RFT Picks... Me!
I guess I'm moving up in the world.
Somehow, someway, the Riverfront Times picked this blog as "Local Blog O' The Week" in yesterday's issue.
I think this is an honor.. although given the surreal company this blog is now keeping, I'm not 100% certain. Then again, I pretty much agree with many of the politically-oriented posts made by "AngryBlackBitch." And even if I don't, they're often hilarious!
Anyway, thanks RFT!
By the way, teaching Urban Politics and Administration at WashU is not the only thing I do there; although it is one of my favorite jobs. I'm a cash-strapped graduate student, so I also TA for African-American Politics, take a few classes, and work in a computer lab.
Now, I'm back to my current scanning job for class.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The Transit Commute and Me: An Enigma
The Transit Commute and Me: An Enigma
As a follow-up to my posts last Wednesday and Thursday...
So, today, I got to the bus stop on Gravois at Arsenal about 7:55 AM. Given past postings, I was ambivalent about which bus to catch: either whatever came first at the stop on Gravois, or the westbound #30 Soulard at the stop on Arsenal about 1/2 block east, behind the Kutis Funeral Home parking lot at Arsenal and Nebraska.
I did catch the #11x Shrewsbury Express on Gravois at Arsenal, at 8:00 AM. So far, so good. While we hit the usual traffic on South Tucker, seemingly hitting every red light on the way, we slowed to a crawl again on South 14th at the Highway 40 off-ramp.
But, this time, I was very lucky. I disembarked from the #11x at 8:11, because the driver let us get off a little closer to the corner with Spruce. I dashed across the pretty much stopped northbound traffic, and waited for a couple southbound cars to pass. I just caught the westbound MetroLink, at 8:11 (and 45 seconds!) at Civic Center Station. This was good.
It gets better. The train actually ran pretty much on time, and did not have to stop anywhere randomly. So, we arrived at 8:22 or so, at Forest Park station. I was very lucky that this allowed me just enough time to catch the 8:24 #58 Clayton-Ballas westbound.
I arrived on the WashU campus at Forsyth and the traffic light mid-campus, about 8:33; or more than 30 minutes earlier than 1 week before! Very strange, considering I left my house almost the exact same time as a week ago; perhaps even 3 or 4 minutes later. You just can never predict exactly how a transit commute will work out.
Also, yesterday I happily noted that the Southside express routes are now running on the regular route within downtown, eastbound on Olive.
I guess since it took Bi-State/Metro about 11 years to re-route the Southside expresses from Tucker to 14th (MetroLink opened 1993; buses re-structured 2004), I should be happy it only took a week or so to get the expresses back onto their proper Olive Street routing.
Over the years, I've had many instances when I got off the MetroLink at (Kiel) Civic Center - the signboards on the platform, by the way, still say Kiel; as does the parking garage entry signage - with the intent to transfer to a southbound bus on Tucker.
Until last year, that meant a quick 2 1/2 block hike up Spruce, to the bus stop on Tucker outside the St. Louis Police Academy. I often missed connections that way, since buses had no real reason to layover at that stop. Now that there is a transfer center, and all the South Tucker express bus routes (and the #10 Gravois) stop on 14th at Spruce, such transfers are much easier to plan.
For example, during summer 1996, I was enrolled in "Engelmann II", the George Engelmann Math & Science Institute / National Science Foundation Young Scholars Program - a collaboration between SLU, WashU, and UMSL, and led by Dr. Charles Granger and Ken Mares at UMSL, that provided high school juniors a summer research experience in science, math and technology.
The program is now called STARS and costs about $1,000 tuition; back then, it was grant-funded and free to students. My placement, though, was a little unusual: I worked with the late Dr. John Boswell, UMSL psychology professor, master teacher of statistics and research methods, and longtime alderman and mayor in the City of Greendale MO. After he passed away, Town York Dr. (called on some maps Yorktown Dr.) in Greendale was renamed Dr. John J. Boswell Ave. in his honor.
