St. Louis’ most recent effort toward creating safer streets consisted of brightly painted tires, colorful cones, plants, and signs. The Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Partnership in the City of St. Louis is using pop-up traffic-calming demonstrations to raise awareness on how to create safer streets. The materials from the demonstrations will be used to develop a traffic-calming lending library.
Please watch this exciting recap that highlights the positive effect the Plan4Health grant has brought to the community.
This new opportunity for the City comes from a Plan4Health grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in partnership with the American Planning Association (APA) and American Public Health Association (APHA). The objective of the grant is to bring together those who work within planning and public health to improve their communities and make them become more loveable.
The City of St. Louis is like many other cities—built for cars to have the largest advantage in transportation. In the U.S., 12 percent of fatal traffic crashes involve people walking, In St. Louis, however, that figure is 36 percent. In the first six months of 2015, 15 pedestrians were killed in the City of St. Louis, many in hit-and-run incidents. These sobering statistics earned St. Louis a designation as a Focus City by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, joining 21 other U.S. cities in which pedestrian deaths are higher than the national average.
Data has shown that wider roads lead to a faster rate of travel for people driving. The graphic below illustrates how higher rates of speed lead to higher rates of traffic fatalities.
Many streets in the City of St. Louis were built to accommodate streetcars and high levels of traffic, so some residential streets are as wide as 65 feet. The traffic calming pop-ups have been a great way for the City and residents to start exploring what to do with the extra space.
Trailnet, a local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organization and partner within the HEAL Partnership, has been working to address this problem by implementing several pop-up traffic-calming demonstrations throughout the City of St. Louis. The purpose of the events has been to educate community members, elected officials, and city staff on how we can work together to create safer streets. The pop-up traffic-calming demonstrations are less-than-ten-hour events meant to measure the impact street designs have on people driving as well as listen to the community’s suggestions for safer streets.
The Plan4Health grant also offers a unique opportunity for the HEAL Partnership to develop a traffic-calming lending library so community members who are interested in demonstrating their own pop-up traffic-calming events have the resources and tools to use for free. The lending library will come with a toolkit that will list all available materials with instructions anyone can use on how to create their own pop-up traffic-calming demonstrations.
These lighter, quicker, cheaper tactics have already shown to be a catalyst for change within the City of St. Louis. The demonstrations have aided in creating new traffic-calming policies and the City of St. Louis has begun to use the traffic-calming lending library for community outreach.
These demonstrations are helping the City of St. Louis to create equitable places people love by bringing together planning and public health.
To learn more about the St. Louis Plan4Health project, click here.
The data from our 2015 walk and bike counts is in. Thanks to the 76 volunteers who donated 152 hours of their time to count cyclists and pedestrians throughout the St. Louis Metro region in September. Collecting such extensive data can be a real challenge, and it would not have been possible without them. You’ve helped make Trailnet a resource for advising the city and other organizations on transportation-related decisions. We have summited the data to the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, which compiles data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals. We also submit the data to local planning agencies and nonprofits to inform plans for better biking and walking.
Trailnet moves Calm Streets project forward with study tour
One of the best ways to advocate for better infrastructure is to allow decision-makers to experience best-practice designs first hand. We do live in the Show-Me state after all. Knowing this to be the case, Trailnet took City of St. Louis staff, elected officials, and partners to Portland, Oregon August 17 to 20. The study tour was part of Trailnet’s Calm Streets project—a project with the purpose of promoting the creation of a Calm Street network in the City of St. Louis. Calm streets are residential streetstransformed to reduce speeding and provide safety for everyone traveling there. On calm streets, traffic calming measures are used to reduce the volume and speed of motorized vehicles; increase space for landscaping and managing stormwater; and increase comfort for those walking and biking.
From left to right: Alderman Shane Cohn, Community Liaison Wendy Campbell, City of St. Louis Traffic Commissioner Deanna Venker, community partner Matthew Green of Park Central Development, and Alderman Scott Ogilvie get ready for the trip’s first bike tour of Calm Streets.
