2013-05-28 Reg - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Dean Smith, 6934 Dartmouth Mr. Smith stated the plaza is a very historical place and should be open to historical readaptation. He said he has shared ideas from his architectural background with Mr. Wilson, Director of Public Works and Parks and the Historical Preservation Commission. Mr. Smith displayed drawings of the plaza and the plaza with the roundabout. He noted a very important part of the plaza was the wide graceful edge of street curves. Mr. Smith noted there were three basic architectural elements to be preserved even with a traffic circle inserted. He said the traffic roundabout needed to be low key, not have large vegetation so as not to upstage the plaza. He felt the edges that are supposed to direct traffic can be done with strong white lines with rumble strips and that would retain the major intent of the plaza. Ms. Carr noted that the City has been talking about the roundabout mock-up since January 2013, and was brought up not for aesthetic or preservation reasons but more to know if the traffic device would solve the City’s traffic problems. Ms. Carr asked Mr. Walker about the objectives the City and Council would be looking at if the Council decided to put in a mock-up roundabout. Mr. Walker asked the Director of Public Works and Parks Rich Wilson to speak on that. Mr. Wilson stated the roundabout was proposed because it was thought the trolley would use it but now the trolley will not be using the roundabout. The biggest issue is that the roundabout will not solve the traffic issues on Delmar but rather it will help cars getting onto Delmar from Trinity. The other major issue is for pedestrians to get across Delmar safely from Trinity. Mr. Wilson said traffic signals would totally mess up the historic plaza and would not work with the eight different legs coming together at that intersection. He said from 2012 on, roundabouts have been being used to improve traffic flow and safety issues if there is land available. Mr. Wilson said a roundabout is a way to improve traffic flow and provide safety. He noted that at peak hours there are 800 per hour cars going east and west on Delmar and a one- lane traffic roundabout can handle 1200 cars per hour. St. Louis County’s stipulation with the roundabout approval was if traffic backed up on to Big Bend, the County would ask that the roundabout be removed. Mr. Wilson stated the traffic will go slower with a reduction in the speed limit but it will be a continuous flow. The other issue that will be studied is how much easier will it be for cars on Trinity to make left -hand turns. He noted the signals on Big Bend and Kingsland will provide pauses in the Delmar traffic flow. The third thing the City would look at is the pedestrian traffic. He said it was 56 feet across Delmar and it takes a person 14 seconds to get across Delmar and at peak hours there are six cars which one pedestrian would have to maneuver through to get across Delmar. With a roundabout a pedestrian would cross one lane of traffic at a time, looking to the left to get to the roundabout in the middle and from there look to the right to get to the other side of Delmar. Ms. Carr asked Mr. Wilson about the pedestrian crosswalks, noting they were not in the middle of the circle but rather around the periphery, to which Mr. Wilson agreed. She also verified that there will be a yield to the traffic in the circle. Ms. Carr asked of the possibility to amend the design to keep in mind that vista. Mr. Wilson believed instead of curbing the City could stripe the outer circle and not have to touch the granite curbs. 6