My project: developing a conceptual master plan for the redevelopment of the area around I-70 and Florissant Road. At that point, the realignment of I-70 was in the planning stage, but that's all. I proposed that the area along Florissant Road between what were then the two northern entrances to UMSL be re-built as a pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented retail and entertainment district, with landscaped pathways leading from the UMSL North MetroLink station and the (then proposed) Performing Arts Center.
While my pipe dream was kind of unrealistic, and certainly not in keeping with the university's highway-oriented research park plans, it was a fun project to develop. I got to dig through all kinds of pre-existing master plans for UMSL and for the Airport buyout areas, meet with people at the PPRC, and with the Mayor of Cool Valley, whose full-time job was as a mail carrier.
OK, so all that is just to say that I was a heavy, long-distance transit commuter that summer, at age 17. I was, of course, still living in my parents' house in the Oakville area of South County. To get up to UMSL every weekday by 9:00, I had to be out the door by 7:15 or earlier.
Crossing Telegraph Road at Golden Valley Drive on foot at 7:15 AM is damn near impossible, however. I was lucky if I could dash across the southbound lanes, then wait a minute or longer for a gap in the northbound traffic. This wait, of course, was not on a median, but just in the center left-turn lane. I'm still amazed I was never hit by a car doing this. If there was a car turning into or out of either side of the subdivision, I was really screwed.
There's just nowhere for a pedestrian to find safe haven in that kind of environment. Even on the relatively short walk from my parents' house about 10 houses west of Telegraph, there was no sidewalk to use within the circa 1960 subdivision.
And at the northbound bus stop on the east side of Telegraph, there was (and is) no concrete pad or sidewalk, much less a bus shelter. You either stand on the shoulder and risk being hit by a car turning right out of the subdivision, or stand in the (often very tall and wet) grass on the side of the road. That area is supposed to be mowed regularly by MoDOT, but sometimes they don't keep up with it.
Eventually, I would catch (at that time) either the #17x Oakville Express or the #140x Broadway-Barracks Express. Sometimes, if I really couldn't get across Telegraph, I would walk to Forder Road just west of Telegraph to catch the Mehlville-St. Louis Express (later, merged into the Tesson Ferry Express), at the very start of its inbound run. If I somehow missed the last express (about 7:30 AM), the next #40 Broadway local wouldn't be coming through until about 8:15 AM, which is way too late.
I would then ride one of these express routes to about Tucker and Clark, walk over to the Kiel Civic Center MetroLink station, and take MetroLink straight up to UMSL. From either UMSL South or UMSL North, depending on my mood, I'd usually walk to Stadler Hall, where I was working. Sometimes I rode the shuttle instead.
I guess now I'm really lucky - my commute from Gravois and Arsenal to WashU is much shorter than that, and transit service much more frequent along the entire corridor.
As a follow-up to my posts last Wednesday and Thursday...
So, today, I got to the bus stop on Gravois at Arsenal about 7:55 AM. Given past postings, I was ambivalent about which bus to catch: either whatever came first at the stop on Gravois, or the westbound #30 Soulard at the stop on Arsenal about 1/2 block east, behind the Kutis Funeral Home parking lot at Arsenal and Nebraska.
I did catch the #11x Shrewsbury Express on Gravois at Arsenal, at 8:00 AM. So far, so good. While we hit the usual traffic on South Tucker, seemingly hitting every red light on the way, we slowed to a crawl again on South 14th at the Highway 40 off-ramp.
But, this time, I was very lucky. I disembarked from the #11x at 8:11, because the driver let us get off a little closer to the corner with Spruce. I dashed across the pretty much stopped northbound traffic, and waited for a couple southbound cars to pass. I just caught the westbound MetroLink, at 8:11 (and 45 seconds!) at Civic Center Station. This was good.
It gets better. The train actually ran pretty much on time, and did not have to stop anywhere randomly. So, we arrived at 8:22 or so, at Forest Park station. I was very lucky that this allowed me just enough time to catch the 8:24 #58 Clayton-Ballas westbound.
I arrived on the WashU campus at Forsyth and the traffic light mid-campus, about 8:33; or more than 30 minutes earlier than 1 week before! Very strange, considering I left my house almost the exact same time as a week ago; perhaps even 3 or 4 minutes later. You just can never predict exactly how a transit commute will work out.
