Due to COVID-19, Trailnet is shifting some of our spring and summer programming to new dates and new platforms. Since we can’t meet in person or hop on our bikes for a group ride, we’ve been coming up with some ways to stay engaged with our community while maintaining physical separation. Read below for more information on how we are adjusting to the situation. We’ll update this page as time goes on, so be sure to check back!
Trailnet Scavenger Hunts (NEW!) – Get out, get active, and stay healthy: Join Trailnet on their first ever scavenger hunt series! Our first event will be taking place April 15-19 followed by two May events in honor of National Bike Month. Check out our event page for more info on how you can participate.
Digital Dust Off (NEW!) – It’s getting warmer, plants are budding, and your bike’s got a flat tire. It always takes a little effort to get back in the saddle after a cold winter and even more so when you’re doing it alone, but Trailnet’s here to help! We’ll be hosting some online hangouts to cover a variety of topics from cleaning, to maintenance, to dealing with unpredictable weather and pandemics. We’ll also cover some of the basics like smart cycling and safe driving practices. Have any topics in mind? Email joe@trailnet.org to submit a request. Click here to head over to the event page.
Zwift Group Rides (NEW!): An indoor cycling group ride experience for you to do on your home trainer. Make the most of your quarantine by linking up with friends for a virtual cycling experience. We will be doing two events during National Bike Month, May 7th and May 21st.
Breakfast for Bikers (POSTPONED):April is here and so is that good biking weather we’ve all been waiting for! It’s also that time of year when local bike commuters might notice Trailnet’s Breakfast for Bikers program. Out of necessity, we are postponing our favorite bicycle encouragement program that gives out free coffee and pastries the third Friday of each month to safeguard the health and well-being of commuters and our partners who help make it happen. But don’t be dismayed – Trailnet is working on other ways to encourage biking! Stay posted for future events that aim to excite and inspire your bike life. You’ll have to bring your own coffee, though.
Bike Month & National Bike to Work Day (POSTPONED): Following national and local health guidelines, Trailnet will be postponing our normal programming for Bike Month and National BTWD until Tuesday, September 22. We will be following the new schedule as announced by the League of American Bicyclists. As the league states, May is still national Bike Month which means that Trailnet will be working hard to bring you things to do, on and off your bike.
If you were a participating DIY refueling station or bike home happy hour host in previous years, we invite you to continue your support of National Bike to Work Day. Click here to learn more about how your business or organization can take part!
Stay Safe, Rediscover, and Reconnect
We are excited to see so many people out riding, walking and safely using public spaces. However, fighting the spread of COVID-19 and caring for our neighbors and family is the immediate priority.
As the scope of our day-to-day shrinks and our perspectives shift more tightly in on the immediate community, our individual homes, and families, we’ve seen the need for core transportation increase.
Walking, biking and the use of public green space have become more popular during the pandemic as we saw in all of the State and County parks prior to their closing.
Our biggest hope to see a lasting and positive change after this crisis.
None of this outweighs the enormous impact and tragedy of COVID-19.
In this scary, uncertain time, we hope everyone can:
Stay safe, stay informed and take every step to stay healthy.
Rediscover our streets, sidewalks, and trails as places of refuge and shared value.
Reconnect (virtually) with loved ones, neighbors, and your community.
Thank you to the people working on the front lines of this crisis, our healthcare workers, grocery store and restaurant workers, delivery workers, transit workers, first responders, and everyone continuing to keep our community and nation running.
Please do whatever is within your means to support these and all people affected by this virus.
Most of all, stay safe.
You’re helping build a bike lane: Tower Grove Ave
Renderings from Cortex to Tower Grove Connector (2019)
Your membership supports our work to make St. Louis streets better for biking and walking.
Your support allows our team of committed advocates, planners and educators to engage lawmakers, community members, and partner organizations to build support and excitement for bike infrastructure improvements.
Cortex to Tower Grove Connector
Together with the City of St. Louis and other partners, we’ve developed this $9.3 million project and applied for a $6.5 million federal grant. This combination of public and private dollars would fund a two-way protected bike lane along Tower Grove Ave. and Vandeventer Ave. with additional bike and crosswalk improvements along Tower Grove ave and Sarah.
