I rode down to Carondelet Park recently to take a ride on the River Des Peres Greenway.
I noticed the impressive traffic calming measures taking place in the park at the southern terminus of Grand Boulevard where it runs into Holly Hills and then Grand Drive and Loughborough Drive.
This series of roads actually go right though the park making it an ideal setting for slowing cars down.
I was on my bike, so I didn’t really get to experience it in my car, but I’ll come back soon to give it a shot. I did pull over and watch the traffic flowing through the double roundabouts. The take home is that people do not know how to use roundabouts.
I’m not trying to come off like some world-traveling hot shot who knows how to navigate roundabouts, but I did learn how to drive in Belleville, Illinois which has a roundabout at the center of their “town square” downtown. I got used to them at an early age.
A roundabout was recently installed at Nebraska and Sidney Street in my neighborhood and that reinforces my opinion that folks are just not aware of how to approach traffic calming. I wrote about these efforts back in 2018.
I think the roundabout above only lasted a short time before someone plowed into it. It has since been fixed.
They are becoming more prevalent though, and it seems with the Carondelet Park traffic calming and now the Natural Bridge efforts underway, this it is something we better get used to.
And man, does it work at slowing traffic down and making it easier to cross the street on foot or on a bike.
Here’s a short video of the speed of traffic on a busy weekend. Note the speed and fact that the minivan isn’t being let in as the folks heading to I-55 or Loughborough Commons are “in a hurry” and not letting people in from the other direction. Interesting psychology there.
One of the signs has already been knocked over. There are tire marks on the medians. These are the necessary (hopefully temporary) scars required to teach St. Louis drivers the hard lessons of slowing down and not being on auto-pilot.
Make no mistake, it works. And frankly it looks good. It looks like we care, like we’re trying to slow cars down so people have a chance to move around safely and freely, like we are investing in us and our parks, not just our cars.
A couple things I noticed is the signage is prominent and adequately warns you of roundabouts.
Even the new-ish Carondelet Park way finding signs are charming as they have the location of a mulch pile! So South City in all the good ways.
The crosswalks have been repainted and include ADA access.
I’m no traffic engineer or urban planner, but I like seeing speed humps and traffic calming efforts as a constant walker, scooter/bike rider and engaged citizen. I even like them as a driver, it’s a reminder to not be so selfish.
I give it a thumbs up. More please.
