Courtesy of Lemen Streets and Sewers Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, St. Louis Public Library
Northeast corner of Compton and Gravois, c. 1930
The recent release of the Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State by the Governors Highway Safety Association offers a perfect opportunity to discuss another seminal year in St. Louis. In January 1955, the Interregional Highway opened, connecting downtown to Gravois Avenue. The City Planning Commission, headed by Harland Bartholomew, had placed St. Louis and the region’s future in the hands of the automobile—for better or for worse. Following on the bond issue before World War II that had widened major thoroughfares throughout the city, St. Louis was now slated to receive the federal funding for what was often a redundant set of high-speed traffic lanes only blocks away from their prewar counterparts. The six-lane Mark Twain Expressway crashed through North Side neighborhoods only five blocks away from the seven-lane North Florissant Avenue, while block-wide right-of-way of the Ozark Highway (I-55) largely duplicated the six-lane-wide Broadway.
What does this have to do with pedestrian safety? It has a lot to do with it. The needs of the automobile and pedestrian are diametrically opposed, whether or not we want to admit it. Recent media reports have touched on the danger of Broadway and other wide streets in St. Louis. As the authors of Suburban Nation noted in 2000, drivers will frequently drive the speed they feel safe at traveling. The term highway engineers use to describe the effect that will slow drivers down and operate their vehicles more safely is called friction. Remove friction from a street, the faster and more recklessly drivers will drive.
One of the biggest historical mistakes urban traffic engineers made in the mid-20th century that has affected urban pedestrian street life and safety has been the creation of dual one-way traffic routes. The most infamous is the Broadway/4th Street corridor in downtown St. Louis. Broadway is three to four lanes wide southbound, depending on how many lanes are blocked by construction vehicles, and 4th Street is the same, heading northbound. In the north, the two streets funnel traffic on and off what is now I-44, but what St. Louisans have known for most of their lives as I-70. It is little surprise that automobiles flying off southbound I-44 onto Broadway often continue to drive at highway speeds, barreling down the artery with reckless abandon. It is truly shocking, and the tragic deaths of pedestrians south of Busch Stadium in the last couple of years shows the results.
Northbound on 4th Street, drivers jockey for the prize of who can fly onto northbound I-44 first just north of Laclede’s Landing. There is little friction along these two streets to make drivers behave. To put it more bluntly, people drive more slowly and carefully if they’re worried about crossing over the center line of a two-way street and hitting someone head-on. Little wonder that there are so many collisions on these one-way streets, as reported recently in local media—traffic engineers have proven people drive more recklessly the safer they think they can get away with doing so. I also must wonder that the pedestrian safety conditions along these two physical barriers might be one reason attendance at the newly renovated Gateway Arch is down. Who can honestly say they enjoy crossing Broadway and 4th Street in downtown St. Louis? Anyone who’s had to cross those streets recently is surely not surprised that pedestrians traffic death are at their highest since 1988, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association report. And where is it written that these two streets must remain one-way traffic nightmares? They were not historically one-way streets; 19th-century photographs prove this fact.
Likewise, pedestrian-oriented streets are still safe for automobiles, something that is not true when a street is widened for the latter. The recent availability of photographs for the intersection of Compton, Wyoming, and Gravois reveal that the intersection was not always a massive swath of concrete allowing for the rapid movement of cars to the detriment of pedestrians. In fact, before Gravois was widened, it was a relatively narrow street, and photographs reveal delivery trucks parked along it, and corner saloons and stores facing the streets. Today, the area is largely devoid of foot traffic and isn’t even safe for its intended use: automobile movement. It is little surprise that Gravois remains a street largely devoid of life, littered with abandoned storefronts and dilapidated houses.
Courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
Northwest corner of Jefferson and Gravois, c. 1950
The situation is not much different northeast up Gravois at Jefferson and Sidney. The northwest and southwest corners are autocentric suburban-style stores, with curb cuts that interrupt the sidewalks in front of busy bus stops. Automobiles flying down Gravois swing into the stores’ parking lots as pedestrians enter and exit the busy bus routes. Historic photos again reveal that originally sidewalk business faced the intersection, allowing for a safer environment. But already by the 1940s, the image by William Swekosky shows a Gravois increasingly geared toward the automobile.
What is the solution? The answer is a combination of looking to the past, guided by the photography at our disposal that shows how much more pedestrian friendly our city used to be. I am not under any naïve impression that there were not pedestrian deaths in the past; a review of historic newspapers reveals plenty of fatal collisions between vehicles and people on foot. Road diets on major thoroughfares whose traffic capacities are redundant because of interstates, should continue; I’ve written about this before. And finally, combining historic precedent with modern scientific traffic calming is necessary. It’s working in Tower Grove East along the Compton Avenue corridor, in a perfect example of a partnership between aldermanic leadership and residents. It can work elsewhere in the city, as well.
