Community Corner
Downtown Traffic Barriers Will Not Be Removed Ahead Of Cardinals, Blues Games This Weekend
The city will open one extra lane from Cole Street to Chouteau Avenue and assess the impact before making a decision moving forward.
May 21 ,2021
Friday is a big day for sports in the Gateway City, as the Blues return to St. Louis for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Cardinals host the Cubs for the first time this season.
First pitch for the Cardinals is at 7:15, and the puck drops at the Enterprise Center at 8:30, meaning downtown will be awash on afternoon rush hour traffic along with those coming to either game or heading to nearby bars to watch them. Because of the increased traffic, many have wondered if the city would remove the concrete barriers that force vehicles into one lane and often cause long lines of traffic along Broadway and 4th Street during normal weekdays. The barriers were put in place to curb several downtown issues like drag racing and cruising among other things.
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The city said Thursday they will not remove the barriers entirely ahead of the busy sports weekend, but will open one extra lane from Cole Street to Chouteau Avenue and assess the impact before making a decision moving forward. Many residents have complained about the barriers, calling them bothersome and ugly, and others have said they create an uninviting look around the city's biggest draw, Busch Stadium. But the barriers went up last year to cut down not only on dangers speeding, but to block off parking lots where people gathered to party. In the past, the partiers left trash at Kiener Plaza which caused a rat problem that the city had to take care of. The gatherings also often led to gunfire. Therefore, the short term solution was the concrete barriers.
“We enacted these barriers, they're not pretty. They're ugly, but they work,” Todd Waelterman, St. Louis director of operations, said in April. "“We're not saying we're stuck and we're going to do this forever. We know this needs to be a liquid situation, have to react and get back to normal...how soon that happens we don't know."
Originally, the plan was to keep the barriers into the Cardinals season due to the capacity limits on Busch Stadium. With less fans allowed in, traffic was less of an issue. But the Cardinals have steadily increased capacity through spring, and announced Wednesday the stadium will fully reopen June 14.
