Arnold city officials will explore the possibility of creating a second entrance to Arnold City Park because of increased traffic there, especially on Saturday mornings during the farmers market season, City Administrator Bryan Richison said.
The popularity of the recently installed playground also has led to increased traffic at the park, he said.
At the June 6 City Council meeting, Mayor Ron Counts said he wants city officials to study the feasibility of adding another way to enter and exit the park, which is at 1 Bradley Beach Road off Jeffco Boulevard near the Meramec River. Right now the only way to access the 68-acre park is off Jeffco Boulevard in the north end of the city.
“We have looked at it a couple of different times, trying to build a second entrance to the park,” Richison said. “There are a lot of challenges to that.”
The market and its unpaved parking areas are near the park’s entrance just past Hollywood Beach Road.
Anna Tucker, the Arnold Farmers Market manager, said 50 to 58 vendors and 1,000 to 1,500 customers typically turn out for the weekly market, which is open from 8 a.m. to noon every Saturday from early May through mid-November.
“With the Farmers Market alone, I am not happy with that traffic situation,” Richison said. “I don’t know if there are alternatives, but I would like to improve that as you come in. Now that you have added all of the people trying to go past the farmers market to get to the playground, it is really crazy.”
The city opened the new playground on May 18. It is near the Dogwood Pavilion, lake and restrooms close to the center of the park.
The playground is about twice as large as the previous one, which was torn down in September 2023 after city employees discovered numerous parts of the structure were rotting.
Tucker said she has seen traffic increase since the playground opened.
“Most people are capable of navigating it, but it can cause some issues,” she said.
Richison said city officials will discuss a possible second entrance this week.
However, there are numerous obstacles that make it difficult to create another access to the park, he added.
“There are a bunch of side roads to the south of the park off Starling Airport Road,” Richison said. “All of those side roads are private roads, so we really can’t connect to them because they are not public roads. Plus, they are residential streets, and routing a lot of traffic through there wouldn’t make sense. If you go further back in the park, you run into some wetlands, a railroad track and other obstacles.
“We will pull up the maps and look at it again. There are no easy answers.”
Richison said another obstacle the city faces is that it does not own all of the land in the park.
“We have looked at the parcels that we don’t own in the park,” he said. “There are still quite a few, and we are trying to figure out what to do about that.”
Richison said there may not be a way to create a second access to the park, at least not an affordable one.
“I don’t know if we will decide there is no easy answer, or if we will decide, it is time to spend a lot of money and effort to get a second entrance and exit,” he said. “If anything happens, it definitely will not be fast.”