Will the State DOT Support St. Louis’s Sustainable Transportation Surge?
Date Posted: September 24, 2024
Posted In: Discussion, Environment/Sustainability, Projects,
From Streets Blog: When Jen Wade describes what she does for a living, she says she works for a “maintenance organization.”
It’s a funny thing to say about the Missouri Department of Transportation, which is actively expanding hundreds of miles of interstate in addition to patching potholes and re-striping lanes. In the city of St. Louis, though, where Wade serves as MoDOT’s area engineer, she says the top priority is always upkeep — even if certain “improvements,” like adding bike lanes, have fallen by the wayside.
“When we’ve gotten feedback from our residents, we hear, ‘We need you to take care of the system that we have first,’” she said. “’And then, after that, you can expand or improve.’”
But that may already be changing.
On a recent bike tour of St. Louis hosted by Mayor Tishaura Jones which I attended, Wade told a crowd of staffers and advocates about a slate of safety-focused redesigns coming soon to MoDOT-maintained roads within the Gateway City. Those efforts — which are largely funded by federal formula grants and attached to repaving projects — represent a significant chunk of the $300 million of multimodal investment that will be installed in the Missouri community over the next three years, and, some say, a promising evolution of the agency’s relationship with the city.
“It’s typical for cities and state DOTs to have tense relationships,” said Scott Ogilvie, the city’s Complete Streets manager. “But I feel like both city staff and MoDOT staff have really committed themselves to working very closely together over the last several years, and building a strong and open line of communication.”