urbanSTL

debaliviere wrote: ↑

Jun 29, 2021

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Jun 29, 2021

If I were picking my tourist attractions... I would turn Eads bridge into a full/partial pedestrian bridge (or maybe close down two lanes, no 18-wheelers) and turn it into a really nice outdoor museum, maybe keep a lane open for tourist bus, bikes, etc. Its such an icon it feels weird being a low trafficked bridge.

A few years ago, they would periodically close the Eads for pedestrian use, bringing in food vendors and setting up tables so people could dine on the bridge (this was pre-food trucks).  I don't know why they stopped doing that - it seemed like a good idea.

"Eats Bridge". It was a great idea and a fantastic name. Don't know why it ended either.

And I'll add my support for more tourist boats on the downtown riverfront.  Yes we have tons of touristy options, but very few that address the city's relationship with the river.  And those that do - the Mo History museum, the Museum of Westward Expansion - don't make it obvious to outsiders.  

Putting a historic (or even a historic replica, given the Corp of Engineer restrictions around wooden boats) specifically catering to the city's history of riverboating, flooding, ironclad military boat building, etc., could absolutely fill a niche.  I'd love to see a riverboat restaurant too, permanently moored or not.  

Part of the reason previous boats failed was because of access issues - LKS was cut off from the rest of the city and flooded often, and the archgrounds design did little to encourage tourists to wander down there.  But hundreds of millions of dollars have spent as a part of the archgrounds improvement projects specifically to active the riverfront and minimize the impact of minor-to-moderate flooding on access to LKS.  It's great that they're putting food trucks and other kiosks down there on LKS proper, but a business based on a boat or barge is more feasible now than it has been in decades - it's fair to reassess the possibility.

That said, there are still obstacles to overcome. Major flooding does still happen which will impact access. And especially when the river is up and the current high is there a not-trivial risk of boats/barges being ripped from their moorings.

-RBB

I am 100% in favor of closing Eads to traffic and making it a pedestrian bridge. So many times have I wanted to walk across but have been sent the other way by speeding cars and the lack of sidewalk space. I really enjoyed thinking about the possibility of a TOD on the east riverfront and how to better connect the banks of the Mississippi to Pedestrians and cyclists. Converting Eads into a public space like the High Line in New York could be really special for the surrounding area. 

Eads as bike/ped only would be huge. Imagine it during 4th of July!
It’s one of those ideas that is so easy everyone should be into, but wouldn’t. Downtown leaders believe Eads plays a role with crime. East St. Louis visitors would skyrocket. STL would have a new international level attraction.
This could literally happen in the short-term.

Also how hard would it be to connect these two viewing platforms? Would funnel a lot of extra people onto the bridge from the Arch grounds, and give them someplace to go besides just turning around.

rbb wrote: ↑

Jun 29, 2021

And I'll add my support for more tourist boats on the downtown riverfront.  Yes we have tons of touristy options, but very few that address the city's relationship with the river.  And those that do - the Mo History museum, the Museum of Westward Expansion - don't make it obvious to outsiders.  

Putting a historic (or even a historic replica, given the Corp of Engineer restrictions around wooden boats) specifically catering to the city's history of riverboating, flooding, ironclad military boat building, etc., could absolutely fill a niche.  I'd love to see a riverboat restaurant too, permanently moored or not.  

Part of the reason previous boats failed was because of access issues - LKS was cut off from the rest of the city and flooded often, and the archgrounds design did little to encourage tourists to wander down there.  But hundreds of millions of dollars have spent as a part of the archgrounds improvement projects specifically to active the riverfront and minimize the impact of minor-to-moderate flooding on access to LKS.  It's great that they're putting food trucks and other kiosks down there on LKS proper, but a business based on a boat or barge is more feasible now than it has been in decades - it's fair to reassess the possibility.

That said, there are still obstacles to overcome. Major flooding does still happen which will impact access. And especially when the river is up and the current high is there a not-trivial risk of boats/barges being ripped from their moorings.

