In the last year or so, the City of St. Louis has been resurfacing and, at points, reshaping six of its most popular corridors. Thanks to $40 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, what were once pothole-scarred arteries are now smooth. Many also have new traffic-calming features—concrete designed to narrow the street and force drivers to slow down.
But at one high-volume intersection, instead of feeling calmed, motorists are fuming. Scott Ogilvie, the city’s planning executive for transportation, acknowledges that South Grand’s intersection with Magnolia Street, where Shaw, Tower Grove East, and the northeast corner of Tower Grove Park meet, has generated significant complaints. As new ARPA-funded features funnel southbound drivers into a single lane, the striping feels confusing to many—and, perhaps due to St. Louis’ longstanding difficulties with zipper merges, traffic now backs up for blocks where it once flowed.
Some of that slowdown is intentional. Cyclists and pedestrians begged for traffic calming near the park after some high-profile crashes. It also seems inevitable that traffic calming is popular in theory and irritating when you’re the one driving—and have somewhere to go…