The $3.5 Million Sidewalk: How Kirkwood’s SS4A Grant Lost the Plot

For a grant designed to make our streets safer for all, Kirkwood’s SS4A application focuses an awful lot on just one.

Kirkwood is finalizing its application for a $6.8 million federal Safer Streets for All (SS4A) grant — funding that could support traffic calming, sidewalk infill, and pedestrian upgrades across the city. But a closer look at the proposal reveals a lopsided approach: more than half of the money would go toward a single, half-mile stretch of Ann Avenue. That leaves many higher-need neighborhoods overlooked, and raises serious questions about whether this plan reflects the grant’s citywide mission.

A Brief History of SS4A

Over the past three years, Kirkwood has conducted a long, slow march toward improved street safety. The journey kicked off in earnest in 2022 when the Council passed a vision zero action plan which established a citywide goal of zero traffic-related deaths. That initial plan, which generated little fanfare, meant that Kirkwood was the only entity in the St. Louis area that was eligible for a new federal Department of Transportation funding opportunity —known as Safer Streets for All grants, or “SS4A” for short— that had been established by the November 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Kirkwood ultimately won $480k in SS4A funding in February of 2023 to use for additional vision zero planning work, namely the Southeast Kirkwood Connectivity Study, the Safer Routes to Schools Study, and the citywide speed study.

Now, Kirkwood is trying to leverage its uniquely strong position once more, but this time with its eyes on the big prize: a $6.8 million SS4A implementation grant to address some of the issues identified by all those studies. If the grant is approved, $5.44 million would come to the city in federal funding, with Kirkwood covering the remaining 20% of costs ($1.36 million) with required local matching funds.

What SS4A WouldBe Used For

Those headline numbers would seem to suggest a paradigm shift in safe street infrastructure, but a closer look at the proposal reveals a much more constrained set of changes. That’s because $3,558,250.50 of the $6,804,817.25 total, 52% of the full grant application, has been earmarked for a single half-mile stretch of Ann Avenue.

We obviously do not know exactly how these projects were chosen or much in the way of details as to what they will consist of, but the application itself does give some clues. To quote from it directly:

Staff has come up with a list of projects that ranked high in the City Wide Speed Study, the Southeast Connectivity Study and the Safe Routes to School public engagement process. In addition, included is the relocation of all overhead utilities to underground on Ann. All of which is proposed to be included in the grant. As can be seen on the attached map, projects are spread out throughout Kirkwood to be geographically represented. The map identifies locations for few sidewalk connections, street segments and points, typically at crosswalks or intersections. Street segment improvements include traffic calming elements to be determined during design, but will likely include curb extensions, lane narrowing, and speed humps. Points on the map are
crossing improvements such as raised crosswalks, lighted crosswalks with RRFB’s with enhanced lighting, or a raised intersection.

I want to examine each of these projects individually, but given that it’s a majority of the funds, the problems that afflict Ann Avenue, and the city’s proposed solutions for them, deserve a bit of a deep dive.

Ann Avenue: The Most Important Street in Kirkwood?

Ann Avenue admittedly has a very real problem: Thirteen electric utility poles are positioned directly in the sidewalk, reducing pedestrian safety and ease of use, and rendering the sidewalk non-ADA compliant.

The folks from Safer Streets for Kirkwood did a really excellent job raising public awareness of this issue, and I think the city was right to prioritize the finding of a solution. What leaves me dumbfounded is that the solution they settled on —to bury the 0.5 miles worth of electric lines— is by far the most expensive of the available options and doesn’t come close to passing a cost-benefit analysis. And other solutions certainly do exist.

The most obvious of the alternatives is to leave the electric lines and their accompanying poles right where they are, acquire a foot’s worth of easement directly adjacent to the sidewalk from the abutting property owners and simply widen the sidewalk or shift it over a bit so as to bypass the electric poles.

