City to Pedestrians: Don’t Cross Locust at 9th
The new Culinaria grocery store on 9th between Olive and Locust has helped to dramatically increase the number of pedestrians in the area near the store. A friend of mine pointed out something that I and many others hadn’t noticed at 9th & Locust (map).
When crossing Locust on the West side of 9th Street signs indicate that pedestrians should not continue straight ahead — they should use the crosswalk on the East side of 9th. The pedestrian above is crossing Locust while the light is green. The “use crosswalk” sign is seen on the right. No pedestrian signal exists, but many intersections downtown are missing such signals.
Note that the crosswalk stripes on the pavement have been covered over. So while the other side of the street is close enough to toss a quarter across the street the city doesn’t want you to cross here. Instead they want you to cross 9th twice as well as Locust. But why?
During the construction of the Roberts Tower has 8th Street closed between St. Charles St & Locust. Before then 9th Street was a one-way street Northbound. But with Southbound 8th closed part of 9th was changed to 2-way traffic. Before Culinaria opened 9th was 2-way up to Olive with traffic directed left on Olive (one-way Eastbound). But the two-way traffic was pushed back one block from Olive back to Locust. That meant Southbound traffic on 9th had to turn right at Locust, as the above signs indicate. The city took the lazy way out — giving drivers a right arrow and telling pedestrians that is not a valid crosswalk.
But person after person crosses at this non-crosswalk.
Most, but not all, wait for a green light:
The person above, crossing Locust walking Northbound, is going against the light. When the light turned green the couple with the stroller crossed as well. In fact, all that I observed crossed at this non-crosswalk. It is natural to cross at this point.
The city, I guess, put up the signs and covered the crosswalk stripes to reduce their liability in the event a right turning car from 9th onto Locust injures or kills a pedestrian. A cover your ass action. Except that a person with visual impairments is not going to see the signs. Their white cane or guide dog will read this as a conventional intersection. The solution in this case, to meet the ADA is to place a physical barrier that would be detected by cane. A guide dog would know not to cross to the other side.
But the real solution is to give pedestrians the right of way. Remove the right arrow from the traffic signal and use right arrows on the pavement so that motorists know they must turn right to avoid oncoming traffic. Signs cautioning drivers to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk would be good although my observation was that motorists were doing this anyway.
For the record using the East side of 9th coming from or going to Washington Ave is not an option.
Just a short block from Locust you can see that the above corner lacks a curb cut. The city needs to be more concerned about the flow of pedestrians.
– Steve Patterson
This is St Lou, a place where cars are more important than people. Numerous other examples of this absurdity abound in the region. What’s new?
A bike lane has been painted on Wydown and Clayton has found it necessary to place electronic signs that state “MO law, it is illegal to drive in bike lane, drive safely”. Reality: Cars use the bike lane to pass cars that are turning or backed up in traffic. Cars come FIRST in the Lou region and local political leaders wonder why depopulation continues. Cars Rule in the Lou!
I’m starting to learn some of the nuances of the ADA and its relationship to intersections. Technically as long as there is a safe route to cross(albeit longer),that is OK. However, just looking at the picture, I see no pedestrian signal activation button on the signal pole(besides it looks too far away from the curb ramp anyways if there was one there). Also, the truncated domes lead the pedestrian into the middle of the intersection another no-no. So really they couldn’t even get the basic curb ramp right.
Like you mentioned it looks like the City took the lazy way out my putting in the green arrow. Heck, they could throw up a jersey barrier with a big yellow arrow pointing right. The way it’s set up now is pretty confusing and I bet there is more than the occasional driver that keeps going straight and end up going the wrong way on a one way street.
It’s sad to see that even new construction doesn’t get ADA. In many cases accessibility is an afterthought for a project. It took MoDOT, what, 3 times to get the curb ramps on Lindbergh right?
I love your blog, but I must say you have a strange sense of grammar; I often have to read sentences twice to understand them.
Sadly, I don’t think it was a cheap way out, when the signals had to be adjusted anyhow for motorists. All the City had to do was retain a walk phase (automatic, not actuated) concurrent with the green phase for 9th and had a solid green (instead of right arrow) for southbound 9th, just as they do for northbound 9th. There’s even a sign telling motorists turning left from northbound 9th to yield to southbound, right-turning motorists. Well then, why not a sign for turning motorists to yield to pedestrians? In fact, the money used to install a special signal (right-arrow) is likely more than the cost of adding a yield-to-pedestrians sign for turning motorists.
Or they can do what they did at 11th and Market: Give all motorists a red light while pedestrians have a walk signal.
I never see pedestrians at 11th and Market and cars have to sit and wait for imaginary people to cross a very wide street. At 9th and Locust, the pedestrians really exist. Leave it to St. Louis to have the real pedestrians either inconvenienced or in danger.
The other half of the equation is enforcement (or the lack thereof) – I’ve seen very little actual enforcement of many “mundane” traffic laws around St. Louis city, things like jaywalking, rolling through stop signs or speeding 10-15 mph over on the freeways. “Enforcement” is apparently used mostly as an excuse to contact the driver to look for other, “more serious” crimes, things like drugs and weapons. Yes, we have serious crime problems, and yes, we have limited resources, so it’s no real surprise that jaywalking isn’t a priority for most officers. So, as your photos, illustrate, this is 1) a classic CYA move, and 2) most pedestrians will just continue to ignore the prohibition! Bigger picture, fewer one-way streets would benefit pedestrians throughout downtown . . .
Another alternative would be more one-way streets and the addition of the pedestrian scramble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble
So I was walking back to the office after running to Culinaria for some Thanksgiving groceries and I naturally crossed here, heading north as I returned to the Landing. I honestly didn't even see a sign saying “do not use” or whatever but once I made it across I remembered reading your blog and thought to myself, “this is absolutely the most WRONG thing I've seen the Streets Dept. do in a long time.” How ridiculously difficult would it have been to install a button-activated crossing signal that only required traffic to stop when a pedestrian activated it? Instead this is just like a slap in the face of people who want to walk/bike/wheel to the new grocery store. Absolutely absurd.