To facilitate the discussion about bicycle safety along Tower Grove Avenue, we’ve put together some facts and figures about the road as it currently exists.
Tower Grove Avenue begins at Tower Grove Park and runs north for 1.7 miles to the Central West end. It can be divided into four distinct sections, each of which is described below.
Shortly after I wrote about my experience in the Cycling Savvy class, the instructor (and cycling advocate) Karen Karabell contacted me with her own thoughts. She thought I did not make my participation clear enough — I did attend two parts of the three-part course — and asked me to read an article by Migkh Wilson, the Cycling Savvy co-founder.
My response to Karen is below.
Read more ›
Last week I attended a Cycling Savvy course taught by Karen Karabell and Gerry Noll (photos 1, 2). While I am an experienced cyclist — I raced in college and have been commuting regularly for over a decade — revisiting the basics of cycling safety is always a good idea. I also wanted to learn first hand about the diversity of opinions among cyclists about bike lanes and other such infrastructure. It was, on the whole, a positive experience, and I think Cycling Savvy is a class any beginner or intermediate cyclists could benefit from. Still, while I share its goal of making cycling safer, I disagree with some of Cycling Savvy’s prescriptions. Here are some thoughts.
Read more ›
We will be hosting an early evening Tower Grove Avenue ride this week!
Wednesday (5/29) we will meet at Tower Grove Ave at Clayton (north of I-64) at 6:30, ride south along Tower Grove Ave to Hartford Coffee Company. We will be at Hartford Coffee 7-7:30, please join us there if you can’t make the ride.
While at Hartford, we will discuss current safety issues along Tower Grove Ave, the upcoming Kingsighway construction, and what we’d like the corridor to look like in the future.
Going forward, we plan on having semi-regular rides along Tower Grove Ave, both in the mornings and evenings. Join us if you can!
167. How many cyclists passed the intersection of Shaw and Tower Grove Ave between 6:30 and 9am one Friday morning.
Trailnet hosted the annual Ride to Work Day on Friday 5/17 and hosted breakfast and coffee for cyclists around the city, including at Tower Grove Avenue and Shaw (thank you!). The staff counted 167 cyclists passing through the intersection in one 2 1/2 hour stretch — an amazing figure.
Given that a lot of morning bike traffic passes after 9, and most of these riders will be coming back in the evening, it seems reasonable to estimate that on an average weekday roughly 500 riders per day pass that intersection. On weekends, that number is probably quite a bit higher.
Yes, Tower Grove Avenue is an important St. Louis bicycle route.
Late April 2013. Repair work on Tower Grove Ave immediately north of the I-64 bridge. A large hole in the pavement reduces traffic to one lane. There are no physical barriers, and no signage warning of cyclists.
May 4, 2013. Two days after we contacted the Street Department the pit has been filled in and traffic now flows in both directions. Thank you Streets!
Construction barriers near the Missouri Botanical Gardens historic wall rebuild project are a danger to cyclists: cars must wait behind bicycles or cross double yellow line, and cyclists have no safe path or escape. The barrier will remain in place until about October 2013. Photo March 2013.
In May 2013 new sharrows were painted by the barriers! The sharrows — arrows with a bicycle icon — are big, clear, and several are painted in the middle of the southbound lane. The barriers begin to the left of this picture, and the road is clearly marked for cyclists.
