Kirkwood Rd Needs a Diet

Update 09/13/2023:

At the work session last week, the Council reviewed new plans for narrowing Kirkwood Road from Adams to Bodley.  Based on lessons learned from the demonstration project, the new plans call for 12-foot, single lanes going north and  south and a 14-foot, center, turning lane.  There will be no parallel parking on either side of Kirkwood Road.   The proposal includes 6-foot sidewalks on each side of the roadway.  Plans also detail an 8-foot space on the east side of Kirkwood Road to accommodate arriving and departing bus passengers and, possibly, future streetscaping.  We learned through the demonstration project  that the downtown stop lights are not well synchronized.  This is being addressed!  In addition, a crosswalk added between the James apartment building and the Alpine Shop will be synchronized with the rest of the traffic lights. 

Excerpt from Council Member Gibbons’ 9/13/2023 Newsletter

Kirkwood got to a really well-thought-out final product in the end. Very nice work, everyone!

Update:

Early reports out of the work session indicate that the Council passed this and the project to reduce Kirkwood Rd down to one lane in either direction North of Adams is moving ahead!

Great job everyone, through your hard work we helped get this over the finish line and make Kirkwood a safer, more vibrant, more appealing place to live. That’s no small accomplishment. I’ll have another update when I know more.

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Original Story:

Kirkwood City Council is considering making Kirkwood Road a more pedestrian-friendly street. I write to you urgently because they could be voting on the question as soon as tonight at the Council’s 5:30 work session.

Now, if you’re already convinced, before you read on, I would encourage you to email City Clerk, Laurie Asche (ascheLB@kirkwoodmo.org), submitting a comment in support of the lane reduction ahead of tonight’s work session (if you get your comment in by 4:00 it will be distributed. You can have a real impact here but you have to act kind of fast, so please, run along! Good? Great! On with the analysis!

The change being considered is whether the section of Kirkwood Rd to the North of Adams should match the section of Kirkwood Rd to the South of Adams where it runs through the heart of Downtown Kirkwood.

The map above illustrates my interpretation of the changes being pursued. The green stretch of Kirkwood Rd is where street parking exists on both sides of the street, yellow where it exists on one side, and orange where it exists on neither. I am not sure how far North the Council is considering extending the lane diet under this proposal.

Now, I think this makes a ton of sense for a bunch of reasons, and I really hope City Council votes to get this done. The benefits outlined below run the gambit from increased pedestrian safety to increased parking capacity, all at almost no cost:

Small Town Feel

First, as I’ve said before, there’s a reason why the most beloved part of Downtown Kirkwood is the portion where Kirkwood Rd has two traffic lanes (Kirkwood Rd from Adams to Argonne, for example, is where we have the Route 66 Cars & Guitars festival). That’s because reducing the number of traffic lanes reduces vehicle speeds. Reduced vehicle speeds, in turn, make pedestrians feel more comfortable walking, dining on the sidewalk, and crossing the road to patronize businesses on the other side. In general, reducing Kirkwood Rd from four lanes down to two would expand Downtown’s footprint, allow the new resident of The James and the Kirkwood Apartments to more comfortably make the walk to the heart of downtown, and contribute to the small town feel we’re so proud of.

Pedestrian Safety

The Federal Highway Administration estimates that reducing a four-lane road down to two traffic lanes reduces crashes by between 19%-47%. That is a massive improvement to achieve just by putting down some paint. There are a couple of mechanisms through which road diets achieve this reduction and otherwise improve pedestrian safety. First, because there’s only one lane, cars aren’t getting into crashes while shifting between lanes. Second, because there’s a line of cars lining the one side of the road, there’s also a wall of steel separating pedestrians on the sidewalk from the cars in the street. Finally, because road diets means there’s less space dedicated to driving, the margin for error for drivers is smaller (you can’t briefly swerve into the next lane while glancing at your phone or you’ll clip a parked car) so drivers drive more cautiously and more slowly. That means fewer accidents and less severe ones when they do happen.