How much would that cost? Well, we can look to what the city paid in terms of right-of-way acquisition for the ongoing 0.51 mile long West Essex street project: a grand total of $149,686. Even after you factor in what it would cost to reconstruct the sidewalk, you’re still look at a project in the mid-six figure range, a cost comparable to the other projects on the SS4A list.

To put the $3.5 million plan the city has put forth instead in a bit more context, that total amounts to more than the cost of the entire 0.62 mile long Argonne overhaul. The Ann improvements will cost more than 2x as much per mile as the South Clay project. I don’t think that there’s any reasonable case to be made that Ann is a more important street than Argonne, or Clay. In fact, it is a pretty low-density, suburban street far from the most logical pedestrian destinations

Now, I’m sure the residents on and around Ann are very pleased to have the city spend $3.5 million on their street and prefer it to some of the less expensive alternatives. But it is not the job of the government to tell everyone “yes”; it is the job of the government to produce the most good for the most people, given the limited resources it has at its disposal.

Here, for example, is a section of Kirkwood that:

1. Is lower income than average (and thus more reliant on walking/biking/public transit;
2. Is surrounded by popular childrens destinations like the Magic House, Nipher Middle, Fillmore Park, and the new Grant’s Trail Extension;
3. Is missing a ton of sidewalks and crosswalks
4. Is nearly entirely unaddressed by the SS4A grant

Using this much money on Ann while tons of other parts of Kirkwood see no public investment is an abdication of that responsibility. The deadline for submitting an SS4A grant is this Thursday (June 26th) at 4pm. Between now and then, I hope the city’s leaders have a hard think about whether this application is the best representation of the needs of all of Kirkwood, or whether we might be able to do better.

The Rest of the Projects

Okay, now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s take a look at the other $3.3 million in projects outlined by the application memo. Here’s that map again for reference as we go through these.

In no particular order, here’s a quick rundown of what those projects might consist of and my thoughts on them:

Sidewalk Infill on Peeke: This project is perhaps my favorite amongst the grant awards because it ties into pedestrian safety the city has already funded in the Geyer/Peeke/Dougherty Ferry raised intersection. Because that intersection’s safety has been drastically improved, it makes sense to ensure folks can access the safe crossings it provides (as well as some of the really call cars showcased in the old Smitty’s Garage) by adding a sidewalk between Simmons and Geyer. It also ties directly into the next project on our list, traffic calming on Dougherty Ferry so we’re looking at synergies all around.

Essex/Dougherty Ferry Traffic Calming:

The most concentrated number of improvements in a single area beyond Ann is likely the Dougherty Ferry/Essex loop that surrounds Kirkwood High School. Five improved crosswalks (including two raised ones) and one brand new crosswalk at Lockett and Dougherty Ferry. Dougherty Ferry and W Essex themselves would also see substantial traffic calming improvements from Geyer, west to where the two streets intersect.

Nearly 2,000 folks commute to Kirkwood High School every day during the school year, making it probably the second most popular destination in the city after Downtown. Unlike Downtown, though, KHS is not served by a very substantial street network or transit infrastructure. Allowing folks safer options to commute via alternative modes of transportation (many of whom are not old enough to drive) should do wonders for both safety and congestion relief in Kirkwood.

Sidewalk Infill on Romine: This sidewalk infill project doesn’t make quite as much sense as the one on Peeke because none of the other streets that comprise the inter-Kirkshire-Linwood grid have sidewalks and because there’s no Manchester crosswalk at Romine to provide easy access to North Middle, but perhaps there’s something in the works that I don’t know about. Still, improvements to middle school pedestrian access make more sense than just about anywhere since middle school kids are old enough to be on their own but still not old enough to drive.

