Trailnet’s advocacy is regional in scope (as are our rides, programs, membership, and community support). This week we urged St. Charles County leadership to reconsider their recent action limiting O’Fallon’s right to re-design their own Main Street. The very mention of “road diets” is apparently not a good idea in St. Charles County.
See our letter here.
Trailnet has been working with the City of Des Peres, Missouri, to develop a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan. On September 14, Trailnet and the City of Des Peres will hold a public hearing on the contents of the Master Plan Draft. This event will begin at 7 p.m. at the Des Peres City Hall. For directions, click here. To view a copy of the draft Master Plan, click here.
Over the last decade, Trailnet has played a leading role in improving biking and walking in the St. Louis region. Our successes include working with over 40 communities to create plans and policies for improved biking and walking, helping secure the city’s first buffered bike lanes and bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, and collaborating with seven municipalities, including St. Louis City and County, to pass Complete Streets policies that assure streets are designed for all users. In pursuit of our goal to make St. Louis one of the best places to walk and bike, we will increase our advocacy capacity through the launch of a Walk/Bike Ambassadors program.
Walk/Bike Ambassador programs are a national best practice for doing effective, broad-based advocacy. For the past two years, Trailnet has been gearing up to establish a Walk/Bike Ambassador program, which involves research into other effective programs as well as meeting with Trailnet members and volunteers to inform program design.
Thanks to a grant from the William A. Kerr Foundation, Trailnet will begin working to create a Walk/Bike Ambassadors program this fall. Trailnet will recruit and train up to ten Walk/Bike Ambassadors who will work at the grassroots level to ensure alignment between unique neighborhood needs and Trailnet’s advocacy campaigns. Walk/Bike Ambassadors will raise awareness, increase knowledge, organize residents, and facilitate communication between all parties.
We’re looking for volunteers to help out during our Share the Street Party.
Volunteers will be needed for general event set-up, bike valet, the Trailnet table, the beer table, dance-walk course guides, and event tear-down. Volunteers will receive a $5 ticket for food and one complimentary beverage. Beer and pizza will be provided during a brief volunteer orientation September 16 at 6 p.m.
If you’re interested in hanging out with a crew of cool folks as music drifts into your ears and century riders flow across the finish line, register here. You can also contact Marcia Quint at marcia@trailnet.org for more information.
The results of our 2015 constituent survey are in! Thank you to all who participated. Your feedback will help us build the region for better biking and walking.
For a more detailed slideshow of the results, click here: General Survey Report
Trailnet and the St. Louis Trek Bicycle Store will be taking more than 200 cyclists on a bi-state cycling adventure that routes participants past a geyser, a historic cemetery, St. Louis’ velodrome, and much more. Check out the latest additions to Great Rivers Greenway’s Bike St. Louis routes Sunday, August 9, during ourBike St. Louis City Tour.
While many of our rides take folks down country roads, this urban adventure is routed through some of St. Louis’ most vibrant neighborhoods and moves at a different pace—better for ogling attractions and bumping elbows with fellow riders.
The ride starts and finishes at the Morgan Street Brewery, located at 721 North 2nd Street, in St. Louis. Riders will take off from there and bounce into Illinois for a short jaunt along the Mississippi River and through Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, where the Gateway Geyser just might pop off a couple times.
Riders are then routed into the oldest African American incorporated town in the country—Brooklyn, Illinois. The route then features a private ride through the Bellefontaine Cemetery, where we’ll have a rest stop. Cyclists will enter the cemetery through the Amaranth Gate (closed to public) where a group of volunteers will share insider information on some of the location’s highlights.
After that, we’ll cross back into Missouri on the McKinley Bridge and pedal through historic city neighborhoods and parks.
Our second rest stop will be at the Penrose Park Velodrome—aptly named Mr. Bumpy Face. This is the chance to test your mettle and see how quickly you to can whip your wheels around St. Louis’ fast-paced cycling track.
Participants will tour some of the beautiful old neighborhoods of North City, the commerce of Euclid Avenue, find a rest stop at Hartford Coffee, and take a trip around the iconic Cathedral Basilica.
