What you hate about St. Louis (Jackson, Memphis: prices, stadium, ticket)

[DinsdalePirahna]

Originally Posted by DeBaliviere

Good question. Not a fan of this thread.

And therein lies the problem.

HCC hit the truth right on the head, and it is amplified even more when you are an outsider or a transplant.

You can rave all you want about your great zoo (and it is a good one) and the wonderful mountains, lakes and rivers (kind of iffy on those, since the largest natural lake in MO is Creve Couer, the highest point is less than 2000 feet and the big rivers are generally muddy and too dangerous for recreation)

[SoStLouis]

Originally Posted by stlsmoore

I really dislike the lack of diversity compared to other cities, it's pretty much a black and white town

not true, hit the 'burbs and you will find some dominated by Arabs/Indians/whatever they want to be called. What do I hate about STL? People coming here talking **** because they aren't from here and can't take in the true inner beauty.

drivers from outside missouri/stl **** me off. here in STL, if you aren't gonna do 70+ on the highway, stay outta the far left lane, that's common knowledge. and on 30mph roads, if you aren't doing a minimum of 35 (though most of us do at least 40) i'm gonna ride your ass. that's just how we drive.

someone else said it-- the road systems.

best road system in the US as rated by some credible sources = Chicago.

worst (big surprise) = STL. some of our road systems are so crappy its almost funny. whether the quality of the actual road makes you cringe every pothole/crack in the road you hit or the illogical set up of some roadways/highway ramps that can get the most experienced/logical of drivers lost.

[SoStLouis]

Originally Posted by jskirwin

Speaking of St. Louis County... Too many municipalities with their own police forces. These tend to be much less professional than the St. Louis County PD that patrols the unincorporated areas. There are more speed traps in St. Louis County than any other county I've lived in the USA. It's not that they nail people racing through their towns, but pulling people over for minor speeding just to pad their municipality's coffers. Worst offenders: #1 - St. George. They even made the national news with their cop's bullying. A close second is Bella Villa.

Every time I visit and drive from the airport on 170 it seems like St. Ann has someone pulled over. Where I live now it's illegal for any cop other than the highway patrol to run radar on interstates.

St. Louis has good cops; the County's are top notch. But Maplewood? Kirkwood? Valley Park? Sunset Hills? I'm sure there are decent cops on these police forces but if you have a small town with a large police budget, the only way to balance it is by running a speed trap. That's not about public safety - it's about extorting money from strangers who don't know the area.

One more thing I hate about St. Louis: the political division between county and city. This pretty much has strangled the city, and I don't see it as benefiting the county all that much either.

It's funny, I used to always compliment STL Metro PD for not giving out petty moving violations (rolling stop signs, speeding 5 over the limit etc) and I always credited it to the demand for cops investigating more serious offenses taking place (narcotics, robberies, homicides etc.) but recently STL Metro PD has devised a new unit called the Traffic unit. All they do is speed trap, get you rolling stop signs and other petty moving violations, I personally know about 5-6 people who live in the heart of North Metro and they have all gotten multiple tickets already from this unit.. anyone else experiencing this?

also, addressing this Catholic issue, i never noticed. to be honest, i would consider STL to be a melting pot, I know lots of athiests/anti-religion type folks, and on the other hand a ton of Christian/Catholics. I don't see anything wrong with the strong religious scene, although I'm a proud anti-religion supporter, it makes for a wholesome, family-friendly place to live.

[Marksman84]

Originally Posted by SoStLouis

someone else said it-- the road systems.

best road system in the US as rated by some credible sources = Chicago.

worst (big surprise) = STL. some of our road systems are so crappy its almost funny. whether the quality of the actual road makes you cringe every pothole/crack in the road you hit or the illogical set up of some roadways/highway ramps that can get the most experienced/logical of drivers lost.

I would challenge both of those "credible" sources. Chicago has a lot of pavement, but my God the congestion can be a nightmare in that city.

While the quality of most St. Louis metro roads (particularly in the City) is not the best, I think the only problem with the STL road system is the disproportionate number of E/W routes to N/S routes. However, this is how the city/county was laid out long before any of us were around.