At every step along the way, our staff has been meeting with city officials, developers, community non-profits, neighborhood associations and other stakeholders. This was only possible through your generosity.
The Cortex to Tower Grove Connector would upgrade one of the busiest bike routes in the city, connect more people to Metro Link and make riding and walking along this route safer for people of all ages and abilities.
This grant is part of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program from the US Department of Transportation. This is a competitive grant aimed at reducing traffic congestion and improving environmental air quality. We will likely know this June if this project is recommended for funding with a final grant decision in August.
This started with you and it takes time.
Five years ago we surveyed our members to find out what would make you feel safe and comfortable riding bikes in St. Louis. Overwhelmingly, Trailnet members supported a connected network of protected bike lanes.
This led to the two-year Connecting St. Louis project that engaged 4,000 individuals in our community and 60 partners groups to identify the areas of greatest need for on-street bike improvements. Your support made this process possible.
As a result of all that community input, we published a network of recommended protected bike lanes, bike routes with traffic calming infrastructure and policy recommendations. These route and policy recommendations have been our roadmap for pushing the City and community partners to improve biking and walking infrastructure.
Following this roadmap and the priorities of members like you, we held meetings over the last year-and-a-half with aldermen, the streets department, community members and more to assemble support for these corridors, with Tower Grove Ave. as a key priority.
Design and Tradeoffs
The proposed Cortex to Tower Grove Connector is the result of blending ideal bike infrastructure designs with the real-world restrictions of the space, existing needs and cost.
Currently, Tower Grove Ave (between Tower Grove Park and Vandeventer) has two lanes of car traffic, two painted bike lanes, and two lanes of parking heading north and south.
The proposed design would shift both bike lanes to the west side of the street as a two-way protected bike lane, paralleling the park and continuing north. It would then shift to the east side of the street at the McRee intersection, with special traffic signals, and continue north to Vandeventer. At Vandeveter the protected bike lane would then continue on the east side of Vandevener up to Sarah, where it would shift back to the west side of the road. The route would then continue north, switching to a Calm Streets style treatment, North of Forest Park Parkway.
This two-way protected bike lane creates separate space for people riding bikes from car traffic and people walking on the sidewalk. Along with the physical barrier between bike and car traffic, this project also includes intersection and traffic signal upgrades, accounting for bike traffic, high-visibility crosswalks for people on foot, and a fiber-optic connection between each traffic light, allowing for the signals to be optimized to improve the flow of traffic.
Existing infrastructure, rain-water management, parking, construction costs, building standards, and numerous other competing factors lead to this current design. The two-way protected bike lane was chosen as a compromise between maintaining parking and car traffic lanes along the route. This kind of consensus and user-focused design is only possible when committed advocates like our staff work with engineers, stakeholders and neighbors to balance everyone’s needs while shepherding this project along from its initial conception.
Thank you for enabling us to do this work.
Moving Forward
We are confident that the Cortex to Tower Grove Connector is a strong candidate for federal funding. Following a potential announcement of funding in August, this project would then undergo a professional engineering study designing specific intersection and route improvements tailoring it to the needs of people who bike, walk, use wheelchairs or other mobility devices. This step could take up to a year, followed by another year of environmental review. Barring, potential delays, construction on this project could begin in 2022 or 2023.
This is an undoubtedly long and slow process, as are most infrastructure projects, however we are committed to follow this at every step along the way, ensuring it meets the needs of people of all ages and abilities.
Time is the most important tool to building streets for all people, and while we wish we could snap our fingers and start building, this patient advocacy and accountability are key to building a region where biking and walking are a way of life.
Thank you for your support of Trailnet and our focus on improving walking and biking and getting people moving.
Strawberry Ride | COVID 19 Cancellation
In light of the growing number of COVID 19 cases in our region, we have decided to cancel our 2020 Strawberry Ride in St. Jacob, Illinois scheduled for May 17th.
While this event was scheduled to begin after Missouri and Illinois’ existing shelter-in-place orders, it appears likely that these orders could be extended. There is currently not enough information about the future of this crisis for us to confidently host an event in May.
Our priority is and always will be the health and safety of our participants and host communities.
We contacted people who have already signed up to give them different registration options.
We are also working with our event partners to reschedule this ride and will keep you informed.
