urbanSTL

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Jul 08, 2023

Downtown1999 wrote: ↑

Jul 08, 2023

_nomad_ wrote: Why is it not a good idea? It's an ideal street for it with all the buildings having access to St Charles or Lucas for deliveries and garages. Why would a strategy that has proven successful in multiple cities not be a good idea here?

Adding a truly protected bike network including on Washington AVE or just north or south (as well as east-west connectors) is a far better option. We’re not Barcelona or Denver. Even designing streets that are “bike/ped first” and “cars are second” is a better concept. Eliminating cars from streets completely in STL is a bad idea — partially because we do need the wallets that drive in and want to park close to their destination.

There’s no reason why Washington Avenue (and Downtown for that matter) can’t have it both ways: streets designed for bike/ped and cars. Cincinatti is doing a decent job in some areas downtown by elevator crosswalks and bumping out corners.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Most everywhere pedestrianizing streets and closing them to cars has been tried it has resulted in growth and a better environment. I'm tired of people saying "we're not X city" or "it can't work here" when it has worked in multiple comparable car-oriented cities. We can't sit around waiting for some arbitrary threshold to be met before rebuilding streets like this, rather rebuilding streets like this is what would increase walkability and density. People won't get out of their cars if we don't give them a reason to. We should not be catering to a handful of cars at the expense of people walking, there are plenty of parking spots in the immediate vicinity and plenty of other routes to drive in the area. The odd driver who refuses to go somewhere because they can't park right next to the door 1) probably isn't going to Wash Ave anyway and 2) will be more than counterbalanced by an increase of people want to be somewhere designed for people rather than cars.

Agreed.  The Hill is a good example.  People are typically walking several blocks on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night for dinner.  

stlgasm wrote: ↑

Jul 08, 2023

E. 4th Street in Cleveland is pedestrian-only and is pretty much the center of action in downtown Cleveland (a city with similar challenges, perceptions and density as St Louis).

Photos by @MichelleStenzel on Twitter

Is St. Charles really mostly used for deliveries? I've always wished someone with some creativity could reimagine it as an open air food stall and cheap retail bay type thing.  String lights and all.  The width of it almost begs to be a pedestrian only strip.

If we're going to dream about pedestrian areas, I'd think the Old Post Office would make the center of a quite nice one. Allow cars into the garages around the peripheries of it. Allow deliveries and let busses through. But otherwise close it all off and make it a pedestrian plaza. You could slowly work to make everything bounded by Market, Tucker, Fourth, and Washington pedestrian first, and much of it could be pedestrian only. Losing a bit of street parking wouldn't be the end of the world and none of that should be (or really is) a through route for anyone, so it won't really affect traffic patterns. That's the dense core to downtown. Emphasize transit, bikes, and pedestrians there and get people out of their cars. It's a small enough area it's entirely accessible from the transit stops there.

I'm open to a conversation about converting some portion of a street to pedestrian only. However, STL did try that with 14th Street in ONSL and it failed spectacularly.

It's not 100% apples-to-apples, but can we learn any lessons from the 14th St Mall failure when it comes to proposing conversion of an existing street to no-car traffic? How do we balance that with #HealTheGrid?

IMO reducing or completely eliminating one-way streets in downtown would help to lessen the impact of closing one it more blocks.

-RBB

It's important to remember the context in which the 14th street pedestrianization occurred. Like which traditional retail area was thriving at the time? They were being decimated no matter open or closed to traffic.

And it's not like any other part of Old North really did any better at the time. That chunk of 14th is one of the better preserved spots up there.

@quincunx @symphonicpoet not disagreeing with either of you, for the record.

Why did they decide in that instance that the revitalization of that area necessitated restoration of the street grid? Why not maintain the pedestrian mall? Honest question, it's been several years and I don't recall the details, but I do remember that undoing of the pedestrian mall was celebrated at the time.

My personal opinion currently is that the 'people first, cars second' approach is likely what will work best in the near term for Wash Ave, and periodic street closures for markets, celebrations, etc are positive steps and could even demonstrate the feasibility of a permanent closure to vehicle traffic.

-RBB

I think that "Heal the grid" is about connections, not necessarily car traffic. Maintaining/creating connections that are walkable/bikable are just as much part of the grid as car connections, probably more so even. I don't consider pedestrianizing streets as breaking the grid because the connections are still there.

