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u/soljouner

r/StLouis r/Crosstrek r/tipping
51% drop in fire calls on Fourth of July: STLFD
▲ 125 r/StLouis

51% drop in fire calls on Fourth of July: STLFD

ST. LOUIS – The Fourth of July is one of the busiest days of the year for the St. Louis Fire Department. But year over year, the fire department recorded a massive drop in fires from 2025.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/51-drop-in-fire-calls-on-fourth-of-july-stlfd/

Maybe it was the heat, or possibly the curfew on juvenal's, but as a downtown resident, July third was relatively quiet, and even the Fourth seemed subdued in comparison to years past. Nothing like previous years.

u/soljouner — 8 hours ago
▲ 4 r/StLouis

Harris-Stowe University celebrates STEM building milestone

Harris-Stowe State University faculty, students and alumni participated in a ceremonial beam signing Tuesday on the Midtown campus. The event marked a mid-milestone for a new $66 million College of STEM building, the largest capital project in the university’s 169-year history, with construction scheduled for completion in 2027.

The funding for the new building comes from a combination of the state of Missouri and companies like Penn Entertainment, which owns Hollywood Casino and River City Casino. The project symbolizes the university’s investment in the future of STEM education, workforce development and student success.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/harris-stowe-university-celebrates-stem-building-milestone/

State spending waste at its finest.

u/soljouner — 12 days ago
▲ 8 r/Crosstrek

New to Subaru

My wife and I purchased our first Subaru recently, a Crosstrek Limited Hybrid. We were not sure whether we were going to go with the standard Limited, or the Hybrid, so we drove each back to back, and the difference was night and day. We initially drove the standard Limited and I wasn't impressed by the performance at all. It was the first time I drove a car where the engine shut off when stopped, which we didn't defeat for the test drive, and I didn't care for the noticeable delay when accelerating, and how noisy and slow the engine was.

We drove the Hybrid right after and it clearly was a better choice. The Hybrid resolved most of the performance and hesitation issues that I had. I have always liked the appearance of the Crosstrek and I believe that the vehicle is good value for what you are getting, but that standard engine was really disappointing and I don't know if we would have purchased that version after driving it.

I wasn't expecting such a huge difference in the driving experience with the Hybrid, but it felt like a completely different vehicle. IMO, the Hybrid is definitely the way to go, if you are even thinking of a higher end Crosstrek.

reddit.com
u/soljouner — 13 days ago
▲ 0 r/tipping

Another look at tipping as a percentage of the meal

Tipping culture seems to assume that the customer is responsible for paying an hourly rate for the servers time when that customer is only receiving a fraction of that servers time. So even if you believe that a server should be making say $24 an hour, only a fraction of that wage would be made up by any individual customer.

So in reality adding an addition few cents to the price of a meal to pay servers a higher wage is the right thing to do. The customer would not really notice the addition cost on a meal, servers could be paid more, and everyone should be happy right?

Obviously, this is not about fair pay, it is about deceiving the customers into covering employee wages, and overpaying for services. Why don't we let the free market work here. Employees and their employers can agree on wages and benefits, businesses could price their goods and service on their actual costs, and customers could freely make the decisions whether those goods or services are worth the costs.

Personally, I welcome the coming of driverless vehicles as we will not be expected to tip (I hope) a robot. We could order a ride knowing that cost being quoted is actually the cost. Ride providers will have to price their service competitively.

reddit.com
u/soljouner — 17 days ago
▲ 103 r/StLouis

Missouri knew half of north St. Louis was uninsured for a decade.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/missouri-knew-half-of-north-st-louis-was-uninsured-for-decade-then-the-tornado-came/63-7041cd01-471f-4c0b-97e9-0285ce8fb69f

In four north St. Louis neighborhoods — ZIP codes 63107, 63113, 63115, and 63147 — roughly half the homes had no homeowners insurance in every year from 2015 through 2024. The rate bounced between 47 and 52 percent and never got better.

In 63107, the neighborhood hit hardest, the director of the state's insurance department told us directly: 73 percent of homeowners had no coverage. Among renters in that same ZIP code, it was 92 percent.

u/soljouner — 1 month ago
▲ 17 r/StLouis

The Post dispatch is running a series of articles about addressing the cities problems. They are not behind a paywall.

"The Post-Dispatch Editorial Board this week is publishing a series of editorials exploring how St. Louis can revive its troubled downtown/Downtown West corridor. That’s the more than two-square-mile stretch from the Arch grounds on the east, Jefferson Avenue on the west, Chouteau Avenue on the south, and just beyond Washington Avenue on the north.  We are keeping all the editorials in the series outside our paywall, free to everyone, to include as many community members in the conversation as possible."

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/article_c09dbd3b-fddc-4e44-afb4-c79e2d56dab8.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/article_58504152-3a26-42cb-918b-0b81370498e9.html#tracking-source=in-article

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/article_744f1eb4-fd2f-48dc-9e5e-257baf665848.html#tracking-source=in-article

u/soljouner — 2 months ago