Added Parking

Then, you also get the increased parking that comes from changing the curbside driving lane into a parking lane. The good people of Kirkwood have LONG complained that there’s not enough parking Downtown. Numerous parking studies have refuted that claim, but nevertheless, the view is pervasive, and this would seem to provide a solution. I would prefer the extra lane be used as a bus/bike lane but in as much as making it parking instead is the compromise needed to get this done, I’m absolutely here for it.

Improved Transit

In the excerpt from the traffic consultants, you’ll see a little later on, Metro also prefers these lane reductions “as the driver does not need to make a sweeping movement to the existing curb line.” Opportunities to improve both our transit service and our parking capacity at the same time are rare, and we should take this one!

We’re Already Doing It!

And actually, northbound Kirkwood Rd is already reduced down to one lane north of Adams as the street has been closed to accommodate the construction of The James. The picture below was taken on Small Business Saturday, one of Kirkwood’s busiest days of the year. And yet, even down to one lane, everything seems to be going fine!

Making a good change permanent after a short trial run feels like a really good way to do things.

The Debate in the Council Chambers:

Unfortunately, Liz Gibbons has already announced that she will be opposing the project, meaning the proposal can only afford two more “no” votes to pass. To offer a further glimpse behind the curtain of the council debate of the topic, here are the minutes from their last work session meeting on the topic:

At the November 3, 2022 City Council Work Session, City Staff presented the subject project. After consultation with the City’s Traffic Consultant, Lochmueller Group, the concerns and responses are as follows.

1. Concerns were raised of vehicles trying to make a left into Walgreens/Global Foods Entrance. As the northbound lane is already blocked off for the James development, is a backup anticipated for NB left turns, when there will only one south bound lane of traffic?
   a. Regarding northbound left turns into Walgreens/Global Foods, the section of the memo titled “Operation of Unsignalized Driveways” discusses the method and findings of field observations that were conducted at these driveways on three separate occasions in late August 2022.
   b. From the report, the observations by the following: Most northbound left turns
   completed this movement with little to no delay or queueing. If northbound lefts could
   not make an immediate turn, the resulting queue was typically 1 to 5 vehicles in length
   and dissipated immediately; there were no residual effects from the left turns sharing
   the lane with the through movement. Queues from the driveways was typically 0 to 1
   vehicle. Delays for existing vehicles were minimal.
   c. The coordinated signal timing plans on Kirkwood Road are designed to provide time on the mainline where there are no northbound or southbound platoons, therefore exiting vehicles only needed to wait for the platoons to pass to make their turns out. They did not have to wait another cycle to get an acceptable gap.
   d. Most southbound platoons heavily utilized the left lane due to the downstream lane
   drop at Adams Avenue. Therefore, the gaps observed in the field would be similar to
   those after the road diet.
   e. From extensive field observations, it was concluded the lane reduction would allow for acceptable operations at unsignalized driveways during the peak hours, and that non-peak hours would be accommodated well.
2. Concerns were raised on how this road narrowing could affect traffic on Clay Avenue and Taylor Avenue.
   a. From the report, changes to the LOS/delay for all movements and intersections on
   Kirkwood Road overall is about 5 seconds/vehicle or less, a relatively minor increase. Still within Forecasted Conditions, all intersections operate at LOS C or better and all
   movements LOS D or better, which is favorable for an urban environment.
   b. The original analysis was revisited to incorporate the known developments and the traffic volumes were slightly adjusted based on these resources. Those changes are documented in the email. To answer the Council’s questions, Existing and Forecasted Conditions were closely reviewed again in these updated scenarios and it was found that all movements at the intersections of Washington and Adams Avenues operate at very similar levels of delay (less than 5 sec/veh difference again). Queues were reviewed too, and the only increase found was at Washington Avenue. During the PM peak and in the southbound direction, maximum queues increased from 45 feet to 95 feet. In other terms, from about 2-3 cars to 4-5 cars.
   c. Based on this information, it is not expected that many more vehicles will avoid or divert to Clay or Taylor from Kirkwood Road due to the lane reduction. Any diversions would likely only happen in the southbound direction since the cross-section is effectively the same in the northbound direction leaving the Downtown area into the study segment. Again, these additional diversions are not expected to have a significant impact on Clay Avenue or Taylor Avenue.
3. Concerns were raised in regards to Bus Stop placement, specifically the northbound bus stop north of Adams. Does Metro have a best practice to place bus stops near an intersection, or place the Bus Stops Mid-Block, so that stopping of the bus doesn’t back up traffic at an intersection?
   a. Within the project, there are existing bus stops at the proposed PHB (near Alpine Shop and Walgreens, a mid-block location) and on the north and south side of Adams Avenue at the intersection. Given the proximity of the stops, it is assumed that both would stay in their mid-block or at-intersection locations.
   b. The proposed road narrowing plan keeps the Bus Stop south of Adams functionally the same. The bus will have a second lane to pull into after the bump out in the southwest quadrant.
   c. The proposed road narrowing plan puts the Bus Stop north of Adams in the only
   northbound lane with no other lane for the bus stop to pull off. Metro has preferred this
   layout as the driver does not need to make a sweeping movement to the existing curb
   line. Traffic interruptions due to bus stops are relatively short and their impacts dissipate quickly once the bus leaves.
   d. There is an option to open up the second lane to the bus stop. This would result in a
   reduction of parking spots and the proposed bump out at Adams, as it is existing on the
   south side of Adams.
   e. At an intersection, it is generally preferred by Metro and the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to provide a bus stop on the far-side of an intersection. With the crosswalks located at the intersection, this allows a pedestrian to cross the street safely behind the bus and in better view to those waiting at the signal. Although, not preferred, Mid-Block Bus Stops are placed mid-block to serve higher ridership areas between intersections.