-RBB

I'm not sure access or economics was ever really that much of an issue. They always seemed to be very successful. I ate at the McBarge fairly regularly when I was a kid and during tourist season it was usually crowded. There were tons of cars parked on the levee. It was usually hopping at the various attractions. I think most of the trouble was just that they wore out and weren't replaced, as replacement now would require the operator to pay the city to install utilities.  (They tore out all the utilities when they redid Lenore Sullivan.) So now you have both the cost to acquire a barge and convert it and to build waterproof utilities in a complex and flood-prone environment. As to the wood business, I believe you're thinking of the SOLAS regulations, which are an international convention not an Army Corps reg. And I don't believe they apply to permanently moored attractions, merely ships actually sailing and providing accommodations. (The Delta Queen ran afoul of them, since she sailed overnight, but I've never heard of it being a problem from wooden museum ships, of which there are many.) The flooding is, of course, a perennial issue. And keeping things from slipping their lines has been a constant problem. Maybe building a decent breakwater to move the current away from the mooring by the arch would solve some of that. (Though you would have to make it tall enough to handle flood conditions, of course. Otherwise you're back to square one.) All that said, don't mind me. I'm mostly annoyed about all the historic shipping we had and lost: Goldenrod, the Admiral, and USS Inaugural most specifically. There's still plenty of historic boats out there, but until we can solve the mooring safety, power, and sanitation issues nothing is likely to happen. But once that's solved I bet the problem will begin to solve itself.

Hey, the Inaugural is still there.  It's just under water most of the time. 

Would it be possible to do a barge-based beer garden with a ramp so food trucks could drive up onto it? The food trucks would bring their own power. You wouldn't necessarily need to install utilities. How big of a solar array would it take to power lights each evening?

Black02AltimaSE wrote: ↑

Jun 30, 2021

Would it be possible to do a barge-based beer garden with a ramp so food trucks could drive up onto it? The food trucks would bring their own power. You wouldn't necessarily need to install utilities. How big of a solar array would it take to power lights each evening?

This has been my biggest question about how you would provide food / drinks on a transformed pedestrian bridge park.

Do you build a permeant structure with utilities and a kitchen to serve food?  Small vendor stands?  Food trucks are likely the easiest solution but they do add a lot of noise.

Eads bridge is large enough you could probably have variations of all 3 throughout the bridge.

Here are a few screen snips from the original winning MVVA proposal 2010.

Kind of a big day during my walk on the Landing today. A lot suddenly seems to be going on.

-Advantes buildings have fancy new coming signs going up today. Greely and Hoffman have fall 2022 dates and the Traders lofts have fall 2023.

-Big Daddy’s has people around, somebody pulling weeds said they are hoping to reopen soon

-Notice sign indicating that Matties Cake Go (catering company) wants to go into 701 1st St.

^ Nice to see all the new development activity on the Landing!
^^ Really cool ideas about making Eads and Riverfront more lively. I'd like to play Scrooge here for a second and note that it took like 3 years for the city, bi-state, etc. to repair access onto the Eads sidewalk and into the park at the northwest access point. Literally ADA inaccessible for years at the only pedestrian river crossing for miles, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Arch grounds upgrades. Oy.

Eats Bridge and Live on the Levee were two seasonal events that seemed like no-brainers to keep going but were sadly short-lived. Both were geared much more towards residents than tourists.

I have drafted a post 3 times and abandoned because I want the Landing to again be a vibrant area of the city.  There are two challenges that I think need to be overcome / addressed:

The closure of Lenora K Sullivan Blvd (I actually emailed the mayor about this).  This closure has reduced all types of traffic on the riverfront and I have not seen vendors return yet.  Could be pandemic related but I prefer to see the active riverfront and traffic flow through the Landing.

Limited short term parking.  Every garage or lot in the landing wants to charge $10 and that is a bit ridiculous.  I do some free lancing for the riverboats and I had to run to pick up a check for it.  with LKS closed, I had to pay to park on the levy for all of 5 minutes.  I wasn't really amused by that.

