don’t get involved just collect data and potential footage for evidence.
I get it parties can get wild and people (even my self are kind of in to dumb things ) but we cant just let people speed , fire guns and jump on police cars. Just get some extra cops on weekends and speed bumps easy short term fix. I just hate how local media just treats such matters.
There's plenty of social media accounts of car owners that show these events happening - so police could request information from the social media companies on IP addresses, emails, etc to track down the offenders. Seems like it would be a fairly easy event to have hot spot policing enforce for a few weekends and then tow away the ATVs / impound the cars of the most egregious drivers. Surely the city could coordinate with the Missouri Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies to quickly crack down on this.
If the powers-that-be really wanted to, this behavior could easily be stopped overnight. A well publicized no-tolerance policy would do the trick. Problem is, law enforcement is a political hot potato right now, which no one has the guts to act on.
^ thats been working so well in Huntington Beach that they’re on day 3 of a street party bender that’s just been escalating. Drunk young people don’t take authority seriously