This is a very uncertain time, and while we hope to host as many of the 2020 Trailnet Classics as we can, we will continue to prioritize public health needs.
At this point, we have paused registration for our rides later this summer. Currently, all our other rides are set to continue as scheduled, but we will continue to monitor the situation and announce the decisions of our upcoming events.
These rides are important to us, our riders, and are part of our work to get more people biking in our region. Because of the support of our participants over the years, these rides have also grown to be a vital source of funding for our educational, planning and advocacy programs.
Thank you for your patience and understanding, we will keep you up to date on our plans as they evolve.
Stay safe.
Voice Your Support | Cortex to Tower Grove Connector
Act now for safer biking on Tower Grove Ave. Add your voice to those supporting a protected bike lane connecting Tower Grove Park to the Grove and Cortex.
You can help this project by submitting your comments for protected biking and walking infrastructure with the sample email below. The public comment section is open until this Thursday, March 26.
Last month, together with community partners, Trailnet worked with the City of St. Louis to apply for a $6.5 million federal construction grant to build a two-way protected bike lane (two-way cycle track) along Tower Grove Ave. and Vandeventer Ave. with additional bike and crosswalk improvements along Tower Grove Ave. and Sarah Ave., as well as signal optimization to decrease congestion.
This project which grew out of our Connecting St. Louis recommendations: the Cortex to Tower Grove Connector, would upgrade one of the busiest bike routes in the city to a protected bike lane, connect more people to Metro Link and make riding and walking along this route safer for people of all ages and abilities.
This grant is part of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program from the US Department of Transportation and managed by the East West Gateway Council of Governments (EWGCOG).
This is a competitive grant aimed at reducing car traffic congestion and improving environmental air quality, and you can help!
Help make this project a reality, add your voice today!
How To Comment:
We’ve included some draft language you can personalize to voice your support.
Follow this link (this doesn’t work in all web browsers). If directed to the EWGCOG site, select [St. Louis City] and [CORTEX-TOWER GROVE CONNECTOR] to submit a comment.
Or
Send an Email to: TIP@ewgateway.org
SUBJECT LINE: Comment on TIP 8218-23, CORTEX-TOWER GROVE CONNECTOR
-Copy and paste this subject line
-Copy, paste, and personalize the draft comments below:
Do you live or work in the community where the project is proposed?
I (live/work/travel through) near the Tower Grove Connector project.
Do you support, have concerns about or oppose this project?
I strongly support the Cortex-Tower Grove Connector Project (project number 8218-23)
What are the key reasons for your position?
This project will increase safety for people biking along Tower Grove and Vandeventer by providing physical separation between people biking and people driving. Tower Grove is currently one of the busiest corridors for biking in the City, and could really benefit from increased separation and more defined space for people who bike on this corridor.
The high visibility crosswalks along the corridor and new pedestrian crosswalk signal at Sarah will make it easier and safer for people walking to get across the street.
The traffic signal optimization will help alleviate congestion along the corridor and provide benefits to people who drive along this route, making this a winning project for all users.
This project will help address the poor air quality concerns we have in St. Louis by decreasing congestion through better-coordinated traffic signals (through people idling in cars) and providing people with safe transportation options other than driving a car in accordance with the City of St. Louis’ Sustainability Plan.
Anything else you’d like us to consider or comments you’d like to share about this project?
Name or organization:
Your first and last name
Tucker Boulevard Improvements Roll Forward
Tucker Boulevard between Chouteau Ave. and Washington Ave. is one step closer to seeing improvements recommended by Trailnet’s Connecting St. Louis Plan. This is thanks to the generous support of members and supporters like you, partners including The City of St. Louis, Downtown STL, People for Bikes, Alderman Jack Coatar, and a number of family foundations who are making this effort possible.
Creating a more people-centered Tucker is a primary recommendation of the Connecting St. Louis Plan. The plan recommends transforming the corridor to provide better downtown access for people on bikes and on foot. It also seeks to add bus stop improvements for the five bus routes on this corridor.
Trailnet funded a preliminary engineering study to bring this project closer to construction. It includes curb protected bike lanes on the West side of the street with floating bus islands, pedestrian refuge islands, crosswalk signal upgrades, and high-visibility crosswalks along the near-mile long section of Tucker.