Last year, one Friday evening when I was leaving the riverboat, I attempted to exit through the Landing and literally got lost in a web of closed streets as they limited traffic to reduce cruising.  I HOPE that never occurs again.

The levee parking charges do seem ludicrous. On slow afternoons, people will pull up then end up turning around and leaving.

The salary of that parking attendant can't really be justifiable most days based on the money being brought in and the money being left behind as frustrated tourists don't want to spend $10 on parking in an otherwise-useless area that requires no maintenance and was already built 100-something years ago.

I do love that Leonor K. Sullivan is closed in front of the Arch, however. That bike trail/sidewalk is not nearly wide enough on a busy weekend day to handle all the people. Wasn't the parking on LKS itself limited to just buses anyway? I think passenger cars frequently got ticketed in the past when it was open.

on LKS, there were passes granted and I could pull up and run inside as needed.  Frankly, there just needs to be hourly parking readily available for a lower charge.  It just irritates me because, like other posts, those barriers are just ugly.  Why redevelop that road just to close it off?  It is also closed next to the Landing.  It just doesn't seem like we want to river to be an accessible part of the city for tourists or residents.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jun 29, 2021

^I don't think an entertainment pier would necessarily need to block the shipping channel. The riverfront near the arch used to be, in essence, an entertainment pier. There were several restaurants, a theatre, helicopter and boat rides, and a historic boat tour. At its peak there were perhaps eight or more barges and boats tied up there. Didn't interfere with shipping one iota since it was all by definition outside the channel at an anchorage. There's really no way you can use that anchorage for anything other than entertainment now, so you might as well embrace it. That was and should be again our version of Navy Pier. Given the vagaries of the river you have to put it on things that float and can move some, but . . . we've done it before. We can do it again.

I agree it can be done. Just don't forget how close St. Louis came to a nearly unprecedented tragedy when the Admiral almost broke loose due to some errant barges.
 
But for a bit of luck and quick thinking by the barge captain, it's very possible that the Admiral would have hit the Poplar Street Bridge and sunk almost instantly.  If it had, more people would have died than on the Titanic.  And yet, I bet a lot of people on this forum have never even heard about the accident...

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Jul 01, 2021

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jun 29, 2021

^I don't think an entertainment pier would necessarily need to block the shipping channel. The riverfront near the arch used to be, in essence, an entertainment pier. There were several restaurants, a theatre, helicopter and boat rides, and a historic boat tour. At its peak there were perhaps eight or more barges and boats tied up there. Didn't interfere with shipping one iota since it was all by definition outside the channel at an anchorage. There's really no way you can use that anchorage for anything other than entertainment now, so you might as well embrace it. That was and should be again our version of Navy Pier. Given the vagaries of the river you have to put it on things that float and can move some, but . . . we've done it before. We can do it again.

I agree it can be done. Just don't forget how close St. Louis came to a nearly unprecedented tragedy when the Admiral almost broke loose due to some errant barges.
 
But for a bit of luck and quick thinking by the barge captain, it's very possible that the Admiral would have hit the Poplar Street Bridge and sunk almost instantly.  If it had, more people would have died than on the Titanic.  And yet, I bet a lot of people on this forum have never even heard about the accident...

As I recall they discussed building a breakwater at the time because of that accident. I think it's a little bit of a leap to assume the Admiral would have sunk immediately with such drastic loss of life the moment it hit a bridge, but I'm not familiar with the boats internal arrangements . Certainly it's better to avoid an accident altogether. (That said . . . if it's going to vaporize or capsize the moment it bumps a bridge  it really needs a redesign. Even is SOLAS doesn't fully apply. It's still a floating thing on a major waterway with people on it.)

For what it's worth, most Landing property owners and residents lobbied to close LKS due to the overnight issues that were occurring down there and spilling onto the Landing.  From Advantes' point of view, this was the only option to protect their residents and investments.  But this all is part of the bigger discussion that occurs on here frequently related to the Downtown/Wash Ave cruising scene.