Steve Patterson
Recent Posts
A Look at AARP Public Policy Institute’s Livability Index
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At the beginning of the month I attended Livability Matters: Transportation Choice and Connections — sponsored by Citizens for Modern Transit and others. The day before I was able to interview the event’s primary speaker: Jana Lynott, Senior Strategic Policy Advisor from American Association of Retired Person (AARP)’s Public Policy Institute ...
‘Indulge In Urban Living’ At Streets of St. Charles
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I had 20 years to eat at Noah’s Ark restaurant in St. Charles before it closed in 2000, but I never did. With a lot of land and a highly visible location developers were interested. New Urbanist developer Greg Whittaker, of New Town at St. Charles, bought the site. He ...
More On Soccer Stadiums
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Yesterday’s post was my site idea for locating a Major League Soccer (MLS) downtown — Downtown West, to be precise. In trying to figure out if a soccer-specific stadium would fit I looked at other recently built stadiums. Today I thought I’d share some of the research. I like to ...
A Great Site For a Major League Soccer Stadium In Downtown St. Louis
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Last week Major League Soccer (MLS) officials indicated they’re interested in expanding — adding a team in St. Louis: Major League Soccer will begin searching for a stadium site in St. Louis and planning for its financing and operations immediately, the league’s commissioner told the Post-Dispatch Thursday. (Post-Dispatch) The site ...
St. Louis Fails At Crosswalks, Part 1
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Last week crosswalks were in the local news — specifically colored decorative crosswalks. St. Louis’ new bike/pedestrian coordinator, engineer Jamie Wilson, found out these weren’t compliant with federal standards: Wilson said it was a shock to St. Louis as well as cities all over the country who employed the colorful ...
Forget a Football Stadium, North Riverfront Neighborhood Needs a Plan For Redevelopment
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The Rams are retuning to Los Angeles. I think many forgot how we got them here in the first place. Without an NFL team since 1988 we attempted to get an expansion team, but that effort ended in December 1993 when Jacksonville FL got the 2nd expansion team. With a ...
Arcade-Wright Converted To Affordable & Market-Rate Apartments
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I’ve toured the Arcade-Wright building three times. The first was pre-renovation and pre-stroke — more than a decade ago. We walked through the building and up the stairs to the roof — I foolishly wore my cowboy boots that day. The building smelled of pigeon crap. My last two tours, ...
Gateway One/Peabody Plaza Is Here To Stay
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In the 1970s/80s the City of St. Louis sought to keep the Gateway Mall marching Eastward toward the the Old Courthouse and Arch. However, there was no money to pay for it. There were also historic buildings in the blocks — the owner(s) proposed renovating the historic buildings. Another plan ...
Legally Parked Car Illegally Blocking Right Turn Lane
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Good communications is vital to the success of any organization — especially a municipal bureaucracy. But Saturday morning I observed a car that, based on the signage, was legally parked. It was also illegally parked within the right turn lane. It appears the road surface got reconfigured, but nobody bothered to ...
Lemay Ferry (MO-267) Is A Pedestrian Nightmare
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Yesterday I posted about the horrible pedestrian environment along the #12 MetroBus route in St. Clair County. I took that bus on Wednesday the 16th. That night, Fox2 ran a related story (Disabled man hit 3 times on Lemay Ferry, due to lack of sidewalks): Tony Berding says he’s been ...
Three Track Types For Street-Running Transit
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Many of us agree we should invest in better North-South transit, most likely rail-based. But details such as route, track type, speed, spacing of stops, etc is where there’s disagreement. Today I want to review three track options for street-running rail transit: Ballasted track Embedded track, shared lane Embedded track, protected lane ...
Reimagining 100 North Broadway to Take Advantage of New Luther Ely Smith Square & Arch Entrance
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For over 5 years now I’ve been thinking about how to redesign the Bank of America Tower at 100 N. Broadway. My primary beef wasn’t with the 22-story tower, but with the 1-story section to the South of the tower. First, a little background: Bank of America Tower is a 22-story, ...