Assorted St. Louis Monday News


Yesterday there was an assortment of interesting news regarding the St. Louis area. First off was the St. Louis County Council's approval to put a new transit bill on the April election to help fund Metro. Unfortunately, the press reports this news more as a threat from Metro to cut services, than a positive initiative to improve and maintain mass transit in the area. I do not know who is in charge of publicity for the initiative, but I hope they realize that people hate threats, and they should accentuate the positives of supporting mass transit as opposed to "give us more money or we'll hurt you". I am definitely going to vote FOR the tax increase myself, but I sure wish they would publicize it differently. Today I even celebrated mass transit by skipping my drive to the Metrolink station and just walking since it was not very cold this morning. I find it very liberating to be able to walk from my house to public transportation to commute to and from work here on Wash U's campus without using a car at all. Am I willing to pay 50 cents more for each $100 I spend in the county to support the mass transit system in our community? You bet I am.

And speaking of Wash U, the other relevant news yesterday was the assault of a female Wash U graduate student in the laundromat of her building in nearby University City. The assault occurred just north of the Delmar Loop in one of the many apartment buildings owned by Washington University's Quadrangle Housing. She sounds critical but stable, and hopefully she will recover and be able to tell authorities who committed this horrible crime against her. It was Sunday evening after the semester had ended and she was doing laundry alone in the basement. You would hope it would be safe in the laundromat of an apartment building, especially one that only allows certain people to enter, but somehow the perpetrator was able to gain access. This means he was possibly another building resident, a Quadrangle employee or someone who she allowed in without knowing the danger. The weird coincidence was that my daughter was actually doing laundry in the basement of her Wash U dorm the day that we picked her up to bring her home for winter break. It can indeed happen to anybody and at any location.

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