The Story I Was Going to Write…

I was already planning on writing this story before a Liz Gibbons newsletter alerted me that the issue was a little more pressing than I had realized. Here’s how I was planning on framing the piece and the tangental examples I also planned to raise:

Last week, a researcher at Wash U professor emailed me. She explained that she was researching driving patterns, particularly those of the elderly, and even more particularly how something called a “road diet” affected those patterns. In order to collect data, she was utilizing chipped cars, like those that insurance companies use that monitor the speed and breaking of vehicles, and she wanted to know if I knew of any road diets that Kirkwood had implemented since 2017. She planned on using diets of where road diets had been implemented and comparing that to the driving data the chips were registering, the theory being (I assume) that the diets had a positive effect on safety (and a negative effect on speed).

Even as Kirkwood has embraced other incredibly positive pedestrian safety reforms, I, unfortunately, didn’t know of any lane reductions that had been implemented. And that’s a shame because our neighbors have embraced road diets.

Webster, for example, reduced Lockwood down to one lane in either direction using the space gained for a bike lane. My sample is certainly not representative, but everyone I’ve talked to has really seemed to enjoy the results.

Beyond Kirkwood Rd, I think that there are a lot of other opportunities to reimagine our overly wide roads. As I said, using the space gained for parking wouldn’t be my first choice, I’d prefer we use our streets for bike lanes or bus-ways, or, perhaps, to widen our sidewalks. But if additional parking is what narrows our streets, gets the city to develop some of its city-owned parking lots, or even gets the city to expand its urban parks, then I fully support the idea.

Madison: A Tale of Two Streets

In fact, I’m a little annoyed I didn’t think of this before publishing my parks story last week, but if you look at Madison, it offers a kind of perfect example of how we should be pursuing these road diets. On one side of Kirkwood Rd, E. Madison was redesigned with the construction of the Kirkwood Station Plaza development. Those changes saw the implementation of angled parking that both narrow the street (as the cars stick further out into it), and increasing parking capacity (cars are longer than they are wide so you can fit fewer parallel parked ones than angle parked ones.

But W. Madison, on the other side of Kirkwood Rd, was not redesigned, and so we’re left with a wide fast street with less parking. There are no free lunches except when there are. I suggest we eat.