Finishing this urban tour at Morgan Street Brewery, riders can buy beer and food while sitting back and rehashing the highlights of the best city ride they’ve ever been a part of.
The full route is 40 miles. Shorter routes of 34 miles (along Cherokee Street) and 19 miles (through Lafayette Park) are also available. Registration at the event is from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. To preregister, visit trailnet.org.
Trailnet and NextSTL suggested some penetrating questions for the East-West Gateway Board to ask candidates for the council’s executive director position. Check out our memo below.
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Mark Kern, St. Clair County, EWG Board Chair
Alan Dunstan, Madison County
Francis Slay, City of St. Louis
Ken Waller, Jefferson County
Steve Ehlmann, St. Charles County
Terry Liefer, Monroe County
John Griesheimer, Franklin County
Steve Stenger, St. Louis County
FROM:
Ralph Pfremmer, Trailnet
Alex Ihnen, NextSTL
RE: East-West Gateway executive director search
We write as organization and opinion leaders with expertise in business development, urban planning and transportation. We are also partners and observers of East-West Gateway’s important work.
We understand a firm has recently been chosen to conduct a nationwide search for the top staff post of East-West Gateway’s executive director. Our purpose in writing is to express ideas that are relevant to your upcoming executive search process.
St. Louis is at a critical juncture. After years of economic and population stagnation, and the tough challenges and deep divisions we face brought to the forefront last August, we need a change of course. This is an important opportunity to hire an outstanding leader, collaborator, and expert to guide us in utilizing our assets to become a more prosperous region. We strongly believe the right candidate should possess the following expertise:
In order to vet the expertise of candidates, we ask you to consider incorporating the following questions into the interview process:
1) In 2013 East-West Gateway completed its Regional Plan for Sustainability, OneSTL. The plan was a $4.7 million investment by the federal government, and countless hours from partners. To increase sustainability in the region, and make the most of this investment, how will you guide the agency to win funds and foster collaboration to implement the plan?
2) In the 21st Century, we have seen a dramatic change in demand for land use and transportation options, as the millennial generation looks for more urban housing with multiple transportation choices, and the retiring baby boom generation is looking to downsize to more compact housing where walking and transit are convenient and accessible. How would you lead East West Gateway to make St. Louis a strong regional and global competitor as the market demands transportation choices and walkable communities?
3) The latest Long Range Plan does not prioritize funding for any major transit, bicycle, or pedestrian projects over the next 30 years. Meanwhile, our peer regions, including Kansas City and Nashville, are updating their transportation system for the 21st century by prioritizing transit and setting aside funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. As Executive Director of East West Gateway, what changes would you make to compete with our peers?
4) Since 1950, the region’s population has grown by 50% while the land use has grown by 400%. Now we are struggling to pay for the maintenance on all of the roads, parking lots, and sewers that serve our spread out population – we’ve rendered ourselves house-poor.How would you lead East West Gateway to address the challenges of our stagnating population and growing maintenance bills due to aging infrastructure? What could East-West Gateway do to encourage more economically productive land uses?
5) Historically, central cities have been dependent upon the rural areas surrounding them for food and raw materials, while the rural areas have been dependent upon the central cities as a market for their goods. Infrastructure investment and policy choices over the past 60 years have undermined already built places in favor of more spread out newer ones. How would you encourage discussion, collaboration, and understanding between the diverse interests of our region? How will you lead our region to ensure we have a strong, competitive central core?
6) Due to the high number of pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries, Missouri and Illinois are both on the Federal Highway Administration’s watch list, Focus Cities/States of Concern. Connected2045, the latest EWG long-range transportation plan, reports deaths and injuries in crashes cost the region $3.2 billion in 2013. What approaches could East-West Gateway take to influence and improve safety on the streets and highways of our region?
7) It is a fair assumption that federal, Missouri, and Illinois infrastructure funding levels will be limited for the foreseeable future. More than ever, high returns on our investments are critical. Small multi-modal improvements in neighborhoods are often the highest returning investments we can make. How would you approach the identification of projects large and small that create the highest return on investment for the EWG region?