This will make Tucker a more safe and pleasant place for those not in an automobile. It will also provide a safe and protected way for people on bikes to get over the rail yards to the south. The rail yards have been identified as a stressful and dangerous barrier to people getting into and out of downtown by numerous studies including the Downtown Multi-Modal Plan and Trailnet’s Connecting St. Louis plan. There is More to come, but this corridor is close to being transformed into a safer and more pleasant place for everyone. The next step is fundraising for the 20 percent match construction funds required for the City of St. Louis to apply for Federal Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds if they become available later this year. Stay tuned!
Trailnet Champion: Jeff Powell
Jeff Powell has been teaching kids about active transportation for 31 years. Jeff supports Walk/Bike to School days at Fairway Elementary School. Trailnet introduced the Walking School Bus to Fairway Elementary more than 10 years ago and worked with Jeff to help hundreds of kids walk and bike to school, teeing them up for a lifetime of active transportation. Alongside being a P.E. Teacher, Jeff also teaches mountain biking summer camps. Keep reading for a Q & A with Jeff about all his awesome work!
“Being an elementary PE teacher is my passion. Teaching kids to ride is just another avenue to share this passion.”
How did you become connected with Trailnet?
It was way back in 2004 when our school, Fairway Elementary, had just opened. I met Mandy Brady from Trailnet and learned about the program. Since Fairway Elementary was built in the middle of several neighborhoods, it was the perfect opportunity to teach the kids and families safe routes to school. I talked one of the PTO reps into being the school’s parent/teacher liaison for the event. Her name is Rebecca Timm and she worked wonders helping get other parents involved. Conveniently, Rebecca is also my sister. She had two kids of her own attending Fairway at the time, easy pickings. Trailnet was able to provide many suggestions, guidelines for the Walking School Bus Champions, and gave us connections to get our school moving forward safely. On October 7, 2005 we held the first Walk/Bike to School Day at Fairway. It still exists through our PTO. The first three years had unexpected attendance, 82%, 89%, and 92%! We still average about 90% each year.
What work have you done, or are currently doing, to advance walking and biking in St. Louis?
As a teacher, I support our PTO by promoting the school’s Walk/Bike to School Day each year in all of our PE classes. Along with this day, we teach street/neighborhood safety as part of our school’s Health curriculum. This includes walking and biking on the sidewalks, traveling in groups, obeying all traffic signs, stranger safety, and using your senses to be aware of your surroundings. To encourage the kids to ride and walk to school, I too frequently ride my bike to school since I lived in the same neighborhood. They get a kick of how I push a button, the doors open, and I ride down the hall right to the gym office.
Here in St. Louis I am a member of GORC, Gateway Off-Road Cyclists. Through them I found the chance to support their trail work as they “contribute a great deal of experience in designing safe, sustainable, multi-use trails.”
Can you tell us about your involvement in Bike Camps?
The first mountain club I sponsored was in 1991 at Parkway West High School. It was called the Parkway Wheels West mountain bike club as we were supported by the Wheels West bicycle shop. We would do rides together and it enabled the high schoolers a chance to try cross country mountain bike racing. In 1995, we took our first guys trip to Crested Butte Colorado. I’m still friends with several of them to this day. I have been teaching kids to mountain bike for well over 11 years starting with the district’s Community Education program. Being an elementary PE teacher is my passion. Teaching kids to ride is just another avenue to share this passion. The interest in this type of class has grown immensely over the years beyond that one annual summer camp. What started with three elementary kids and one PE teacher has become Wheels UP, LLC. Now with Cody Jones, we have instructed hundreds of young riders to discover the pure joy of mountain biking. Over the past 2 years this has come to include adults of all ages too. Our Youth camps are tailored out of the foundation of BICP based skills and lessons. We specifically cater our lessons to be safe while pushing skill progressions to help each rider achieve the soundest fundamental riding base. We offer different level rides to accommodate from a 1st time off-road rider to an experienced advanced skill clinics. We ride bikes, have a blast, learn bike-handling skills, and most importantly learn to be safe on a bike. You can find out more at WheelsUpmtb.com or follow us on Facebook.
Can you tell us about the Walking School Bus and the PTO at your school?