Also, yesterday I happily noted that the Southside express routes are now running on the regular route within downtown, eastbound on Olive.
I guess since it took Bi-State/Metro about 11 years to re-route the Southside expresses from Tucker to 14th (MetroLink opened 1993; buses re-structured 2004), I should be happy it only took a week or so to get the expresses back onto their proper Olive Street routing.
Over the years, I've had many instances when I got off the MetroLink at (Kiel) Civic Center - the signboards on the platform, by the way, still say Kiel; as does the parking garage entry signage - with the intent to transfer to a southbound bus on Tucker.
Until last year, that meant a quick 2 1/2 block hike up Spruce, to the bus stop on Tucker outside the St. Louis Police Academy. I often missed connections that way, since buses had no real reason to layover at that stop. Now that there is a transfer center, and all the South Tucker express bus routes (and the #10 Gravois) stop on 14th at Spruce, such transfers are much easier to plan.
For example, during summer 1996, I was enrolled in "Engelmann II", the George Engelmann Math & Science Institute / National Science Foundation Young Scholars Program - a collaboration between SLU, WashU, and UMSL, and led by Dr. Charles Granger and Ken Mares at UMSL, that provided high school juniors a summer research experience in science, math and technology.
The program is now called STARS and costs about $1,000 tuition; back then, it was grant-funded and free to students. My placement, though, was a little unusual: I worked with the late Dr. John Boswell, UMSL psychology professor, master teacher of statistics and research methods, and longtime alderman and mayor in the City of Greendale MO. After he passed away, Town York Dr. (called on some maps Yorktown Dr.) in Greendale was renamed Dr. John J. Boswell Ave. in his honor.
My project: developing a conceptual master plan for the redevelopment of the area around I-70 and Florissant Road. At that point, the realignment of I-70 was in the planning stage, but that's all. I proposed that the area along Florissant Road between what were then the two northern entrances to UMSL be re-built as a pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented retail and entertainment district, with landscaped pathways leading from the UMSL North MetroLink station and the (then proposed) Performing Arts Center.
While my pipe dream was kind of unrealistic, and certainly not in keeping with the university's highway-oriented research park plans, it was a fun project to develop. I got to dig through all kinds of pre-existing master plans for UMSL and for the Airport buyout areas, meet with people at the PPRC, and with the Mayor of Cool Valley, whose full-time job was as a mail carrier.
OK, so all that is just to say that I was a heavy, long-distance transit commuter that summer, at age 17. I was, of course, still living in my parents' house in the Oakville area of South County. To get up to UMSL every weekday by 9:00, I had to be out the door by 7:15 or earlier.
Crossing Telegraph Road at Golden Valley Drive on foot at 7:15 AM is damn near impossible, however. I was lucky if I could dash across the southbound lanes, then wait a minute or longer for a gap in the northbound traffic. This wait, of course, was not on a median, but just in the center left-turn lane. I'm still amazed I was never hit by a car doing this. If there was a car turning into or out of either side of the subdivision, I was really screwed.
There's just nowhere for a pedestrian to find safe haven in that kind of environment. Even on the relatively short walk from my parents' house about 10 houses west of Telegraph, there was no sidewalk to use within the circa 1960 subdivision.
And at the northbound bus stop on the east side of Telegraph, there was (and is) no concrete pad or sidewalk, much less a bus shelter. You either stand on the shoulder and risk being hit by a car turning right out of the subdivision, or stand in the (often very tall and wet) grass on the side of the road. That area is supposed to be mowed regularly by MoDOT, but sometimes they don't keep up with it.
Eventually, I would catch (at that time) either the #17x Oakville Express or the #140x Broadway-Barracks Express. Sometimes, if I really couldn't get across Telegraph, I would walk to Forder Road just west of Telegraph to catch the Mehlville-St. Louis Express (later, merged into the Tesson Ferry Express), at the very start of its inbound run. If I somehow missed the last express (about 7:30 AM), the next #40 Broadway local wouldn't be coming through until about 8:15 AM, which is way too late.