8) Best practices for community engagement include involving residents from the beginning of any project and integrating engagement into existing community-hosted meetings, instead of creating new meetings. Please describe your experience implementing these community engagement best practices, and any others.
We offer these comments and ideas because regional progress requires that East-West Gateway have a strategic leader as executive director. We welcome your interest, seek to engage you and the region in this process, and wish you well in the executive search.
St. Louisans are fortunate to enjoy lush greenspace in our numerous parks, fine food offered through restaurants and a growing fleet of food trucks, a vibrant art and music scene, and a champion baseball team. These many assets are clouded by statistics that rank St. Louis as one of the most dangerous cities in the country for pedestrians. In the U.S. as a whole, 12 percent of lethal traffic accidents involve pedestrians. This number compares to 14 percent in Europe and 25 percent in China. In St. Louis, 36 percent of fatal accidents affect pedestrians. In the first six months of 2015, 15 pedestrians were killed in the city of St. Louis, many in hit-and-run incidents. These sobering statistics earned St. Louis a designation as a Focus City by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, joining 21 other U.S. cities in which pedestrian deaths are higher than the national average.
A number of factors have contributed to creating this risky environment for pedestrians, most notably road designs that prioritize automobiles over pedestrian safety, and excessive speed of car traffic. Statistics indicate that pedestrians struck by cars travelling at 20 miles per hour generally suffer minor injuries and fatalities are below 10 percent. As speeds increase, the risk to pedestrians involved in collisions rises dramatically: at 30 mph, 45 percent of pedestrians who are struck suffer fatal injuries; when struck by a car traveling above 40 mph, pedestrian mortality increases to 80 percent.
Trailnet was recently awarded a Plan4Health grant in collaboration with the HEAL Partnership to improve the safety of pedestrians in the city of St. Louis. Our efforts will begin with community meetings in the Ville, Greater Ville, Carondelet, Dutchtown, and Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhoods to learn about residents’ concerns about pedestrian safety. These meetings will be followed by walk audits and “pop-up traffic calming” demonstrations in the neighborhoods. Traffic-calming measures help to decrease vehicle speeds and provide refuges for pedestrians. These measures include infrastructure changes such as speed bumps, roundabouts and pedestrian islands.
For more information about Plan4Health, please contact us at trailnet@trailnet.org.
The Plan4Health grant has brought excitement and new energy to Trailnet’s planning division by allowing us bring on some new talent. We’re excited to announce Grace Kyung has joined the Trailnet team as our new Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner. She comes to Trailnet from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she earned master’s degrees in public health and urban planning from the University of Illinois.
Grace has a strong passion for active forms of transportation and is an avid bicycle commuter. Aside from being a cost-effective approach to city travel, Grace says she appreciates how riding gives her a lay of the land in St. Louis. She added that riding her bike around the city has given her a helpful lens with which to see various neighborhoods connect with locals. Grace hopes through working on the Plan4Health grant, she can help Trailnet demonstrate effective traffic calming approaches to increase the safety and health of the region’s communities.
Welcome Grace!
For more information about Plan4Health, please contact Grace Kyung at grace@trailnet.org or 314-436-1324 x 110.
Trailnet’s Lucky’s Ride puts you on some of the most scenic sections of the Katy Trail. The three-day cycling and camping adventure starts with a kickoff celebration at the Lucky’s in Ellisville. From there, participants hop on our bus to the Lucky’s Market in Columbia. From Columbia, we’re in for all sorts of fun, music, food, and camping.
If that’s not enough to get you in the saddle for a few days, this event is your opportunity to raise money for educating local youth on the importance of leading a healthy, active lifestyle. Sharing Trailnet’s devotion to building vibrant, healthy, and active communities, Lucky’s Market has committed to support Trailnet’s Youth Programming, matching rider contributions dollar-for-dollar up to a total of $10,000.
Let’s get this campaign rolling and see if we can make it to $10,000 before the start of the ride!
Click here for details about this great adventure.
Registration: Online only, click here.