St. Louis leads with model project for smart, green streets
- Kaid Benfield
- Director, Smart Growth Program, Washington, DC
- Blog | About
- Posted October 19, 2009 in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
A month-long test of a redesigned "complete street" on one of St. Louis's neighborhood thoroughfares has proven immensely popular with residents, prompting the city to go forward with full construction of the first of four planned demonstration projects for community-friendly streetscapes. According to a press release from the region's East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the city is narrowing traffic on a six-block stretch of South Grand Street from four lanes to three (two for though travel and a center lane for turning), and adding sidewalk and parking improvements "to calm traffic, create a more pedestrian-friendly environment, and encourage continued economic development." The city is also adding bike lanes on both sides of the street.
Miriam Moynihan writes in The Architect's Newspaper that the 30-day test, which used temporary structures and new lane striping for a three-lane configuration, was a huge success, with public feedback running ten-to-one in favor of the proposal. According to Moynihan:
"South Grand, the test site, is a busy street lined with restaurants and shops. But traffic, signage, and aging infrastructure are a problem. Drivers routinely speed, and the street saw 80 accidents and one pedestrian death in the first eight months of 2009.
Alderman Jennifer Florida, whose ward includes the west side of the street, points out that one major intersection has no cues at all for pedestrians to cross . . .
"The new design reduces four traffic lanes to three, changes the timing of traffic lights, adds curb 'bulb-outs' to reduce the amount of yardage pedestrians need to cross from 56 to 40 feet, and increases lighting and landscaping. About $2.7 million in federal stimulus funds have been awarded for the work."
South Grand, where construction of the street improvements will commence in the spring, is one of the locations selected for the East-West Gateway COG's Great Streets initiative. Alderman Steve Conway, who represents constituents to the east of the corridor, has also been a strong supporter of the project. The configuration put in place for the 30-day test will remain while construction is pending.
Fifty percent of the new portions of street and sidewalk infrastructure will be porous to absorb stormwater, according to the design team led by Design Workshop of Aspen, Colorado. Lots more details on the project are contained in an excellent booklet issued by the East-West Gateway COG.
A story posted on StLouisCore.com reports that the South Grand street project was proposed by the neighborhood's Community Improvement District as a way of boosting the economic health of the neighborhood through placemaking. I believe it is likely to do just that.
Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.
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Comments
Nick MacPhee — Oct 19 2009 09:34 AM
the bike lanes need to be far enough away from an opened door of the parked cars to be of use to cyclists of all ages and genders. Otherwise they are quite useless and give the illusion of being friendly. Given that the priority is pedestrians and parking, this is unsurprising, but a waste of resources.
Kaid @ NRDC — Oct 19 2009 11:37 AM
Nick, you are definitely right about the preferred method for establishing bike lanes, and it can be harder to do spatially in retrofits than when starting anew. But they still have time to get it right when the real construction begins, particularly since it's largely a matter of where the stripes are painted.
Barbara McCann — Oct 19 2009 01:53 PM
This is a great example of a community that made a commitment to do things differently through a Complete Streets policy, then worked with the skeptics to reassure them as they tried something new. And as is most often the case, the new street design turned out to be very popular! The first projects are the hardest, but perhaps also the most rewarding.
Terry Freeland — Oct 21 2009 12:24 PM
Thanks for the publicity. I'm the East-West Gateway COG project manager for this project, and I'd like to clear up a couple of things:
First, the project will not include designated, striped bike lanes. There's not enough room for those. Instead, bicyclists will share the travel lanes with motorists, with "sharrow" lines indicating this. The bicycle advocacy groups in the region (Trailnet, the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation, the East-West Gateway bike/ped advisory committee) all favor the "sharrow" approach.
Second, the booklet referred to does not necessarily include the details about what this project will accomplish. Those booklets (one created for each of the four Great Streets demonstration projects) summarize information about the concepts discussed during the first phase of the project. During this second phase, the concepts have been revisited and refined through public input, input from involved agencies and groups, and data gathered over the past few months.
Kaid @ NRDC — Oct 21 2009 12:35 PM
Thanks for clarifications, Terry, and congratulations on your very good work. I too am among the cyclists who find that riding in the roadway is often superior to various attempts to separate drivers and cyclists. And I look forward to learning about the further refinements as you continue your progress.
Dave Reid — Oct 21 2009 10:07 PM
@Kaid I don't know if you followed the S. 2nd Street discussion on UrbanMilwaukee.com but essentially it is a project much like this one, that at first the city was afraid of trying, but through some great efforts it will now be a complete street! Construction starts next summer! Check it out.