Work on improving safety along Route 100 in St. Louis has started.
The six-mile stretch of road that runs between Broadway and the St. Louis city limits along Chouteau and Manchester avenues has seen over 1,500 crashes in the past five years.
This rate is four times higher than other similar state routes, said Missouri Department of Transportation St. Louis District Engineer Tom Blair.
The $7 million project seeks to improve safety along the corridor by resurfacing the road, reducing the number and width of lanes, adding safety improvements to crosswalks and installing protected bike lanes. It is allocated $4 million from MoDOT safety funds and $3 million for resurfacing.
The six-foot-wide bike lanes will be separated from the road by six-inch-tall curbs and a parking lane.
Matt Wyczalkowski with the Coalition to Protect Cyclists and Pedestrians said he is excited for the change.
"I think this is a very important street, this is a big street, this is a street that a lot of cyclists use," Wyczalkowski said. "Having these improvements will make things a lot safer for bikers."
His organization attended public meetings to advocate for the change and is also supporting safety improvements along Gravois Avenue.
This was the first state-maintained route to add painted bike lanes and now it is the first to add protected ones, Blair said.
Other projects across the city, including a recently completed one on Seventh Street, also include protected bike lanes.
In the hopes of reducing driving speed, the number and width of lanes will be reduced.
"Safety directly correlates with speed," said Alderman Michael Browning of the Ninth Ward. "The faster that cars go actually means more crashes, more injuries, more fatalities."
The additional space on the road will be used to install medians and will allow for the wider bike and parking lanes.
The final major safety improvement is changes to mid-block crossings, or crosswalks that are not directly connected to traffic signals. Medians will be added in the middle of crosswalks for pedestrians to stop if they can't make it all the way across the street. Other crosswalks will be enhanced with increased lighting and signage to make pedestrians more visible to drivers.
Work has begun on adding and moving bike lanes and street parking along Manchester Avenue near Kingshighway.
Construction is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
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