ST. LOUIS—City officials are looking for public feedback this week to plans designed to make the Grand Boulevard arterial corridor safer for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. The first of two open house-styled meetings this week takes place Tuesday night at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club building on North Grand.
Work on the Grand corridor is part of a larger city-wide effort funded through a 2023 Safer Streets bill that uses at least $40 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars to pay for the design and implementation of traffic calming and road improvements for completed traffic studies. It also funds traffic-calming and ADA improvements for the Grand, Union, Goodfellow, Jefferson and Kingshighway corridors, and addresses safety improvements at the top 10 city crash locations.
The portion of Grand Boulevard extends from Holly Hills Ave. in the south to Hall St. to the north.
Officials would not reveal any of the renderings ahead of Tuesday’s event, which begins at 4 p.m.
Once they’re released to the public Tuesday, they will be available online. City officials want public feedback on where improvements are needed most on Grand Blvd. Project team members will be on-site to answer questions until 8 p.m.
The same format will be used at a second forum Thursday starting at 4 p.m. at St. Mary’s High School.
A February 2023 accident that killed four drew particular attention to the Grand corridor. A hit and run driver who ran a red light on South Grand struck another vehicle, sending it onto Forest Park Parkway where it landed on its roof. Four people inside that vehicle under the age of 20 died in the wreck, including a parent who left behind a 2-year-old son.
When St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed the Safer Streets bill in March of last year, officials hinted that the city was interested in bringing back a red light camera enforcement system, but under new rules that would protect against the due process issues which doomed the previous system.
Delays tied to a related bill to govern police use of surveillance tools held up the camera bill until it was ultimately signed into law this past April. City leaders have said the automated traffic enforcement may not come online until next year.
Construction tied to the Safer Streets program is expected to begin in early 2025.