For two days, Trailnet’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, Jennifer Allen, led tour participants to meet with City of Portland staff and local organizations to learn about how Portland created successful Calm Streets and other low-stress infrastructure. They biked Calm Streets and protected bike lanes. They learned about the profound impacts rain gardens can have in managing stormwater as part of Calm Street design. They learned new best-practices and discovered new strategies for making a Calm Street network a reality in the City of St. Louis.
From left to right: Community Liaison Ramona Scott, Community Liaison Wendy Campbell, City of Portland Capital Program Manager Dan Layden, community partner Matthew Green of Park Central Development, and community partner Josh Goldman of Urban Strategies.
The tour was profoundly successful. It significantly strengthened the partnerships of those involved and everyone walked away with important realizations and strategies critical to the project’s success. Perhaps most importantly, the group came to understand that creating Calm Streets is really a low-hanging- fruit project that will meet many of the City’s goals, such as building more complete streets and reducing pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
Project partners do a mini-charette with City of Portland staff and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. City of St. Louis Director of Operations Todd Waelterman, Alderman Shane Cohn, and Board of Public Service Planning and Program Manger John Kohler pictured left to right in back.
One of the tour’s greatest impacts was strengthening relationships with City of Portland staff and providing tools to the City of St. Louis. After the tour, City of St. Louis Traffic Commissioner Deanna Venker, requested Portland’s design specs for traffic-calming design elements used on Portland’s Calm Streets. She, other Streets Department staff, and Aldermen are now working to create a traffic-calming policy for the City of St. Louis to describe permissible traffic-calming designs in the city. This policy is an important step along the way to seeing Calm Streets built with high-quality design.
Aldermen Cara Spencer and Scott Ogilvie check out a world-class protected bike lane
The current phase of The Calm Streets Project includes selecting pilot Calm Streets routes and devising strategies for creating a full network in the future. The Calm Streets Project is funded, in part, by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Word choice matters. The words “Crash” and “Accident” are often used to describe the same event, but in reality each word conjures up very different images. An “accident” just happens. Accidents can’t be reasonably predicted or avoided. A “crash,” on the other hand, is the result of choices made and risks disregarded. Crashes don’t just happen; somebody is at fault in a crash.
A majority of fatal road crashes are caused by intoxicated, speeding, distracted, or careless motorists. They are NOT just unfortunate events. The victims were NOT simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Deadly crashes in the St. Louis region this year are too numerous to list here. They include the January crash precipitated by Hazelwood motorist William Goad, who was driving more than twice the speed limit on Gallatin Lane in Bridgeton when he struck and killed Bridgeton resident Duane Johnson, who was riding his bicycle. That was no accident. More recently, in September, the 18th pedestrian fatality in the City of St. Louis this year occurred when a hit and run driver sped through St. Louis’ Fairground Park on a Sunday afternoon and killed Nathaniel Thomas, 29, as he crossed the street. That was no accident.
Trailnet, and many other transportation advocates, want to change how we talk about traffic collisions in this country. When one motorized vehicle careens into another, or turns into an oncoming cyclist, or rounds a corner right into a pedestrian — call it a “crash,” not an “accident.” Words matter, and the way car crashes are framed has a powerful effect on how they are perceived. If thousands of preventable traffic injuries and deaths per year are described as accidental, why bother with thorough investigations to uncover root causes and determine potential solutions?
The first of four pop-up traffic calming demonstrations will take place this Saturday, October 10, in Dutchtown on the 3100 block of Gasconade Street. Come out and see proven methods for making safer streets. Representatives from the Healthy Eating, Active Living Partnership, including Trailnet staff, will be at the corner of Compton Avenue and Gasconade Street from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to foster discussion with the community.
Trailnet is currently seeking volunteers for all four events. Those interested can sign up for a time slot below.
Trailnet has been working to compile a database of our projects aimed at demonstrating methods to slow traffic, increase pedestrian and bike activity, and decrease accidents in the area. The collection of projects make up what we are calling our Traffic Calming Library.
Below is a sneak peek at how the Traffic Calming Library is coming together. The painted tires will be used in our pop-up demonstrations.
