The Walk Bike Team, made of Jefferson County Public Works Department employees and the design consultancy firm Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Inc., are nearly finished crafting the Walk Bike Master Plan for the county.
A final open house for the project was held Oct. 24 at the Administrative Center in Hillsboro, when the team presented a draft of the plan, along with a demonstration of what kind of street improvements might be made if the plan is approved. The team also asked attendees for feedback about the plan.
The Jefferson County Council is expected to vote on the plan in late January or early February, and if approved, Public Works Director Jason Jonas said it will shape the county’s future walking and biking improvement projects.
Jacque Knight, project manager with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc., said the Walk Bike Team gathered plenty of feedback from county residents during the open house.
“We’ve received a lot of really overwhelming support,” she said. “People are looking at the (proposed walking and biking) network and telling us, maybe, if we didn’t identify something, maybe something that we should reconsider as a route that they use all the time. But for the most part, I would say people are really agreeing with what we’ve been doing.”
Since April, the Walk Bike Team has sought public input on the plan at local festivals and open houses. The team also brought together focus groups, such as cyclists, young people, people with disabilities and senior citizens, to learn more about their needs and priorities.
For the final open house, Knight was stationed on Maple Street, just outside the Administrative Center, to demonstrate how the county can add a two-way bike lane to existing streets.
The team had spray-painted white and yellow lines on one side of the street previously used for parking. The dotted yellow lines signified the bike lane was to be used for two-way traffic. Orange traffic cones represented the permanent bollards which Knight said would be used to protect bicyclists from motorist traffic. A concrete curb and grass buffer would separate pedestrians using the sidewalk from the bike lane.
Knight said the bike lane could be added to a street in which parking is underutilized. “We have asked (county residents), ‘Do you prefer this space as shown today, or would you prefer it for parking?’ And people really like it like this.”
Inside the center, members of the Walk Bike Team led visitors through the draft plan printed on large poster boards, explaining the timeline, along with efforts to receive grant funding to lessen taxpayer costs for improvements.
Large maps on a table showed the city, county and state-maintained roads where county officials are looking to add walking and biking paths. Visitors were invited to add sticky notes with comments to the maps.
Some of the proposed projects highlighted on the maps include extending an existing sidewalk in the St. Louis County portion of Fenton into Jefferson County, on Sugar Creek Road; creating a walk-bike path along Seckman Road from the Outer Road to Old Lemay Ferry Road; creating a walk-bike path along Hwy. 61-67 from Arnold to Festus.
Once approved, the projects included in the master plan would require agreements between cities and the Missouri Department of Transportation, depending on who maintains what road.
According to documents shared at the open house, the Walk Bike Team recently applied for the Safe Streets and Roads for All federal grant, which would provide funding for projects intended to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. The team will also apply for the Transportation Alternatives Program federal grant to support walking and biking, as well as for the MoDOT cost-share program, which would split the cost of a project with the county 50/50.
“We’re really happy with the draft plan because it’s including the whole county, so we’re working with the cities to offer all this information so they can go for grants, too,” Jonas said.
The next step of the master plan process will be to refine the projects based on community feedback, then deliver the final draft to the council.
While some projects on the master plan may take 10-15 years before they come to fruition, the department can get to work on others right away after council approval.
For more information about the plan, visit its dedicated website, walk-bike-jefferson-county-jeffsncntybkwlk.hub.arcgis.com.
“We’re looking to wrap up this plan here in early fall and really get the document in final form and bring it up to the council after the holidays,” Jonas said.