Bike Lanes & Street Re-Paves

People love streets. If a candidate could somehow ensure that they’d fix all the streets in Kirkwood, they could run on any platform they desired, build a fourteen story tall McDonalds on every corner say, and win the election going away. I, however, do not very much care about streets at all. At least with regards to how easy it is to drive a car on them. I do, however, care about bike lanes. So sure, we’re here for different reasons but we’re here nonetheless. And that’s what matters. Let’s get to it.

The Current Situation

Last week we talked about the improvements coming to West Essex between Geyer and Kirkwood Rd. While those improvements are really good, it got me thinking about a larger issue on the front of walkability in Kirkwood. Kirkwood, as far as suburbs of rust belt cities go, is pretty walkable, especially in its downtown core. But somehow that walkability has not converted to other categories of alternate modes of transportation. While the heart of Downtown Kirkwood has a walk score of 85, that exact same area’s bike score is nearly half that at 48 (our transit score in DTK is 26… yikes). The single biggest reasoning for this difference seems to be a lack of cycling facilities that connect to one another. This disjointedness applies to both intra-Kirkwood bike lanes (our bike lanes and paths don’t connect to one another) and inter-municipality facilities (our bike lanes and paths don’t connect to those of Webster or Great Rivers Greenway). Instead of being the hub of a substantial bike network, Kirkwood largely seems to be the void into which various spokes disappear into.

On top of this lack of connectivity, the infrastructure we do have is very minimal. Kirkwood has, to my knowledge three short bike lanes within its borders: Rose Hill, Woodbine, and Taylor (with Essex soon to join them). All three are short stretches, running no more than a few blocks, and only two of those three bike lanes are two-way (Taylor has only a North-bound lane). Out of the three none are considered to be protected bike lanes. Kirkwood also has a propensity to paint sharrows (the bike logo with the arrow you see on some streets) and claim that they count as cycling infrastructure. These markings however, have been shown to actually make cycling more dangerous.

Recognition for a Job Not Done

Kirkwood is currently in the last phase of their application for recognition as a “Bicycle Friendly Community” by the League of American Bicyclists. As part of that final phase, members of the community are asked to fill out a short survey. I encourage you to fill it out! …as long as in all your answer you list reasons why we aren’t a bicycle friendly community and why we shouldn’t get the award. Because we aren’t and we shouldn’t. This would be a big get for City Hall, anytime people argued we weren’t doing enough, all they’d have to do is tap the sign. On the other hand, if we don’t get it, perhaps it would serve as a wakeup call.

How We Improve

So if winning this award isn’t the solution and neither our street situation nor our cycling situation are in great shape, how do they get better? Kirkwood’s plan is to improve the walking and biking network bit by bit as streets come due to be repaved. This year the North East district of the city is up (see diagram further down). The engineering department will first decide which streets in this area need repaving. Then, if any of the streets selected by the engineering department were designated for improvements in the Kirkwood Pedestrian and Bike plan, they will receive those upgrades as part of the repaving process.

This year that means that if N. Harrison, N. Taylor, Woodlawn or Longview are selected, they will be improved in line with the “neighborhood greenway” standards (I can’t find any definition of this designation at all but it is the same designation that both W. Essex and Woodbine have in the plan so think: unprotected bike lanes, mid-block crossings, curb bump-outs, widened sidewalks). Geyer will be repaved from Manchester to Adams this Summer with funds from an STP grant while Manchester Road itself, somehow suggested for a bike lane in the above diagram, will be re-paved and nominally improved as part of a separate project in collaboration with MODOT. Early renderings of that project do not include a bike lane.

Looking Ahead

While this year’s improvements are also the last scheduled in the five year cycle (see top left in the image above), it appears that another run through the five year program is imminent: featured on Thursday April 16th’s city council agenda, is a legislation request to issue $31,500 in funding to Payken Consulting in exchange for a complete evaluation of the city’s streets. This is the same sort of study that was commissioned before the previous cycle. After this evaluation and publication of the new pavement condition index (a grade between 0-100 is given to each street depending on the shape it is in), it is assumed that the improvement cycle will begin again, starting with the East district: inarguably the most important district in the city from a walkability and density standpoint.

The prospect of more improvements coming to the East district in the Summer of 2021 is exciting for a variety of reasons. This is the district that contains: Downtown Kirkwood, a theoretical extension of Grant’s Trail to Downtown Kirkwood, the new performing arts center and it’s associated street improvements, and finally the connection between Downtown Kirkwood and Kirkwood Park. Hopefully South Geyer —the street that forms the border between the West & East districts— is, itself, also on tap for repaving as it is, from Adams to Big Bend, most likely the worst street in Kirkwood.

Harrison is the Key

It is Harrison however, more than any other street, that is the key to making Kirkwood’s biking network coherent and connected. Harrison has a number of things going for it: it is a quiet street, it has its own railroad overpass and as such is continuous in a way that rivals only Clay, and it runs through the heart of the most complete street grid Kirkwood has to offer. Perhaps most importantly, however, Harrison connects all the ad hoc bike lanes Kirkwood has introduced so far, to one another. It is the thread that binds Rose Hill to Woodbine and Woodbine to Essex. It is also in pretty terrible shape which means this is halfway likely to happen.

City Council Meeting Tonight

Be sure to tune in to tonight’s city council meeting at 7:00, the agenda can be found here and the methods for joining are below. I think I’m going to talk about the intersection of Clay & Madison during the public comment section, feel free to have a few beers and make a few comments yourself!

Join via Zoom:

Here

Join via phone call:
US: +1 312 626 6799
Webinar ID: 701 331 113