How Engineering & Roadway Design Can Create Safer Streets
Date Posted: November 2, 2023
Posted In: Discussion,
From St. Louis Public Radio: Crown Candy Kitchen owner Andy Karandzieff is tired of seeing drivers blast through the four-way stop at the intersection by his restaurant in Old North St. Louis.
“People drive with no regard for anything but themselves,” he said. “I tell people, ‘You shouldn’t worry about getting shot in St. Louis, you should worry about getting T-boned.”
Karandzieff has been working for years to get traffic calming measures installed at St. Louis Avenue and North 14th Street.
“Even if it’s not speed humps, I will take a flashing red signal, I will take bumpout curbs,” he said. “I want something to slow people down and maybe provide a little more safety for my customers, the people who live in this neighborhood.”
The 14th Ward, where Karandzieff’s restaurant is located, recently received approval for new speed humps. Ward 14 Alderman Rasheen Aldridge told St. Louis on the Air that humps will be installed in the neighborhood in 2024, though he added that the project still needs approval from Mayor Tishaura Jones. He said the speed humps should lead to traffic slowing the westbound and eastbound lanes of St. Louis Avenue near Crown Candy Kitchen.
Speed humps are one of many tools that cities can use to calm traffic and reduce speeds, said CBB Principal and Transportation Engineer Shawn Leight. “We can design intersections that are harder to blow through,” he said, pointing to traffic calming measures like raised crosswalks and curb bumpouts. The shape of the street itself can be changed using chicanes, which create curves in streets, or chokers, which narrow them.