Dangerous Reaching Bus Stop On Manchester At Hampton
Last week I was near Manchester & Hampton doing research, I arrived & departed on the #32 (ML King-Chouteau) MetroBus. Arriving the bus was headed West on Manchester, so the stop was on the adjacent sidewalk. For the return trip I needed to catch the bus as it headed East on Manchester — no sidewalk on that side. But there is a just big enough concrete pad. I didn’t get a pic from across the street but you can see it on Google Street View here.
It took a while but I finally got a break in traffic where I could quickly cross Manchester to the stop I needed.
I was right at the edge waving as the bus approached. Another passenger got off at my stop so she stood close to my wheelchair on the small pad while the driver extended the lift so I could board. Would the driver have seen me if a passenger wasn’t wanting to exit at my stop?
I had wanted to go to the next stop to the East where I could cross at a crosswalk, but vegetation (upper left of last photo) blocked the sidewalk.
So who’s responsible?
- Metro
- MoDOT
- St. Louis
All three are involved, but fragmentation means the pedestrian experience here sucks. The quick solution is to trim the vegetation in both directions. A crosswalk with warning signs for motorists to stop for pedestrians would be relatively cheap. I’m going to email Ald. Vollmer (10th) & Ald. Ogilvie (24th) to let them know about the issues here.
— Steve Patterson
Or . . . move the stop and/or bus route to a more appropriate location . . . there are multiple suburban roads that don’t have sidewalks. Do we not do transit, because the pedestrian infrastructure sucks?!
The route is heavily used, and it appears so is this stop.
Metro’s job is to run the buses, not to build sidewalks or concrete pads at stops that don’t have them. That would be the job of the property owner, in this case, probably MODOT (or possibly the city). Neither entity is awash with extra cash, so, rightfully this is a very low priority. It matters to you and a very few other people – let us know if you (ever) see any progress, here. If anything was going to happen, it should have been included in the recent repaving and restriping (to add bike lanes). Obviously, no one saw a big need for it . . .
unfortunately, suburban roads without sidewalks are a design feature, not a bug. and that’s part of the reason i live in the city.