Despite hearing grave concerns about traffic and parking from residents and business-owners of the Greenwood neighborhood about routing a greenway through the area, Maplewood officials on Monday OK’d a plan for a Great Rivers Greenway route down the south side of Greenwood Boulevard — it took some doing.
Council members Ray Crader, Shawn Faulkingham and Jennifer Schmidt were worried that MoDOT and St. Louis County — larger partners in the project — would bulldoze over Maplewood’s concerns, such as maintaining at least 8-foot wide parking on Greenwood.
When Mayor Barry Greenberg polled the council; Schmidt, Ray Crader and himself were for allowing the Greenwood route to go be planned; Karen Wood and Tim Dunn were for the southern route, along Deer Creek, or no greenway at all; Faulkingham was for neither route, at the time.
Four votes were needed for it to go ahead. When it looked like a stalemate, City Manager Marty Corcoran suggested they consider that he would write a letter to Great Rivers Greenway with a list of six stipulations, if they weren’t followed, Maplewood could back out. That passed with yes votes from Schmidt, Faulkingham, Crader and Greenberg.
The council also approved a liquor license for The Benevolent King restaurant at 7268 Manchester Road.
Also, Corcoran announced that Greenburg’s business, Architectural Design Guild, was celebrating its 37th year in business in Maplewood. He said ADG was the second business that began the Maplewood Renaissance. Rob Bierenbaum’s Drum Headquarters was the first.
Concern over Greenwood Greenway running along Greenwood. Railroad tracks cut us off, River Des Peres cuts us off, McCausland/Wabash cut us off. We really are an “Island” with only one major street, Greenwood, to get to our homes via the Canterbury underpass or over Sutton at Greenwood. McCausland/Wabash can only quickly reach us via Canterbury since many side streets were cut off due to the greenway. And that is city which is rarely called for by Maplewood emergencies.
The McCausland/Wabash Greenway cut off several side streets which caused more traffic to use McCausland to Canterbury, Wilmington to St. Elmo, Manhattan to Kensington, to become much busier residential streets.
Along Greenwood it is zoned light commercial which means there is traffic on that street mainly during working hours but some business at night. During the day, commercial trucks are unloading and loading along that stretch and you may have to wait a little or for now, be able to go around. It’s an inconvenience rather than a problem, right now.
If commercial trucks, trash trucks, anything is blocking the street, people will take an alternate route which is going to be Kensington, Sussex, even more for St. Elmo, Piccadilly, Commonwealth, Cambridge, Oxford & Manhattan, the residential streets in our “Island”. The residential streets are FULL of KIDS! We don’t need more traffic on residential streets; keep traffic to the zoned commercial area which is Greenwood and zoned commercial, not residential!
People who work along Greenwood, or coming as customers, utilize a lot of the parking that is available in this light commercial area along the tracks. If parking isn’t available on Greenwood, then they will park on the residential side streets which mean residents have limited parking & be subjected to more traffic, people & trash impeding their residential area.
As for the one person who said cars were doing 50 along Greenwood, did you have a radar detector to know this? Yes, there is that occasional idiot but for the most part, no, cars aren’t doing 50. The Police Department would have the facts on this. And anyone who knows Maplewood knows the police do monitor and catch more people running stop signs at Canterbury than speeding along there.
Greenwood serves its purpose, to provide an egress to the residents in the Greenwood area “Island”. If you change it, like McCausland/Wabash, people will take alternate routes and will be speeding and running stop signs thru our residential area and not looking for children. Canterbury, St. Elmo & Kensington prove this. They have become very busy morning and evening rush hour streets to avoid using McCausland/Wabash. I’m one of them!
If there is an emergency, we want to know that emergency vehicles can get to our “Island” without hesitation which is via Greenwood. Greenwood is for commercial use, not a greenway that will cause more residential traffic. Wabash is a lesson learned in what not to do. Don’t cut us off!
As an Oxford resident who already uses the new greenway path along McCausland to run and walk my dog, as well as the Deercreek path into Webster, I’m super excited about the Greenwood route. I actually think that the benefit of installing a greenway is that the traffic will be forced to slow down on Greenwood.
I live on Kensington and really support either. I think the Southern route would have been a nice opportunity to do some beautification along the southern boundary of the Greenwood subdivision. But it would have been more challenging for sure. Its unfortunate that the southern boundary is bordered by a massive rail yard and asphalt company.
While the southern route looks more efficient, I think the Greenwood route will bring opportunities to the Sutton and other Maplewood businesses. I heard business owner express concern for parking of delivery trucks. Seems to me that deliveries happen during business hours and is a similar issue the Manchester Road businesses face. What concerns me most is traffic crossing the RR tracks and then entering/crossing the Greenway. As one business owner expressed there is a change of elevation there which causes blind spots for motorists and pedestrians. There must be a solution a trained eye can see, but I’m having a hard time visualizing one. I am certain that the Greeway people have a strong commitment to keeping everyone safe who uses the path. And I was pleased to hear council members say they were attaching strings to their acceptance of the proposed Greenway in order to keep dialogue going.
I am a resident in the area. I want the Greenwood alignment. I have spoken to dozens of other residents, and in these conversations support for the northern route is overwhelming. I haven’t spoken to any resident who wants no Greenway at all.
What I see at council meetings is a vocal minority fearing change and progress, and I thank the majority of our council for moving forward on a project that will improve the quality of life for all, in a manner that ensures that valid concerns will be addressed.
Again, the council didn’t care about what residents and business owners in the area wanted.
I’m a resident on Greenwood and I want the Greenwood route.