We call it “Walk/Bike to School Day.” Each year, our PTO sets this up as an all school function. It normally occurs on or near the International Walk to School date. As the flyer reads, “The idea is for students, parents, and friends to walk to school together with a purpose – to promote health, safety, physical activity and concern for the environment!” We also organize a BikeTrain to show how to safely ride bicycles to school. We PE teachers meet the kids and parents to lead them in a really long Bike Train of 30-60 participants.
What do you see as some of St. Louis’ biggest barriers to safer walking and biking?
Having a safe space to ride our bikes without interfering with others or having them risk our safety. We can work past these barriers by educating local communities on safety from both the cyclist’s and driver’s perspectives.
Do you have a preferred form of active transportation (biking, walking, transit, etc)?
I ride my bike to school most days. Mainly because it energizes me in a positive direction each day.
What keeps you at it?
Easy, my students. On the way to school I ride past five bus stops which gives us a chance to smile, say hi, and sometimes ride together.
In your opinion, what makes a city or region thrive?
The ability to find a common thread in the community. Find that common factor, finance it, build it, and they will come out to enjoy it. Kind of like that saying, if you build it, they will come.
What do you do for fun?
For fun? Easy answer, ride my bikes and teach kids. Mainly I stick to mountain biking here in Wildwood all year round. When we have a snow day at school it’s a play day for me and my Fat Bike. I really like going on bike trips to Colorado each summer with my buddies and more recently monthly trips to Northwest Arkansas. When the trails are wet riding the roads of Wildwood and hiking are the go to alternatives. When the weather gets warmer, I like to share the fun by leading weekly rides with kids through Wheels UP.
What do you do for work?
I teach Physical Education and Health in the Rockwood School District. This is my 27th year in the Rockwood School District, and 31st year in Education.
Any final thoughts or words?
Finding ways to get our kids outside and moving is critical to helping them become healthy, successful adults. The habits they develop now can and will lead them in a direction conducive to a happy life. Play Hard, Play Often, Be Happy.
Distracted Driving Laws are a Must-Have for Missouri
“It’s completely preventable.”
That’s a quote from MODOT’s Jon Nelson, talking about distracted driving deaths. Nelson was featured in a Post Dispatch story from last January about lawmakers’ efforts to pass a distracted driving ban.
Most traffic deaths are preventable, but deaths from distracted driving are preventable. That’s why passing a strong distracted driving law is vital.
Last year, 118 people were killed while walking by people driving in Missouri—the highest in 10 years. Despite a reduction in traffic deaths, distracted driving is a leading cause in crashes, and Missouri is one of only two states without meaningful distracted driving legislation.
This is a public health crisis. If 118 Missourians were killed by a new contagious illness it would be headline news, and authorities would act. Instead, those deaths are simply the cost of using our phones while driving.
While different state legislation has been introduced, varying in scope and detail, it is vital that Missouri lawmakers pass meaningful distracted driving legislation.
Trailnet supports banning drivers from using a smartphone or similar device while driving, including talking and texting, but still allowing voice-only or hands-free use; GPS navigation; calling 911 or roadside assistance. We also support the reasonable use of these devices for emergency personnel.
Convenience should never override safety. Until meaningful distracted driving legislation is passed in Missouri, it is still legal for people to drive down the highway or by a local school while staring at their phones.
-Cindy Mense, Trailnet CEO
Workzone Mobility Ordinance | St. Louis City
Last week, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen approved legislation to update how the city handles construction sites and their impact on sidewalks and bike lanes.
Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia sponsored the proposal that gives the city’s streets department more authority to keep sidewalks open and guidance to developers creating safe accommodations in the case of construction impacting sidewalks or bike lanes. These accommodations can include: covered sidewalks, fencing, scaffolding, and other safety improvements.
We support this change as an important step to prioritize the needs of people who walk, use wheelchairs or ride bikes. Our sidewalks belong to everyone and should safely remain open during construction.
We look forward to working with the streets department on incorporating some of our priorities into these changes, including: minimum sidewalk widths, bike lane accommodations, specific considerations for people with visual impairments or people who use wheelchairs, and appropriate lighting requirements.
The legislation also updates the permit fee structure creating a higher-fee for developers that want to close sidewalks on major roads and around downtown. The increased fees will allow the streets department to hire two additional inspectors to enforce the ordinance and an additional plan reviewer to give guidance to developers on creating safe and continuous temporary connections for non-automobile transportation users during construction.