For more information on the demonstrations, check out our press release and the following fliers:
Trailnet brings 25 regional leaders to innovative walking and biking conference
Justin Carney
The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals Professional Development Seminar took place in St. Louis September 28 – October 1. Trailnet applied to host the conference in St. Louis as a way of building the capacity of our leaders to further improve walking and biking. As the presenting sponsor and host committee coordinator of the conference, Trailnet provided free registrations to 25 regional leaders. These leaders realize the important impact Trailnet is having on our community by providing access to education about cutting-edge infrastructure and strategies. Here’s what a few of them have to say:
Justin Carney, Senior Planner, Strategy + Innovation, Office of County Executive, St. Louis County
“A scholarship is important for me as someone in the County where budgets are slim and training opportunities are slim, but it’s still very important for us to be part of the conversation. As we’re developing and implementing our Complete Streets policy, which brings our health, planning, and transportation departments together, it’s necessary to have all of those departments represented. The scholarships allowed us to have an interdisciplinary presence at the conference and it’s been really beneficial for us.”
Jim Wild
Jim Wild, Interim Executive Director, East-West Gateway Council of Governments
“It’s important that Trailnet and other groups provide access to conferences like these so we can learn effective strategies to create a well-rounded transportation system to create a better quality of life for our region.”
Larry Welty (pictured right) with John Hicks, St. Louis County Transportation Development Analyst
Larry Welty, Improvement Programs Manager, Transportation and Public Works, St. Louis County
“The detailed information from the conference is inspiring and reenergizing. Everyone was impressed with the mobile tours of the Arch and the riverfront. It was great for us to tell the story of what’s so great about St. Louis.”
Nichalos Gardner
Nichalos Gardner, Director, Transportation and Public Works, St. Louis County
“I think the conference definitely created more of a synergy and energy around improving the transportation network—to get more pedestrians and bicycles on the road. I also hope it’s going to help with our education of the public—getting them involved and helping them understand exactly what needs to be done. Good conference!”
Trailnet teaches youth about active living during bike weeks
For students at several schools in Webster Groves and Kirkwood, PE class now includes bicycling! In September, Trailnet worked with the Webster Groves Computer School and Keysor Elementary in Kirkwood to teach kids bike handling skills, rules of riding safely, and some basic bike mechanics.
Trailnet staff presented the “ABC Quick Check,” an easy way for kids and parents to make sure that a bike is safe to ride before taking a spin. Students learned how to measure tire pressures, how to change a flat, and how to check their brakes and chain.
Keysor students were also introduced to Trailnet’s advocacy efforts aimed at making the St. Louis region a better place to ride a bicycle. Asked whether they thought a kid could be an advocate to improve bike safety, students were eager to give examples of how they might make a difference in their community. Their ideas included: “if I saw a pothole in the street I would call city hall and tell them to fix it”…“we need a crosswalk on my street – I am going to write to the president”…”when I see trash on the sidewalk I stop and pick it up.”
Robinson Elementary, another Kirkwood school, is holding its first Bike Week this week. Trailnet looks forward to helping make the week a big success and to sharing the thrill of bicycling with a new group of kids.
Thanks to Great Rivers Greenway for providing funding for these bike education programs.
A movement to end traffic deaths and disabling injuries known as Vision Zero, which began as an Act of Parliament in Sweden in 1997, is gaining traction in the U.S. where traffic fatalities are twice that of EU countries and almost twice that of Canada.
Vision Zero is a philosophy, a policy, and a paradigm shift. It holds that “all traffic deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable and preventable.”
The U.S. Conference of Mayors endorsed Vision Zero this year, and ten cities including New York, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Seattle are developing or implementing Vision Zero plans.
Vision Zero cities have taken these steps:
The Mayor has publicly, officially committed to Vision Zero.
A clear goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries has been set.
A Vision Zero plan or strategy is in place, or the Mayor has committed to doingso in clear time frame.
Key city departments (including police, transportation and public health)are engaged.
Vision Zero is a Trailnet priority because the St. Louis region is now at a five‐year high for traffic deaths. It’s time to systematically address and ultimately end the crash carnage. Trailnet urges Mayor Slay to publicly announce a commitment to Vision Zero and embark on the other three steps necessary to make St. Louis a recognized Vision Zero city. We will be an engaged partner in this bold journey.
