Making connections: A grand plan for trails
By Elisa Crouch
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Oct. 15 2006
Two years after painting bicycle lanes and directional markers on 20 miles of
city streets, St. Louis-area leaders have a bigger project in mind.
They're adding bike routes to 57 miles of road stretching from West Florissant
Avenue to Holly Hills Boulevard, and connecting just about every park and
MetroLink stop in between. And a route on Wydown Boulevard will extend from
Forest Park into Clayton. Another will connect to Maplewood via Southwest
Avenue.
Signs designating the new Bike St. Louis routes should be up by spring.
Organizers hope the additional on-street bike paths will help transform St.
Louisans into people who increasingly use two wheels to get around.
"It promotes healthy living," said Alderman Lewis Reed, 6th Ward.
Making connections
The second phase will be an extension of the first, which connects Forest Park
to the Gateway Arch, looping around Lafayette Square and over to Tower Grove
Park. Routes in the northern part of the city will run along streets including
Euclid Avenue, North Vandeventer Avenue, Goodfellow Boulevard and Natural
Bridge Avenue. South of downtown, they'll run along streets including Broadway,
Macklind Avenue, Delor Street, Cherokee Street and Compton Avenue.
Routes will end at MetroLink stations. Bicycles are allowed on trains.
Pavement arrows and signs will mark the new paths, meaning bicyclists and
motorists must share the road. There will be about six miles of dedicated
bicycle lanes. Most city streets are too narrow for more.
"The challenge we always face with the streets in the city is, we don't have a
lot of street width," said Todd Antoine, a senior planner with the Great Rivers
Greenway District, which applied for and received most of the money needed to
do the work. "And we don't take out on-street parking."
Bicyclists say the pavement markers make them feel more welcome on the road,
even though state law already gives them permission to be there. Signs and
pavement markers almost serve as a blessing, they say, reminding motorists that
bicycles deserve to be there, too.
It's hard to say how many more bicycle commuters hit the streets after Bike St.
Louis signs and markers were laid in 2004. But some downtown employers have
added bicycle lockers and showers to accommodate them.
HOK, an architecture firm, is one of them. Bike St. Louis symbols make pedaling
around the city easier, said Tim Gaidis, a senior associate at HOK and a
bicycle commuter.
"The signs are like maps," he said. "When you have the pavement markers, its
like a stripe on the road that says you have permission to be there. A lot of
people don't know that."
About 77 percent of the $685,000 needed to design and mark the second phase
comes from federal grants, Antoine of Great Rivers said. The group works to
connect greenways in St. Charles County, St. Louis and St. Louis County. It
received the money through East-West Gateway Council of Governments. The rest
came from aldermen's ward allocations and Great Rivers.
Getting city funds for the project received full aldermanic support, Reed said.
"It helps paint St. Louis as an urban environment that's on the move," he said.
Rack 'em up
Still, the region has a ways to go if leaders hope to catch Chicago or Madison,
Wis. - cities that regularly rank high among bicycle-friendly cities.
In St. Louis, bicyclists complain that motorists honk at them simply because
they're on the road. Also, there's a shortage of bike racks.
If bike routes ever connect St. Louis and St. Louis County with St. Charles
County and cities in the Metro East area, riders will certainly need a place to
park.
The St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation hopes to chip away at the rack
shortage. The organization recently received a $40,000 grant, and will put in
$10,000 of its own money, to get more racks in the ground, said Bob Foster, a
member of the federation.
Is St. Louis bicycle-friendly? Foster, who rides to work on Clayton Road, says
it's getting better.
"Bike St. Louis has moved us a long way toward that," he said.
ecrouch@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8119
