Meacham Park is an Island: Part 1

Kirkwood has walled off its poorest neighborhood, Meacham Park, from the rest of the city. It has isolated this neighborhood by erecting physical barriers. These physical barriers prevent neighborhood residents from participating in our town’s social, political, and economic activities. The inability of some residents to participate in these social, political, and economic activities, in turn, makes Kirkwood worse off socially, politically, and economically.

That’s the premise of the article. And if you want every piece of that premise laid out in excruciating detail, you’ve come to the right place! Then, after we get a firmer grasp on the existing problem in this piece, we’ll turn to solutions, both likely and ideal in the next one. Let’s get to it.

Manufactured Isolation

People have erected barriers between Meacham and themselves since the neighborhood was established in 1892. Everything from the routing of Interstate 44 to the design of the Kirkwood Commons to the approval of a new auto-oriented strip mall at the corner of Fillmore and Big Bend has steadily contributed to Meacham’s increasing isolation. Any one of these decisions could be dismissed as a fluke, as a bad decision alongside so many others that have been propagated across suburban America. But then I found this letter sent by the Meacham Park Improvement Association’s President in 2017, and I got mad. Because, of course, none of these decisions were made in isolation. They were made in the unambiguous context of Meacham Park. And Meacham Park has asked for the city to pay attention to walkability and pedestrian safety, and connectedness; it’s just that the city didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

Dear Mr. Hawes, & All Council Members,

We hope this letter finds you well. We are writing to bring to your attention a matter of great importance to the citizens of the Meacham Park Neighborhood. For many years, we have experience that the intersections of Milwaukee St. and Big Bend Rd, and South Kirkwood Rd and Big Bend Rd. are unsafe for pedestrians to cross.  We, the citizens of this neighborhood and the Meacham Park Neighborhood Improvement Association are asking the City of Kirkwood to work with St. Louis County on the Milwaukee St. and Big Bend St. intersection, and the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) on the South Kirkwood and Big Bend Rd. on your upcoming signalization project to make major design changes to the above intersections which presently, are dangerous for all pedestrians of all abilities.

Just one of the many issues we have faced with these intersections in recent years include a young woman from the Meacham Park neighborhood being struck with a car and seriously injured in the crosswalk while crossing at Big Bend Rd. and Milwaukee St.  In addition, these unsafe intersections serve to make the Meacham Park Neighborhood an Island for any pedestrian who wants to walk or bike out of the neighborhood into the rest of the Kirkwood Community.

We are urgently requesting that the City of Kirkwood implement updated, proven and safe intersections based upon the National Association of City Transportation Officials, (NACTO), Design Guidelines Best Practices, which will be safe for all pedestrians from ages 8 to 90 to cross anytime of the day or night. Please work with St. Louis County and MoDOT to provide safe access for all citizens of Meacham Park which gives us equity and respect.

We request that you respond to this letter to explain how the City of Kirkwood is going to actually implement NACTO design guidelines for each of the above intersections which will improve safety for all users.  Our neighborhood desires to work collaboratively with the City of Kirkwood, St. Louis County, and the Missouri Department of Transportation, to make this area as safe as possible for all users.

Respectfully Submitted,

Harriet Patton, President

Meacham Park Neighborhood Improvement Association

November 10, 2017

In the five and a half years since, no improvements have been made to the neighborhood’s pedestrian infrastructure. The strip mall at 10505 Big Bend was completed a year later, and the march towards auto-oriented isolation continues uninterrupted to the present day.

Cut Off

To help illustrate the scope of the island that Patton described, I mapped it out. Meacham Park is depicted in blue (from here on, I will refer to the area North of Big Bend as North Meacham and the area South of Big Bend as …South Meacham). The red lines are all the barriers —train tracks, fences, the blank walls of the backs of big box stores— that are physically impenetrable to pedestrians and vehicles.

