urbanSTL

^Damn GC. Way to stay on message. You've been on team SkyTran for years now.

This is an interesting story from the RFT: For West County Restaurants, the Jobs Are Plentiful, But the Workers Are Few

The entire thing is worth reading, but here are some key quotes:

Six days each week, Marzette, 59, spends four hours on public transportation. It gets to him, he admits. But, he says, "I can't do nothing about it. Ain't got no car." He makes $9 an hour as a dishwasher.

Sam Garanzini, senior vice president of Pasta House, says he is considering offering bus passes to employees making the commute from the city to its locations in west county. But the company would only offer it to employees in particular scenarios, he adds. "It's not a policy that I'm going to wave in front of everybody," says Garanzini, who has worked for the local Italian chain for 50 years. "Because the next thing you know you'll have somebody taking a bus two blocks to get to work just so they can have a bus pass in their pocket. So it's going to be a policy that's used on an individual basis, as needed." And even if Pasta House begins offering free bus passes, that only solves part of the equation for employees. Long commutes are still a problem.

A lack of easy public transportation is a primary reason for the labor shortage, he agrees. Ninety percent of his employees in Ellisville come from the city, he says. And the large majority of them take the bus.

I think the framing of this is interesting as it is framed as a public transportation problem. All of the solutions discussed in the article still involve bussing low-wage workers from one end of the region to the other. Another way to look at it (not addressed at all in the article) is as a housing problem. Should the civic leaders profiled also be pressing for affordable housing in their communities (via section 8, subsidized housing, removing restrictive zoning that prohibits multifamily housing or small lot sizes, etc.)?

^Civic leaders in West County would not survive past the next election if they proposed anything of the type.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... op-story-1

Not that it comes as much of a surprise, but the Governor's new plan to fix bridges in Missouri is basically a gigantic redistribution of resources towards the rural parts of the state. There are some startling figures in the PD piece, but the fact that only 8% of the projects are from the St. Louis area is really something.

Great instead of paying for things we can pay for things plus interest.
We certainly can't acknowledge that our system is too big.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 10, 2019

Nextstl - $100M Driving Subsidy Proposed While Gas Tax Cut Again

https://nextstl.com/2019/03/100m-drivin ... cut-again/

Believe this pretty much defines the Federal Highway Trust Fund over the last decade or two. Congress appropriates x dollars, gas taxes come up short, and then congress puts some money into highway trust fund via general fund infusion as part of another bill. Congress of all politic stripes washes its hands and the vast majority of Americans somehow believe that highways are self supporting, not subsidized

^ Assume it is a function of cost.  Higher quality, more reflective road paint is probably a significant bump in cost once you start applying a lot of it.,

I wouldn't be surprise if they are one of the last states to adopt wider lane strips to assist with all the road assist sensors currently on vehicles already.  

People dying in avoidable car accidents is hard for the legislature to quantify when it comes time to make the budget. Not their problem unless someone makes it their problem.

If anyone lives on a street in St. Louis that's been closed at one end (especially with the infamous Schoemehl pots), you should reach out to Casey Nolan at KSDK. It would be nice to have someone who could speak in favor of an open street grid. It makes for a better argument if it comes from someone actually living on a closed street. 
This morning or today if you can. From my experience with local TV news, they tend to work on a fast schedule. 

Looks like we have another player in the STL Scooter game. Looks like the Spin scooters already have a strong penetration throughout the city from what I saw today.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 68dec.html

T

chaifetz10 wrote: Looks like they finally added a new blacktop veneer to the Compton bridge.  It almost certainly wont last since the underlying issues still remain, but for now it's at least a smooth drive.

That is the WORST bridge in the city - at least that I commonly use.  I have been out of town a bit, I will be curious to see the new pavement.

Chippewa in front of Ted Drew's has to be the single most jaywalked part of the city, and it's across a four lane stroad with a speed limit of 35. I'm amazed that there aren't fatalities there every year considering the rise of texting while driving. There needs to be some kind of crossing infrastructure between Ted Drew's and the bank. Even if it's just a crosswalk with flashing lights like in the Grove.

The fornicating nerve.

I saw a guy installing one of those yesterday at Washington & Tucker. I really wanted to give him crap for it but I chickened out. 

shadrach wrote: I thought I saw it on this forum—but a couple years ago a city in Germany installed similar warnings as too many pedestrians were getting hit because they were looking at their phone and not paying attention. 
(Hey, if it weren't for the 'Look Left' on London's pavement I'd have been flattened by a roaring lorry. And that was pre smartphone. Not the same, but the purpose was to break an existing habit.)
This is the world we live in.

For the record, of the 5+ times I've jumped out of the way of cars at Washington & Tucker, I was on my phone all of zero of those times. I'm not going to let the streets dept say "Look Up From Your Phones" and then pat themselves on the back for taking safety measures. 
"This is the world we live in" is infuriating to hear. 

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: Chippewa in front of Ted Drew's has to be the single most jaywalked part of the city, and it's across a four lane stroad with a speed limit of 35. I'm amazed that there aren't fatalities there every year considering the rise of texting while driving. There needs to be some kind of crossing infrastructure between Ted Drew's and the bank. Even if it's just a crosswalk with flashing lights like in the Grove.

Just jaywalked there half an hour ago! I agree, there needs to be a crosswalk somewhere closer than Jamieson and the crossing situation both there and at Lansdowne is so dangerous that I prefer to jaywalk at Plainview.

As I see it, the problem with the "Don't get hit!" thing is that it puts the onus on pedestrians and contributes to the attitude of inattention on the part of motorists, who barely pay attention to anything as it is. It seems to treat vehicle traffic like a natural phenomenon, like a river, which removes responsibility from the individual motorists that make it up.

A few suggestions for the SaveMOLives campaign, directed at motorists:
Turning right? LOOK right!
Wait until there are no persons, bicycles, or other soft objects directly in front of your vehicle before proceeding through the intersection.

And because this is the reality in which we live, and motorists had better just get used to it:
Watch out for zombies! (They're people too.)
This last one could have a humorous depiction of a mobile-phone-staring zombie shuffling across the road.

On the positive side, the 10th street on-ramp to 64 west is closed, which has stopped (for now) drivers using 10th between Walnut and Clark as a place to get up to highway speed.

^I would say that the Chippewa Ted Drewes differs from most other locations since the jaywalkers there are mostly not city dwellers. It's the amateur hour of St. Louis jaywalking. The "look right" stickers make sense in London since there are so many people there who are utterly unaccustomed to traffic on the wrong side of the road. Likewise, people that never walk and always drive make lousy jaywalkers. And that spot is just . . . awful. I'm honestly surprised there aren't near daily accidents there. It's a great argument for why you shouldn't have curb cuts on major thoroughfares. People turning off Chippewa and nearly driving over folks on the sidewalk. People driving on Chippewa and nearly rear-ending people that stop suddenly because, oops, they forgot there was a sidewalk there and there are actually people on it. Don't get me wrong, I love concretes as much as the next local. But I usually avoid that particular custard stand. Awful site. Absolutely no atmosphere whatsoever. "Hey! Let's all go stand in a dumpy suburban parking lot and breathe in the glorious ozone! With our six hundred closest friends!" I go to the one on Grand every now and then, but honestly, I mostly visit other custard establishments for reasons of atmosphere and nice places to sit. (And, well, passing trains. See? This is a train-sportation thread.)

So much congestion to be eased in St. Charles County

https://www.sccmo.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1303