St. Louis

For years, St. Louis and adjacent University City have been planning a 2.2-mile streetcar that would connect the thriving Delmar Loop business district to the museums in nearby Forest Park. In 2010, the plan won a competitive $22 million federal "Urban Circulator" grant. That funding, along with a 1 percent sales tax increase approved by area property owners, made the $43 million plan looked like a sure thing.

If there's one place that should have internalized the lesson that more highways harm cities, it's St. Louis.

It's an intra-Missouri battle today in the fourth match-up of Parking Madness, Streetsblog's annual hunt for the worst parking craters in North America.

Sometimes public officials say regrettable things. But few of them display the flagrant disregard for part of their constituency that St. Louis County Department of Highways and Traffic spokesperson David Wrone has.

Tax increment financing is a pretty neat tool cities can use to finance quality-of-life amenities, like the Beltline in Atlanta, or the streetcar in Kansas City, by capturing the taxes from the property value increases of the investments.