But to only point out the barriers through which you literally can’t pass undersells the degree to which even the chinks in that armor are essentially only navigable by car. Can you walk along Big Bend or through the endless sea of parking lots that is the Kirkwood Commons? Yeah, sure, you can. But do you want to? Well, it’s definitely not my first choice. And then, beyond the uninviting and unsafe Big Bend, your North-South options are horrible too. The train tracks funnel everything to Kirkwood Road which itself is nearly unnavigable for pedestrians until Downtown Kirkwood begins its tepid attempts to take hold somewhere around Nipher.

When you mix in the fact that Meacham Park has some of the lowest car ownership rates in all of Kirkwood, the lack of safe walking and biking options is thrown into even starker contrast. Without a car, people are forced to be pedestrians, whether walking is safe or not. And it is in this way —the fact that Meacham Park is an island from which you can only arrive and exit via car but is also a place where not everyone can afford that car— that Meacham Park’s isolation from the rest of Kirkwood becomes not just a difference in lifestyle preference in the way that choosing to live in Chesterfield is, but a true vehicle for inequality.

And while Patton cites the severe injury sustained by a young woman attempting to cross Big Bend, I’ll back up that anecdote with data: 11% of all pedestrian crashes in Kirkwood since 2016 have occurred on the half-mile-long stretch of Kirkwood Road between I-44 and Big Bend. Here are the nine pedestrians that have been hit in the neighborhood since Patton wrote her letter in November of 2017 asking the city to help:

Missed Connections

So if we accept the idea that Meacham has been walled off and decide that we do want to fix it, the next question should be what particular connections should be prioritized. To my mind, there are three: Downtown Kirkwood, Meramec Community College, and Meacham Park itself. Let’s go through them and take a look at what the community would stand to gain from each.

Downtown Kirkwood

Downtown Kirkwood is the economic, political, and cultural heart of our city. The restaurants, shops, and businesses of our downtown obviously serve as places to spend money and make it, through employment and small-business entrepreneurship. If we limit employment opportunities in Downtown Kirkwood —again, the economic heart of our town— to those who can safely walk or bike, or have the means of driving themselves in their own personal car, then that’s going to leave many residents of Meacham Park excluded from those employment opportunities. If we limit the patronage of downtown businesses to only those who can safely walk or bike downtown or drive to Downtown, then surely we’re missing out on some small businesses that would otherwise be viable and thus suppressing our commercial rents.

On the political side of things, Downtown Kirkwood is home to City Hall, which both serves as a distribution center for services (where you can get lawn and leaf bags/stickers, for example) and a hub for political representation (it hosts public hearings where citizens are permitted to make their opinions on the topic at hand via public comment). The ability to get to city hall is quite literally the ability to participate in government. Then, in between Meacham Park and Downtown, sit other amenities like Nipher (the middle school the vast majority of Meacham properties filter into), the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, and the Magic House, which you would gain free additional connections en route to connecting to Downtown.

Meramec Community College

If we turn out attention towards Meacham Park’s westward connections, the main prize would be linking Meacham Park to Meramec Community College. Meramec serves three main functions: jobs center, community center (it’s where I vote; they host a great high school basketball tournament each Christmas break which enjoys very high levels of attendance), and probably most importantly, education center.

To focus on this latter role, the one that affects the broadest swath of citizens, obviously, average earnings increase tremendously for those with a college degree. Meramec does an excellent job of making that possible. Students who are designated “Missouri A+ Scholars” (2.5 high school GPA on a 4.0 scale plus a few other qualifications) can take up to 18 credit hours per semester at Meramec for free. This program offers basically a free associate’s degree and then often serves as a springboard to a four-year college.