Walk audits identify need to calm traffic
The Federal Highway Administration recently flagged St. Louis as a focus city for its high rate of traffic-related deaths. Of all pedestrian-related traffic crashes in the state of Missouri, 24 percent occur in the city of St. Louis. This year, 18 pedestrians have been fatally struck in the city. This is more than those killed in the previous two years combined.
While the data is alarming, Trailnet has been working to unite St. Louis neighborhoods to improve safety for people who walk and ride bikes by organizing walk audits.
Walk audits are guided walking tours meant to bring together local stakeholders and evaluate how the built environment affects their communities. The walk audits target the neighborhoods of JeffVanderLou, The Ville/Greater Ville, Dutchtown, and Carondelet.
The primary concern voiced by participants throughout the audits was the speed of motor vehicles moving through their neighborhoods. Residents shared that people driving would often blow through stop signs and drive around curb corners at a high rate of speed.
The audits also revealed that many crosswalks did not meet requirements set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act as they were missing curb ramps and/or markings. In addition, many existing crosswalks were fading and needed to be re-striped.
The objectives for the walk audits include:
Ensure participants know what’s working and what’s not for safe walking in their neighborhood.
Endure participants can talk confidently about what needs to be fixed and know how to report it.
Ensure participants have identified potential long and short-term projects to improve walkability.
Trailnet was recently awarded a Plan4Health grant in collaboration with the HEAL Partnership, providing resources for the organization to conduct the walk audits.
The walk audits were essential to the progress of Trailnet’s work with Plan4Health in identifying four pop-up traffic calming demonstration locations, which will take place this October and November. The demonstrations are meant to educate communities on what neighborhoods would look like with features meant to reduce traffic speeds and encourage safety.
The audits also helped Trailnet in its work with the city’s Board of Public Service and Streets Department to create site plans for the demonstrations.
Here’s a sneak peak at how the site plans are coming together:
Plan4Health Traffic Calming Library Update
Trailnet has been working to compile a database of our projects related to traffic calming. The collection of projects make up what we are calling our Traffic Calming Library. These projects aim to slow traffic, increase pedestrian and bike activity, and decrease accidents in the area. While the library has been coming together quite well, we are continually brainstorming creative ways to create more traffic calming demonstrations.
Additionally, in aiming for sustainability, Trailnet pursues traffic calming demonstrations that can be installed with reusable materials. One method involves using old tires to create narrow areas of the street—referred to as chicanes—in order to slow traffic.
To actively engage residents and enhance the appearance of these installments, participants spent a day spray-painting tires a variety of colors. It was even more fun rolling them out to the streets on which they once carried vehicles–then repurposed to make for safer, slower roads.
The photos below provide glimpse of how things went at the Jefferson Collaborative for the South City Health Festival in Fox Park on a sunny, warm August Saturday.
Trailnet staff preps tires for pop-up traffic calming demonstration.
Spray-painted tires meant to stand out when used for curb bump-outs.
Paint set our for a temporary crosswalk in the Fox Park neighborhood.
We installed a small parking space park during our event in Fox Park in August.
We demonstrated a number of different traffic calming methods during the Fox Park event. These included a temporary crosswalk and curbside bump-outs.
The Plan4Health grant has further helped spur new projects for Trailnet to promote pop-up traffic calming demonstrations. This purple crosswalk is one of the many changes we envision and hope to occur from our pop-up traffic calming demonstrations.
For more information about Plan4Health, contact us at trailnet@trailnet.org .
Word choice matters. The words “Crash” and “Accident” are often used to describe the same event, but in reality each word conjures up very different images. An “accident” just happens. Accidents can’t be reasonably predicted or avoided. A “crash,” on the other hand, is the result of choices made and risks disregarded. Crashes don’t just happen; somebody is at fault in a crash.
The Federal Highway Administration recently flagged St. Louis as a focus city for its high rate of traffic-related deaths. Of all pedestrian-related traffic crashes in the state of Missouri, 24 percent occur in the city of St. Louis. This year, 18 pedestrians have been fatally struck in the city. This is more than those killed in the previous two years combined.
Trailnet was recently awarded a 
