St. Louis has seen at least six pedestrian fatalities in the past six weeks, including two in the South Grand neighborhood. The most recent occurred this week when a biker was hit by a car who was trying to pass other cars by using the bike lane.
Kea Wilson is a writer for Streetsblog USA, which covers mobility justice and livable streets. She joined KMOX to talk about the trend of traffic deaths in St. Louis, and nationwide.
"Cyclist deaths have been on the rise for about the past 15 years give or take, in contrast to vehicle occupant deaths," she said. "However, St. Louis's problems are pretty extreme compared to national trends."
She said that St. Louis has had 13 traffic injuries in 2022 so far, which is about double the rate of our peer cities per capita.
People have a lot of theories about root causes, including a lack of adequate traffic enforcement. But Wilson said she doesn't thinks that's the source.
"Though enforcement can absolutely play a role, it's designs of roads that are designed to encourage reckless behavior," she said. "Sometimes it will explicitly allow reckless behavior or speeds that we know are going to kill people when they are struck."
She also pointed to the importance of having protected bike lanes, like some other cities do. A painted line, she said, is not enough to protect bikers.
"There has been a lot of movement at the federal level to give cities more money for protected bike lanes," she said. "However, we are not taking advantage of that at the pace that I feel we need to in St. Louis."
Hear more from Kea Wilson about how St. Louis can solve its traffic safety problem and protect pedestrians and bikers:
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