St. Louis County Bike Reforms
St. Louis County is on the verge of prioritizing the safety of people on bikes, and other vulnerable road users through a change to the county traffic rules.
The proposed legislation prioritizes people’s safety and judgement when using lanes, creates a 3-foot passing rule, clearly spells out when people are allowed to ride side by side, creates protections for vulnerable road users, and extends rules for bikes to apply to e-bikes.
This week, the St. Louis County Council is set to vote on County Bill 385, introduced by Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway, which updates the county’s outdated rules on how people on bikes can use roads in the county.
Our streets belong to everyone and everyone should be free to safely use them. We are confident that these policies are an important step towards safer streets.
The original proposal was amended to include input from Trailnet and other advocates. We wish this went further by including similar language prioritizing the judgement of people on scooters, skateboards, rollerblades, and other wheeled mobility devices as well as other updates on e-bike rules. Likewise, laws are no replacement for road-design changes and infrastructure improvements, Trailnet supports this as a necessary and timely step to improve the law.
The current version of the legislation reforms the county traffic code by:
Prioritizing people’s safety and judgement
Currently, the county has a one-size-fits-none approach, requiring bike traffic to stay as far to the right as “practicable” with no exemptions. If taken by the letter of the law, this means, riding in the gutter, in the door zone or on the shoulder. People riding bikes any other way could be cited for violating traffic law.
The proposal gives people on bikes more flexibility under the law to use their judgment. It lays out different exceptions that more closely matches how people actually interact safely on the road.
It creates a default for people on bikes to ride in the same direction as traffic and to stay to the right side of the right-most lane. However, it prioritizes people’s safety and judgement when laying out conditions where people can use the full lane, shoulder, or change lanes to:
Avoid debris or other hazards
Avoid vehicles turning in right-turn only lanes
If the road is too narrow for bikes and cars to share the same lane
Preparing to make left turns
Passing slower traffic
Avoid other unsafe conditions
If people follow these rules and obey other traffic laws, they would not violate rules against impeding traffic.
3-foot Passing
It also adds a 3-foot passing law for people in cars when overtaking people on bikes. It requires people driving to:
Change lanes to pass, if there is a passing lane.
If there is no passing lane, people driving must still give the person on the bike 3 feet of space while passing.
It allows people driving to safely cross over the middle lane, even in no-passing zones, in order to give 3 feet to the person in the bike.
Riding Abreast
The legislation would also update the law to allow people on bikes to ride side by side on the street, which was prohibited under the old ordinance.
People may ride abreast if:
They don’t significantly impede other traffic
They are riding on the shoulder, bike lane, or bike path
The right most lane of traffic is too narrow to be safely shared between a person on a bike and a car
Vulnerable Road Users
The bill also defines Vulnerable Road Users including:
People walking
People using wheelchairs
People riding bikes and using scooters, skateboards, roller skates, etc.
People working on the roadway: construction workers, first responders
People walking pets
People in animal-drawn vehicles
People on mopeds or motorcycles
People driving farm equipment
The proposed ordinance also prohibits people driving in a “careless or distracted manner” if it causes injury to a vulnerable road user. This creates a penalty for distracted driving if it causes a crash, hurting a vulnerable road user. This falls short of an overall distracted driving ban, since state law currently prevents local governments from passing their own distracted driving traffic rules. This reality prevents counties and cities from exercising local control, blocking them from addressing this dangerous behavior.
E-Bikes
This bill also extends rules governing bikes to include e-bikes and motorized bikes. This is a somewhat imperfect approach, because it uses engine cylinder size and horsepower as criteria, which doesn’t necessarily capture the differences of an e-bike motor. However, its way of dealing with top-speed that mostly fits in line with state and federal approaches for e-bikes.
In an ideal situation we would like to see St. Louis County and the State of Missouri adopt the three class E-Bike system being used in twenty two other states.
We are excited to see so many people out riding, walking and safely using public spaces. However, fighting the spread of COVID-19 and caring for our neighbors and family is the immediate priority.
Tucker Boulevard between Chouteau Ave. and Washington Ave. is one step closer to seeing improvements recommended by Trailnet’s 
What work have you done, or are currently doing, to advance walking and biking in St. Louis?
