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St. Louis County Action Plan for Bicycling and Walking

Project Overview

In 2019, Alta Planning & Design alongside multiple partners, including Trailnet, began producing the County Action Plan for Bicycling and Walking.

The Action Plan will be a countywide plan that will provide a guide for improving walking and biking conditions throughout St. Louis County. It will also update the St. Louis County portion of the Gateway Bike Plan. The Action Plan will take a holistic approach to understanding the trends affecting transportation and mobility needs in St. Louis County.

The Action Plan will:

  • Address St. Louis County Complete Streets Policy and result in a plan for a network of bicycle and pedestrian facilities that also supports transit connections where appropriate.
  • Guide planning and design decisions for pedestrian and bicycle facilities on St. Louis County collectors and arterials and how they connect with existing and planned infrastructure throughout the region. While the plan will focus on St. Louis County’s classified roads, the entire bicycle and pedestrian network will be considered for planning purposes and facilities will be recommended based on best practices may provide basis for the reevaluation of prioritization of St. Louis County’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Transition Plan projects.
  • Update the portion of the Gateway Bike Plan on St. Louis County collector and arterial roads.
  • Identify long-term and short-term strategies for improving the bicycle and pedestrian network connectivity in St. Louis County and connections to Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) roads, municipal streets, and Great Rivers Greenway (GRG) facilities. Said strategies to include options for funding
  • Evaluate opportunities and benefits to making connections to existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities regardless of the operator of those facilities.

Plan4Health

Project Overview

Through the American Planning Association’s Plan4Health program, Trailnet led an opportunity to work in partnership with the Missouri Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA Missouri) to address how-to design streets to be safer for people walking and biking. The project was funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

APA Missouri and Trailnet received both a Plan4Health and Planners4Health program grant to join 35 Plan4Health coalitions to increase access to physical activity and healthy food — and 28 Planners4Health projects to continue the momentum by integrating planning and public health in chapters across the country.

Project highlights were:

Traffic Calming

Traffic calming makes streets safer for people who walk and bike by reducing the speed at which cars travel. Slowing car traffic and reducing cut-through traffic helps make streets feel more friendly, livable, and welcoming to residents of all ages. As defined by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, “Traffic calming involves changes in street alignment, installation of barriers, and other physical measures to reduce traffic speeds and/or cut-through volumes, in the interest of street safety, livability, and other public purposes.”

Trailnet has created a Traffic Calming Guidebook that is used to assist neighborhoods who want to implemented traffic calming solutions in their community. The Guidebook give pros, cons, photos, and cost estimates (if available) of the different types of traffic calming infrastructure that have been implemented across the City of St. Louis.

Project for Public Spaces created helpful tips and information to know, such as a traffic calming toolbox. Check out their Traffic Calming 101 toolbox for more information.

Examples of successful traffic calming:

Traffic Calming Lending Library

Traffic calming makes streets safer for people who walk and bike by reducing the speed at which cars travel. We built a toolkit to make it easy for everyone to create their own pop-up traffic calming demonstrations and show how streets can be designed for those who walk and bike.

Trailnet has materials available for individuals to use for traffic calming demonstrations. A list of available resources can be found within the Slow Your Street guide. If you are interested in checking-out the materials then please contact planning@trailnet.org.

Calm Streets

A Calm Street is a residential street transformed to reduce speeding and provide safety for everyone traveling there. Using traffic calming features such as speed humps and curb extensions, Calm Streets create an environment where people drive the speed limit and therefore preserve the safety of people walking and biking.

In 2014 Trailnet and partners educated more than 1,200 residents about Calm Streets through community meetings, walks, and outreach. From 2015 – 2016, Trailnet and partners worked through a strategic work plan for building Calm Streets, beginning with selecting pilot routes. In the fall of 2017 funding for the first pilot on Louisiana Ave. was awarded by East West Gateway Council of Governments through the Transportation Alternatives Program to the City of St. Louis. 

The pilot is a one mile section of Louisiana Ave. between Cherokee Street (north) and Meramec Street (south) to reduce speeding and improve safety. When these traffic calming elements were tested as a pop-up next to Marquette park in November 2016 people driving slowed down by over 10 miles per hour. Ten miles per hour is the difference for someone struck by a car having a 5% chance of dying (with the concept installed) or having a 45% chance of dying (current street layout).

The Louisiana Pilot will go for design in 2018, with construction expected to begin in 2021. Trailnet continues to work with the City of St. Louis to engage and plan for future Calm Streets across the city of St. Louis.

Read more about the Louisiana Project and Calm Streets through this link

Support this project by donating to Trailnet.

Please contact planning@trailnet.org for further questions or information in regards to our Current Planning Projects.