St. Louis County Councilman Pat Dolan (5th District) said last week the reason a right-turn only lane on northbound Big Bend at Manchester is passing through the St. Louis County Council — before anyone in Maplewood knew about it — is that it was a county in-house job.
He said the county highway department was waiting on federal money, which came through, and that roads projects take time and work goes on before a municipality is notified.
“That was the biggest reason, and then the timing — getting people out to do it, but it was more financial constraints. Just about any road project now, you have to get some kind of funding.”
Dolan said in spite of adding the extra lane — going from five to six — the intersection will be safer for pedestrians because the lights will be timed for it. Also curb cuts and audible signals will make it safe for everyone. “I think it addresses the concerns for safety, which is the utmost concern for any of us,” he said.
South County Connector denied
Dolan also said he is responsible for killing the so-called “South County Connector,” proposed by the St. Louis County Highway Department in 2013. He stopped it by not approving a study needed to take it to the federal level.
The connector was to run between S. Hanley Road in Maplewood to River Des Peres Boulevard in Shrewsbury.
“A while back they had asked me to OK some certain funding for more studies and I denied it,” he said. “So I pretty much shut it down.” He said he hasn’t heard anything about it since then.
He said the majority of input he received was negative. “People didn’t want it, at least not around here, that’s for sure,” he said. He said MoDOT would liked to have had it so they could get a new interchange at Shrewsbury and Interstate 44.
“But we felt it was at our expense,” he said. “We, being the municipalities affected. The whole thing would have been in the 5th District and they didn’t want it, so that was my way of being able to stop it — not approving the additional money they needed to finish up the study.”
See also: South County Connector on hold for now, South County Connector: St. Louis County highway department is tallying comments
Pat, I agree, the SC connector would be bad for Maplewood. That would put us between Hwy 44 & the connector causing much more noise, trash, & bad for the environment. Thank You! We want walkability, not noise ability.
Does a curb cut mean a radiused corner on the sidewalk or a pedestrian ramp? Keeping the corner sharp will actually encourage traffic to take it slower, increasing pedestrian safety.
So happy to hear that the connector is no longer happening!
Pat, thank you for killing the SoCo connector. You did the right thing.
If no one in MW knew about it, that should imply no one requested the project to be done. Just another example of St Louis County working within a backwards system. The county should save itself the time and effort and stop working on problems that the municipalities don’t request.
Agreed. Maplewood could use federal road money to improve Big Bend, and make it safer for people to walk. Instead, it’s being used to handle more traffic and further increase speeds down Big Bend. Why wasn’t Maplewood asked if the wanted these “improvements” in the first place? It’s disappointing for Mr. Dolan to campaign and get re-elected on a “Complete Streets” platform and then enact policies in direct opposition.
Pat, you did good for Maplewood on this. Thank you.