Having the unfortunate experience of driving in Boston, New York (driving there is not for the faint of heart), Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C., I will assert that St. Louis has a decent overall road system.

[northbayeric]

Originally Posted by Marksman84

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I would challenge both of those "credible" sources. Chicago has a lot of pavement, but my God the congestion can be a nightmare in that city.

While the quality of most St. Louis metro roads (particularly in the City) is not the best, I think the only problem with the STL road system is the disproportionate number of E/W routes to N/S routes. However, this is how the city/county was laid out long before any of us were around.

Having the unfortunate experience of driving in Boston, New York (driving there is not for the faint of heart), Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C., I will assert that St. Louis has a decent overall road system.

It also compares very favorably with the road system in most of the San Francisco Bay Area. I was able to spend three full days back in St. Louis last month, and found the freeways to be in great shape. The Bay Area's freeway signage has improved considerably over the past two years, but we still have many very old button-copy signs that have become dirty and rusted compared to Missouri's much newer, very easy-to-read signs.

I hope St. Louis and Kansas City never impose freeway carpool lane restrictions as you would find in most of California's bigger cities. They restrict freeway lane access at precisely the time those lanes are needed to efficiently move traffic along at a fairly uniform speed. With carpool lanes you often have 55 mph traffic in dangerously close proximity to 15 mph traffic, a sure-fire recipe for some serious accidents. By contrast, even with The New I-64 road construction in full swing, I breezed along Interstates 44 and 55, and didn't do too badly on I-70 (I'm not so sure about the "Mark McGwire Highway" designation however; if it's got to be a ballplayer I'd go with Ozzie or eventually Albert).

Some city streets in St. Louis are just OK. They're still better than those you'd find in most of Sonoma County, CA's unincorporated areas, which can loosen your fillings unless you're driving Aunt Myrtle's old Buick LeSabre, and even then you'd better take it easy!

[DinsdalePirahna]

Originally Posted by northbayeric

It also compares very favorably with the road system in most of the San Francisco Bay Area. I was able to spend three full days back in St. Louis last month, and found the freeways to be in great shape. The Bay Area's freeway signage has improved considerably over the past two years, but we still have many very old button-copy signs that have become dirty and rusted compared to Missouri's much newer, very easy-to-read signs.

I hope St. Louis and Kansas City never impose freeway carpool lane restrictions as you would find in most of California's bigger cities. They restrict freeway lane access at precisely the time those lanes are needed to efficiently move traffic along at a fairly uniform speed. With carpool lanes you often have 55 mph traffic in dangerously close proximity to 15 mph traffic, a sure-fire recipe for some serious accidents. By contrast, even with The New I-64 road construction in full swing, I breezed along Interstates 44 and 55, and didn't do too badly on I-70 (I'm not so sure about the "Mark McGwire Highway" designation however; if it's got to be a ballplayer I'd go with Ozzie or eventually Albert).

Some city streets in St. Louis are just OK. They're still better than those you'd find in most of Sonoma County, CA's unincorporated areas, which can loosen your fillings unless you're driving Aunt Myrtle's old Buick LeSabre, and even then you'd better take it easy!

Why would you need car pool lanes here? The traffic isn't that bad.

What need to be done is to create a mass advertising campaign to get all those knuckle heads that insist on doing 60mp/h out of the passing lanes (they are passing lanes right?)

Then figure out a way to get people to stop tailgating.

Outside of Boston, St. Louis has some of the worse drivers in the country (they would be eaten up alive in a real metro area like NY or LA)

[sixtwobaldguy]

I drive around a lot and rarely have serious slowdowns. I know the times/places that will be slow and work around them

[stlsmoore]

Yea STL Highways and streets are in no way the worst, but aren't the best either. Try driving through Milwaukee on ANY street or highway and you would swear STL ranks up there with the Dallas highway systems after that lol.

[MrZetec]

Lack of an NBA team, but with the three other major sports and a city this size you cannot expect everything

[Eyeam]

The worst roads I've ever personally been on are some of the roads in the metro east. There was an article in the news a little while back about them being some of the worst in the nation. Apparently there are potholes big enough to break car axles in certain areas. But, that's the ESTL region - I think the roads throughout St. Louis on the MO side are fine.