1. Many businesses in the commercial districts depend on convenient on-street parking.
2. A commercial district with a pedestrian mall and little to no foot traffic seems deader than a commercial district with no foot traffic and a road with traffic and on-street parking. Vacancy and any lack of activity are emphasized.
3. The pedestrian mall is more appropriate for commercial districts with a high concentration of restaurants and retail shops where strolling, browsing, and lingering makes sense. It doesn't work well, where a significant portion of businesses are service oriented, ground floor offices, or convenience businesses.
4. You really need consistent activity from 9am to 9pm for the area not to feel "dead" at portions of the day. A consistent flow of traffic masks the lack of pedestrian activity during those downtimes. 

I do love pedestrianized streets but I think in order for them to be popular they need to be implemented well and in the right places. That there is existing high foot traffic is very important for their success and I don't think Downtown has that right now (being down there 4 days/week for the most part.) Narrowing Broadway, Tucker and Olive west of Tucker would be worthwhile IMO (yes I know there is a plan for Tucker but like, I"m waiting), but removing the streets when there's already not much foot traffic could make Downtown feel even more empty. 

If there's any street in St. Louis I think could be successfully pedestrianized I'd say Euclid in the CWE. High foot traffic, not a major street for cars, it's already closed for special events regularly, etc. 

Gateway Arch visitors through June since 2017
(Note: arch counts all the people that pass through security at museum and than add 25% to that for the final total, I think this undercounts a bit but it’s always been done that way so at least it’s consistent)

2017- 533,000
2018- 701,000
2019- 831,000
2020- 281,000
2021- 373,000
2022- 561,000
2023- 751,000

After July it will be about 1.2m, July will be a bit less than previous ones due to fireworks only Fair STL but a big blues music 3 day event in august will make up for it,  got a good chance at 2m this year after 1.6m last year.   I bring this up because Biz Journal had some real estate boozo from Green Street play pretend as an expert that projected just 1.03m visitors for entire 2023 due to “crime”, biz journal had to walk back his crime data because it was either made up or he had no idea what he was looking at.

Wash Ave between 7th and 44 has taken a brutal beating of restaurant closings.

Any word on leasing of several key spaces (Pi, Gringo, Tigin, Hamburger Mary’s)? If they don’t soon, more office tenants are going to leave Wash Ave.

We are exiting 600 Wash Ave in 2024 (1/2 floor) and a certain key tenant will most likely be leaving in 2026-2027 (they take up many floors in 600 Wash Ave). Sandberg Phoenix has left too. It is a shame because this building is extremely nice with great views, access to metrolink, and affordable rent.

We moved from Westport to Downtown 10 years ago, and we are very committed to community development. However, Partners have decided to look elsewhere. Their reasonings are safety and restaurant options. We are considering other city locations but Clayton is winning the race.

I’ve been working at the STL location for 6 years and I was very excited to be downtown when I moved from KC (where our office is in Kansas suburban hellscape).

I hope this area can be reactivated to change the course. Before covid, it was a bustling little area of downtown.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In this safety discussion do they bring up examples of employees being victims of crime?

dbInSouthCity wrote:In this safety discussion do they bring up examples of employees being victims of crime?

Only some car break ins. We’ve had very few issues over the years in my opinion.

They are mostly referring to what the news reports. It’s sad. I feel like the news is destroying downtown.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the early stages of the Brickline, maps showed a section running down Wash Ave. Considering how wide the street is, it would be easy to fit a dedicated Brickline ROW for quick moving bike traffic into a pedestrianized Wash Ave. 

A modern, low floor streetcar would also be fantastic running down a car free Wash Ave. Would be a lovely mix of the KC and Memphis (the car free section) streetcar corridors.

dbehrens011 wrote: ↑

Jul 11, 2023

Wash Ave between 7th and 44 has taken a brutal beating of restaurant closings.

Any word on leasing of several key spaces (Pi, Gringo, Tigin, Hamburger Mary’s)? If they don’t soon, more office tenants are going to leave Wash Ave.

We are exiting 600 Wash Ave in 2024 (1/2 floor) and a certain key tenant will most likely be leaving in 2026-2027 (they take up many floors in 600 Wash Ave). Sandberg Phoenix has left too. It is a shame because this building is extremely nice with great views, access to metrolink, and affordable rent.