I would then ride one of these express routes to about Tucker and Clark, walk over to the Kiel Civic Center MetroLink station, and take MetroLink straight up to UMSL. From either UMSL South or UMSL North, depending on my mood, I'd usually walk to Stadler Hall, where I was working. Sometimes I rode the shuttle instead.
I guess now I'm really lucky - my commute from Gravois and Arsenal to WashU is much shorter than that, and transit service much more frequent along the entire corridor.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
In the Middle of Things
In the Middle of Things
I simply adore Google Maps and Google Earth.
If you download Google Earth to your computer, and wait for the images, etc. to load, you can have a lot of fun. The downtown St. Louis buildings feature is pretty cool, although it's kind of annoying they depict the Arch as if it was just a monolithic gray box sticking up into the sky. But, hey, for free, how advanced do you want your 3-D renderings?
Among the many layers you can turn on are Crime Stats and Census profiles. While the Crime Stats are pretty much useless, and the Census data is very basic, these data sets are aggregated by county, so they indicate the approximate center point of each county.
So, from either of those points, we can estimate the location of the geographic center of any given county - including the City of St. Louis.
Geographic center point for selected counties
City of St. Louis: 4044 West Pine Blvd., a warehouse built in the 1960s and owned by an affiliated LLC of Steve Trampe's Owen Development, best known as redevelopers of the Continental Life Building. This address is located in the eastern end of the Central West End, just east of Sarah Street, in the light-industrial / commercial area just west of Saint Louis University.
St. Louis County: 681 S. New Ballas Road, approximately, although there's no parcel by that address really. Actually, its on the SE portion of the campus of St. John's Mercy Medical Center, whose address is 615 S. New Ballas Road. The spot is in the wooded area just west of Ballas and east of Cardinal Ritter Drive on the hospital campus, and south of the new parking structure. This location is in Creve Coeur.
St. Charles County: 1858 Williamstown Dr. (approximately) a single-family two-story house built in 2001 in the Chadwyck subdivision. This area is located in the City of O'Fallon, but in the 63376 (St. Peters) ZIP code, a little south of Knaust Road at Mexico Road.
Jefferson County: Near Highland Baptist Church Road at Beckmann Dr, east of MO Route 21 a couple miles north of Hillsboro.
Franklin County: Off Camp Mo Val Road near Camp Mo Val / Camp Tambo Lake, several miles SW of Union near the Bourbeuse River. I've actually been to Camp Tambo (a branch of the United Church of Christ Neighborhood Houses), in 6th grade, for about 3 days I think. This was probably in 1991, and it was the first and pretty much only time I've fished or shot a bow-and-arrow. I wasn't particularly successful at either one. ;-)
Madison County IL: Somewhere just east of Girl Scout Road, in a rural area SE of the junction of Fruit Road and IL Route 157, a few miles NE of Edwardsville. I assume this is Camp Torqua of the Girl Scouts of River Bluffs Council.
St. Clair County IL: Just south of Linwood Ln off IL Routes 13/15, just SE of the city limits of Belleville.
Those last four are all pretty much rural locations, but near their respective county seats. Interesting that two of them are on or near camp grounds.
Source: Google Earth, 10/11/05.
I simply adore Google Maps and Google Earth.
If you download Google Earth to your computer, and wait for the images, etc. to load, you can have a lot of fun. The downtown St. Louis buildings feature is pretty cool, although it's kind of annoying they depict the Arch as if it was just a monolithic gray box sticking up into the sky. But, hey, for free, how advanced do you want your 3-D renderings?
Among the many layers you can turn on are Crime Stats and Census profiles. While the Crime Stats are pretty much useless, and the Census data is very basic, these data sets are aggregated by county, so they indicate the approximate center point of each county.
So, from either of those points, we can estimate the location of the geographic center of any given county - including the City of St. Louis.
Geographic center point for selected counties
Those last four are all pretty much rural locations, but near their respective county seats. Interesting that two of them are on or near camp grounds.
Source: Google Earth, 10/11/05.
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