But getting to Meramec is hard. Unlike Kirkwood public schools, Meramec obviously does not have a dedicated free bus service to get its students to and from campus. And while the walk from Meacham Park to Meramec might not sound like much of a hindrance, the 30-minute walk requires you to cross: Big Bend, Lindbergh, and Geyer, three tremendously unsafe roads. Factor in the comfortability of the walk —does it have street trees that offer shade and shelter from sun and rain? is the sidewalk sufficiently separated from traffic? how long do you have to wait at lights? are there benches along the way to rest at? is the sidewalk even and sufficiently wide? how many curb cuts do you have to cross?— and the trip becomes significantly less manageable in the best of conditions, let alone in the heat, the snow, or the rain. Of course, you could always bike to Meramec, a method that would cut the length of the trip down to around 10 minutes, but biking amongst the traffic on Big Bend and across Lindbergh, and Geyer, is even more dangerous than walking.

And much like the connections to Downtown Kirkwood, making improvements to this route comes with a lot of free side benefits as well. By making Big Bend more walkable between Meramec and Meacham Park we could also benefit the residents of the substantial multifamily developments that also happen to fall along the stretch. The residents of the 24 new townhomes across Big Bend from Meramec, for example, would also undoubtedly benefit from better pedestrian connections to the bus routes of Kirkwood Road as well.

Meacham Park

Finally, zooming way in, Meacham Park is also, to a certain extent, cut off from itself and its surrounding businesses. The most direct benefit of improving Meacham’s internal connections is the sense of community that is derived from being better connected. If two kids meet each other in their Robinson second grade class and they both live in Meacham Park, but one of them lives in South Meacham and the other lives in North Meacham, there are very few parents that would be comfortable with their child crossing Big Bend to play. These two kids who live so close together are cut off by the torrent of traffic that is Big Bend Rd. Carpools don’t work as well, older kids or grandparents can’t walk over to babysit younger kids as easily, and walking to church is more sketchy. All of these things make for a less coherent, less tight-knit neighborhood than would otherwise be the case.

In terms of access to local economic opportunity, Meacham Park’s isolation cuts it off from the substantial amount of businesses (and thus jobs) that fall all around it. Between doctor’s and lawyer’s offices, bank branches, a Walmart, a Hobby Lobby, Lowes, and a whole host of restaurants, there are no few consumer options or professional and starter jobs right next door that are, nonetheless, difficult to reach. A better-connected Meacham pretty directly contributes to a stronger, more economically resilient Kirkwood.

And finally, because none of us do everything inside Kirkwood, a better connected Meacham would also have better connections to transit (and thus destinations and opportunities outside of Kirkwood). When MODOT reworked its bus network a couple of years back, Meacham Park was essentially the only place in Kirkwood that saw an increase in service levels due to the high ridership of the neighborhood. Thankfully, the Meacham Park bus stop is one of the few in Kirkwood that actually has a shelter. But unfortunately, the two other routes that service South Kirkwood, routes 49 and 21, don’t get any closer to Meacham than Kirkwood Road and accessing them is currently an immensely harrowing experience.

But while we’ve been thinking very specifically about the destinations to and from which Meacham residents might want better connections, I want to end on the note that it’s all even simpler than this. Think of the little benefits you get from being able to go on an enjoyable walk in your neighborhood: to get some exercise or to clear your head, to walk the dog, or to talk to your girlfriend. You could argue that, to a certain extent, these things are all possible within the confines of Meacham Park. You could argue that perhaps those who live here count themselves as members of the select few who never desire to take off on a long walk to leave the troubles of home temporarily behind. You could argue that the residents of Meacham could (and should) simply zig zag through the blocks of their neighborhood or walk in laps until they have reached their desired distance or filled their allotted time. You could argue these things. But to argue them, to argue that the predominately Black residents of Meacham Park should be content to remain largely in their own neighborhood, is to make an argument that nibbles around the edges of continued segregation —segregation under the false, time-honored pretense that although most of Kirkwood’s Black residents live separate from us, that they do so on equal ground.

Next Time

So that’s the situation as it currently exists in all its economic, social, and human costs. Next week, we’ll turn our attention to solutions, first those that are being planned by the city and then those that aren’t being planned but are desperately needed if we want to make Kirkwood whole again. See you then.