North Kirkwood Road Traffic Calming: The application also features a $208k line item for traffic calming along North Kirkwood Road between Bodley and Swan. You’ll recall that Bodley is the northern terminus for the Kirkwood Road lane reduction, so this will seek to extend that effort with some less intensive interventions. I’m glad to see it included here, given its proximity to Downtown and how densely populated this part of Kirkwood is, but I remain disappointed that the city does not plan to extend the road diet from Bodley to at least Essex, one block further North, which would make for a more logical endpoint to Downtown. I guess we’ll have to settle for whatever this effort entails for now.

Milwaukee & Orleans Traffic Calming: These two projects comprise the entirety of the application’s scope within Meacham Park. It’s definitely short of what was called for in the initial Southeast Kirkwood Connectivity plans, especially since it doesn’t do anything to better connect Meacham with the rest of Kirkwood, but at least within the neighborhood itself, it’s a solid start. Included in the application are two new raised intersections at Meacham St and Milwaukee and Meacham and Orleans, as well as a new raised crosswalk at the intersection of Meacham and Alsobrook. The project also includes traffic calming provisions on Milwaukee between Big Bend and Memphis St, as well as on Orleans between Attucks and Memphis St. A makeover of the two main North-South thoroughfares feels like it has the potential to be transformative.

Rose Hill Traffic Calming: Rose Hill saw some of the highest discrepancies between the posted limit and the speed at which folks were actually driving in the entire speed study, so it’s not much of a surprise to see a large portion of it addressed here, including traffic calming from Couch to Fillmore, as well as crossing improvements at Clay and a new raised crosswalk between Kirkwood Road and Angenette to provide safe access to Nipher Middle. What’s most interesting to me about this one is that the city has already tried to somewhat calm Rose Hill, instituting curb bump-outs, bike lanes, and mid-block crossings along the Meramec campus. What’s left? Well, my hope is that the city will utilize the fact that there are very few curb cuts along the Meramec campus to pilot a parking-protected bike lane along the South side of the street, meaning that the bike lane would be moved so that it was directly adjacent to the curb with the parking lane serving as a barrier between cyclists and traffic. This is established best practice elsewhere, so I hope we give it a shot.

Washington Traffic Calming: Similarly to Rose Hill, it remains unclear what traffic calming along Washington between Harrison and Fillmore will entail. The main problem with the street is that it’s too wide, so cars feel comfortable driving faster than the limit, but there’s not really a clear answer for what we should do with the extra space if we were to narrow it. The obvious answer is again to install some sort of protected bike lane, but as I’ve mentioned several times at this point, the city has shown either an inability or unwillingness to construct those. As more details emerge, it will also be interesting to see how the city balances the current traffic levels along Washington with the presumption that it is likely to see more use across all modes of transport with the semi-recent completion of The James, whatever mixed-use project is soon coming to the old Commerce Bank site a block away, and other nearby infill projects like 144 W Adams, especially as residents of those projects try to access nearby, Washington-adjacent amenities like the YMCA and Walker Park. In any case, adding more street trees should absolutely be a priority here.

Couch Traffic Calming: Perhaps the one saving grace of the immense sum we’re spending on Ann Avenue is that the project will at least directly connect with traffic calming along Couch (between Big Bend and Adams), creating more of those synergies I love so much. It’s again hard to say what exactly this traffic calming effort will look like, it will at least entail crossing improvements near Aberdeen Heights and just past Lark, where the sidewalk crosses over from the West side of the street to the Kirkwood Park-adjacent East side. I like to think it was the new ADU on Lark that go this one over the hump!

The Big Picture

I don’t want to sound like a hater. I hope Kirkwood gets this money and there’s no question that Ann Avenue deserves attention. But is it more important than every other unsafe street in Kirkwood? Does it deserve $3.5 million of a $6.8 million street safety grant? That kind of spending, when simpler solutions exist and whole neighborhoods remain unaddressed, risks turning a visionary investment into a missed opportunity. The SS4A application deadline is tomorrow (Thursday) at 4pm. Between now and then, I hope the City of Kirkwood takes some time to reflect on the hard but necessary question: Is this plan the best we can do — or just the most politically convenient?