After a pair of devastating vehicle accidents in the past two weeks rocked St. Louis, Mayor Tishaura Jones signed the St. Louis Safer Streets bill on Wednesday the first citywide investment in road and pedestrian safety Jones, who was joined at the bill signing by Board of Aldermen President Megan E. Green and Board of Public Service President Rich Bradley, said “Traffic violence tears families and communities apart, and to all those who say they feel scared on our roads: I hear you.”
“Parents in our city are asking ourselves: How can we teach our teenagers how to drive in a city where the rules of the road can feel more like suggestions? This bill makes a historic investment in St. Louis’ infrastructure, prioritizing road safety to help calm our streets while discouraging dangerous driving.”
“Engineering is just one piece of road safety strategy, and the city is also exploring automated enforcement like red light cameras to help hold reckless drivers accountable when they break the law.”
According to the mayor’s office, St. Louis Safer Streets will implement already completed traffic studies that have lacked funding; making improvements in 10 dangerous, high-crash intersections and improve the Goodfellow, Union, Jefferson, Kingshighway, and Grand thoroughfares.
On February 18, motorist Daniel Riley was involved in an accident that caused another car to pin 17-year-old volleyball player Janae Edmondson underneath, leading to the amputation of both her legs. He had violated his home arrest warrant more than 50 times but remained free.
Early Sunday Feb. 26, Sunday a two-vehicle wreck on Forest Park Parkway and South Grand near SLU’s campus claimed four lives. Police say the driver of a Chevy Impala, who fled after the deadly accident on foot, was going south on Grand drove around stopped traffic and into the northbound lanes.
The driver then ran a red light on S. Grand, and hit a Chevy Tahoe, causing the Tahoe to hit the bridge guardrail and fall off the bridge, where it landed upside-down on Forest Park Parkway.
There were eight occupants of the Tahoe, four were pronounced dead at the scene, and four are listed as being in critical condition. Police identified the victims who died as Bryanna Johnson, 18, of St. Louis; Anthony Robinson, 19, of Jennings; Contrail McKinley, 20, of St. Louis; and Richard Boyd, 19, of St. Louis.
The investment comes after 2022 was marked as the second-deadliest year in the city’s history for traffic violence, which claimed 78 lives. The previously highest year on record, 2020, saw 80 crash deaths. In 2020 nationally, 17% of fatal traffic crashes in the U.S. involved pedestrians. In St. Louis that figure was 28% in 2021. The United States has had a steady increase in the number of pedestrian fatalities from 2010 to 2020. Pedestrian deaths increased by 54%, while all other fatalities increased by 13%.
“Deploying traffic calming solutions is a multi-step process: Study, design, bids, then construction,” said BPS President Rich Bradley.
“Currently, the city has traffic studies in key areas that lack the funding to move forward. This bill will move these studies into the design phase. Once the designs are complete, the work is then bid out. Infrastructure work is complicated and takes time, but BPS is moving as quickly as possible towards construction of road and pedestrian safety measures.”
BPS will review the list of possible projects and locations, matching funding to move along the most impactful improvements. The design process for improvements begins in spring 2023, with designers ready to begin work. Designs will be complete by the end of this year and the first quarter of 2024. Construction will begin in 2024.
Mayor Jones also stressed that along with engineering, the city will work to improve education and enforcement around current driving laws. In 2022, SLMPD issued 8,132 speeding tickets and 2,718 tickets for signal violations.
Mayor Jones said the city will revisit operational use of red light cameras, which have been proven in other cities to reduce crashes, traffic violence, and reckless driving behavior.
She said any red-light camera program deployed by the city would” safeguard privacy, ensure due process as outlined by the Missouri Supreme Court, and be continuously assessed for effectiveness and impact on communities of color.”
