CHESTERFIELD, Mo. – Tom Sims routinely drives along Clarkson Road to run errands and meet up with his grandkids.
“Me and my wife was talking about them. It was kind of confusing what they were planning on doing,” he said.
New road work has caught his eye as the Missouri Department of Transportation is adding curb bump-out islands.
“They look kind of dangerous to me. If you hit one of those things, it’s going to do some damage to your vehicle,” Sims said.
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MoDOT says the purpose is the exact opposite. The islands are spread out along the shoulder of the road. MoDOT project director Stacey Smith says research shows when a road feels narrower, drivers will slow down.
“Slower drivers mean less frequent crashes and when the crashes do happen, they’re not as severe,” Smith said.
These islands are a part of MoDOT’s much larger Regional Safety Improvement Project.
Construction began on the regional project in the spring, but planning started much sooner. MoDOT studied fatal and serious injury traffic crashes in the city of St. Louis and the four surrounding counties. In a five-year period, there were 5,321 fatal or serious injury crashes. So, MoDOT and St. Louis County teamed up to make $52 million in safety improvements for drivers and pedestrians. That will include a number of features like guardrails, signs, and changes to traffic signals.
“As you’re driving around the St. Louis area, you may see that some of our signals now have a yellow reflective rectangular border around them,” Smith said. “As you’re coming up on a signal, it really helps it stand out.”
MoDOT says in its research, it found 600 crashes on the stretch of Clarkson where the islands are being installed. Other improvements proposed for the area include a raised median island, curve warning signs, and high-visibility crosswalks. But drivers we talked to have not liked the curb bump-out islands.
Fatal child drowning followed two prior reported interventions “You or I may have to pull off in an emergency and now we’re pulling off having to be worried about where we pull off. Do we pull into a barricade like this or do we slam on our brakes and pull over before the barricade? I don’t see any safety in it,” Paul Dixson said.
Smith says they are leaving 200-300 feet between each island.
“There’s a lot of room for you to ease your way over, leave room for the emergency services or if you get a flat tire or some other reason you need to pull over,” Smith said. “There’s room to safely get over onto the shoulder and then safely get back into traffic.”
You can learn more about the project here.
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