I've traveled the seven seas; I've traversed the eight continents; I've been to the Great Wall of China. I have seen the pyramids of Egypt. And now, now I will provide for you: the reader; the curious; the Kirkophile; the definitive power ranking of the best Kirkwoods the world has to offer. Stuttgart, Germany's sidewalk… Continue reading Long Lost Sister: A Search for Kirkwood’s Sibling City
Background The Open Streets project is an initiative to return the 30-35% of cities that are composed of streets to the people that live there to use as they please. The international open streets concept is not new to St. Louis: on June 2nd 2018 a fourteen block stretch of South Compton from Cherokee to… Continue reading Sundays in the Streets
Updates (07/27/2019) Yikes... (02/22/2019) Kirkwork's design seems to be a pretty solid one. The structure is built to the street with parking limited to the sides and rear of the building. While dual curb cuts onto Big Bend (one on either side of the building) are less than ideal, they do represent an improvement from… Continue reading Kirkwork & The Triangle
Update: After the February 7th city council public hearing, more details are known regarding the proposed apartments. The first thing to notice is that the apartments are actually comprised of two separate buildings. In addition to better fitting the shape of the lot, this seems to be in an effort to adhere to zoning language… Continue reading Big Bend, Big NIMBY
A new development is nearing completion in Meacham Park at the corner of Big Bend and S. Fillmore (10505 Big Bend Blvd). While the 3-4 unit strip mall's exterior has been completed, its interior has a way to go before it will be ready for any businesses to move in. Unfortunately there seems to be… Continue reading Meacham Park & Urbanism: A Tenuous Affair
Kirkwood Gadfly often, almost exclusively, focuses on hypotheticals and things that should happen rather than things that actually are happening. That's for a variety of reasons I guess but mostly its because I don't know anything more than you do. I'm really not sure how other people that are good at this, buildingstlnews.com and nextstl.com,… Continue reading The Madison: A Mid-Summer’s Update
Meramec Community College's large campus and voluminous student traffic makes for a challenging environment to craft a more walkable neighborhood. With that being said, however, there are steps that can be taken in both the short-term an the long-term to ensure that this stretch of Geyer is not only walkable for the residences that sit… Continue reading College Town
Kirkwood has struggled with parking for as long as it has excelled at attracting people. The mindset amongst Kirkwood's recent political leadership seems to be that if you tear enough buildings down and reserve enough surface area for parking, parking will no longer be an issue. This is true. It true, not because the supply… Continue reading Paid Parking: A Case to be Made
Kirkwood Road is the eye of the hurricane that is Kirkwood. Around it the rest of Kirkwood, especially downtown Kirkwood, revolves, taking its energy and spinning that energy ever further outward. Just because Kirkwood Road is doing its job, however, doesn't mean that, given ideal conditions, it can't further organize, coalesce, and strengthen. Step One… Continue reading Kirkwood Road Re-Imagined
According to Walkable City (p.155), transit works when you get four factors right regardless of scale: urbanity, clarity, frequency and pleasure. Urbanity essentially meaning that the route has walkable, significant, urban attractions at both ends; Clarity refers to the idea that routes should be easy to comprehend and visualize. Frequency is pretty self explanatory but… Continue reading Kirkwood-Webster Shuttle