We moved from Westport to Downtown 10 years ago, and we are very committed to community development. However, Partners have decided to look elsewhere. Their reasonings are safety and restaurant options. We are considering other city locations but Clayton is winning the race.

I’ve been working at the STL location for 6 years and I was very excited to be downtown when I moved from KC (where our office is in Kansas suburban hellscape).

I hope this area can be reactivated to change the course. Before covid, it was a bustling little area of downtown.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Are they aware that downtown Clayton has fewer restaurant options than downtown St Louis? Seems like they just feel like moving and are making up things to say so they don't look like they're doing it on a whim.

dbehrens011 wrote: ↑

Jul 11, 2023

.

They are mostly referring to what the news reports. It’s sad. I feel like the news is destroying downtown.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This 100% and it drives me crazy. I live about a half mile from downtown Clayton. There are car break ins all the time around here (although most are unlocked cars and not smashed windows). But that isn’t going to get the clicks downtown does.

My parents live about an hour from downtown and I hadn’t had in depth conversations with them about it but I would assume 98% of their impression of downtown is what they see on the news every night.

FWIW, I think us St. Louisianas on reddit are also doing a terrible job with Downtown's reputation. Almost every time a tourist asks about downtown recommendations, people talk about who bad it is and how there is nothing to do, but at the same time are keen to recommend the usual suspects like CWE. While I like CWE, we need to stop worshipping the "luxury apartment walkable whole foods hipster" thing that is popping up everywhere in the country as our prime stop for tourists as it has no character and is the urban equivalent of a strip mall. 

I work in downtown and see tons of happy tourists eating at the many restaurants on Washington Ave. and exploring the stadium and arch grounds on a daily basis. Nothing like the dead zone it is said to be on r/stlouis The worst part is, the people who are steering away people from downtown are usually people that live in the city itself. I'd wager downtown has a better reputation with people in the county and other surrounding counties than people in the CWE-like neighborhoods that pride themselves on talking about how bad the people of the county are for not living in the city. 

 In terms of restaurants, the new location of that one Kate's pizza place in Town and Country is a great add and is always full of high-level executives taking clients out to eat. Has great decor as well. 

I've only recently started reading Reddit, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how supportive most commenters are of the City in general and Downtown in particular. They seem to acknowledge the problems, but stress the positives.

The Central West End is more urban than most midsized cities downtowns. As far as it being a "strip mall", I actually think it would benefit from having more retail. As long as that retail is urban and oriented towards the street. 

I always had this lingering question in mind.

Why don't I see lot of working professionals taking metro buses? I see few taking metrolink but never seen any working professionals taking buses. Is that a cultural thing? I am sure it is not endemic to St. Louis. 

To someone's response, I don't think downtown has very many restaurants for quick lunch compared to clayton or brentwood.

How can we attract new employers?

stlurbanist wrote: ↑

Jul 12, 2023

I always had this lingering question in mind.

Why don't I see lot of working professionals taking metro buses? I see few taking metrolink but never seen any working professionals taking buses. Is that a cultural thing? I am sure it is not endemic to St. Louis. 

I agree that is something that is not unique to St. Louis, but most Southern or Midwestern cities do not see a lot of professionals using bus transit. Go out west or on the East Coast and you do. Chicago might be the one exception in the Midwest. 

stlurbanist wrote: ↑

Jul 12, 2023

I always had this lingering question in mind.

Why don't I see lot of working professionals taking metro buses? I see few taking metrolink but never seen any working professionals taking buses. Is that a cultural thing? I am sure it is not endemic to St. Louis. 

To someone's response, I don't think downtown has very many restaurants for quick lunch compared to clayton or brentwood.

How can we attract new employers?

I think there are two main reasons for the bus/train discrepancy: 1) the train is more reliable by far because it operates on a dedicated right-of-way insulating it from traffic delays, has not been subjected to the Metro scheduling cuts caused by driver shortages, and has a much more frequent schedule than the bus routes and 2) I think there is a cultural stigma attached to the bus more than the train that it is only for people who can't afford a car. I don't know what can be done to combat the stigma, but unless the bus system can prove to be a reliable and convenient way to get around on a predictable schedule I don't think they will grow ridership amongst people that have other options available.

As to restaurants, while I don't know what is classified as a quick lunch, I am willing to say that downtown has more options available in most categories outside of major chain restaurants than either Clayton or Brentwood.