Brief talk the BND article and a short addenum from last post

On Wednesday, the Belleville News-Democrat published an article on deficient bridges in the Metro-East. Their article went after mostly smaller, minor bridges, as the majority of the deficient bridges are. (Note: their link is only good for a few days after the article.)

I held off on writing this post for a day, waiting to see if the Alton Telegraph would do such a thing in the River Bend. Well, that hasn't come, so I'm not waiting any longer.

This article is bringing me back memories of the infamous night of August 10, 1994. I was watching KSDK News at 10 that fateful night when the anchor broke the shocking news. Plenty of words that I can't mentioned here were said in that house at the moment, and those nasty words were likely repeated in many households in the Metro East. There was little mentioned by the anchor but her voice that night sounded like this was bad.

Rush hour the ensuing two mornings was some of the most f'ed up traffic jams the Metro-East has ever seen. Two broken pins at an expansion joint put the COR Bridge out of commission for westbound traffic, and if you wanted to cross the river you were going to be sitting in traffic for a long time. Things would return to normal by Sunday but IDOT wasn't done screwing with our minds. The following Friday, right there in afternoon rush hour, they shut down two lanes for emergency inspections and more repairs. This got intense local media coverage, and had the social media networking been around back then, it would been obvious that IDOT would receive some major heat.

Meanwhile on the safety standpoint, the weather is getting warmer and this means more motorcycles will be out. Be especially careful for the stunt bikers, they are known to take it to the local highways during off-peak and weekend daytime hours. These bikers will do dangerous stunts right on the highway and have a potential to cause issues.

Fast forward to the 3 minute mark of this video and watch it until the 7 minute mark. This video is very self explanatory and there is several bikers doing dangerous stunts, including stuff right on the bridge. There is at least two other known ROC 2010 videos on YouTube that been filmed on the bridge that I know of. Please stay alert on these nice days for large groups of motorcycles, and if you encounter stuntmen, please give them the right of way.

Why this is a safety issue

Since December, the number of incidents on the bridge has been alarming. Lately I been keeping a close eye on the tweets made by MoDOT from their StLouisTraffic twitter feed, and the number of incidents have increased since this blog was started. Besides the all too obvious incident on December 8 here is a short list of other notable incidents that did happen (some of the links provided have images that is disturbing):

December 19 late afternoon incident that had a stalled pickup and a tractor-trailer, in a fashion too similar to what happened on December 8. The only difference was that the pickup driver decided to run away from the scene, and ended up walking away from this. Like the December 8 incident, the bridge had to be shut down completely to clear the scene, but only for 2 hours instead of 10 hours.

January 9, 2011 had another rear-ender that started with a stalled vehicle in the westbound lanes. This one did not completely close the bridge but the damage was done as traffic was down to one lane to clear it.

On February 18, a car loses control and flips in the westbound lanes, causing traffic again to go down to one lane.

Here is some of the various tweets that MoDOT posted since December through their StLouisTraffic page:

1. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: EB I-270 @ MISSISSIPPI RIVER Friday, March 18, 2011 11:04:55 AM via The Visitor Widget
2. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: STALLED TT EB I-270 @ MISSISSIPPI RIVER RL Friday, March 18, 2011 8:59:05 AM via The Visitor Widget
3. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: EB I-270 AT CHAIN OF ROCKS Thursday, March 17, 2011 5:57:43 PM via The Visitor Widget
4. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: STALL EB I-270 AT CHAIN OF ROCKS RL Thursday, March 17, 2011 5:34:43 PM via The Visitor Widget

1. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: EB I-270 AT MISS RIVER Friday, March 11, 2011 5:49:16 PM via The Visitor Widget
2. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: CRASH EB I-270 AT MISS RIVER ALL LNS CLOSED Friday, March 11, 2011 5:40:02 PM via The Visitor Widget
3. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: EB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RIVER Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:13:59 PM via The Visitor Widget
4. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: STALL EB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RIVER RL Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:08:15 PM via The Visitor Widget
5. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: WB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RVR BRDGE Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:15:41 PM via The Visitor Widget
6. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: STALL WB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RVR BRDGE RL Tuesday, February 22, 2011 1:06:05 PM via The Visitor Widget
7. StLouisTraffic
   CLEARED: WB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RIVER Saturday, February 05, 2011 5:10:52 PM via The Visitor Widget
8. StLouisTraffic
   NEW: CRASH WB I-270 AT MISSISSIPPI RIVER CLOSED 4:43 PM Feb 5th via The Visitor Widget

Notice that most of the crashes happen in the westbound lanes. Right before you hit the bridge going west, you are coming off a curve and you don't get great sight distance because the highway is also tree-lined. Its only 2 lanes in each direction with no shoulders, which does not meet modern interstate standards set by the FHWA. Add in the heavy traffic and the high percentage of tractor-trailer traffic, and you got conditions ripe for a major catastrophe.

The December 8 incident was not the first catastrophe that ever happened, and the scary thing about that incident it only involved two vehicles. (The time of the day the incident happened and the widespread media coverage played a big factor.) The incident on December 19 also involved just two vehicles (but did not get as much media coverage because it was a Sunday afternoon). Get an incident much like the one that happened on Highway 40 in downtown St. Louis during a surprise freezing rain event last month and lets see how much hell it will cause. To be honest, I rather not know what outcome that would have. The June 13, 2000 incident on the canal bridge would be the closest thing of an chain-reaction incident that I can remember off the top of my head and that incident stalled traffic in the River Bend region for hours. The December 8 incident stalled the River Bend and much of the Metro-East well into the afternoon despite the fact the incident occurred before morning rush hour even started.

With all those smart phones out there capable of recording video it will be a matter of time before the next incident happens that gets caught on camera. The locals are getting fed up by IDOT so called "no build" strategy on this section of 270, which has been going on as long as I can remember. Its not a matter of adding capacity, instead its a matter of safety. I have known people that had bad wrecks on the bridge, and others that changed their jobs just so they don't have to cross the river on the bridge.

The next time MoDOT or IDOT decides on a public hearing on the 270 corridor in this area, we need to just show up and let them have it. We waited way too long for a solution to be found. I don't give a care about the costs, we need a solution and we need it now before more dates like December 8, 2010 happen.

Wonderful morning drive west

A one-car spinout just west of Riverview this morning in the westbound lanes around 07:15 stalled traffic about 5 miles, all the way to the Route 203 exit. It was cleared in less than 30 minutes but the damage was done as soon as the spinout happened. It takes about 20 minutes after the wreck was cleared for the traffic to return to normal.

This should show why little problems up on this section of 270 becomes big issues almost instantly. The incidents don't even have to happen on the Chain of Rocks Bridge for the morning commute to go to hell.

new MoDOT AADT suggest increasing congestion

MoDOT recently released their 2009 AADT figures for the St. Louis region, and while the numbers were down from 2008 across the region, there was an increase on the I-270 north county corridor east of Lindbergh. The section from 170 to New Halls Ferry saw a jump of of over 10,000 vehicles, and an increase of about 1500 vehicles from 367 to the Chain of Rocks Bridge.

The last two mornings I been monitoring the IDOT live feed of the Chain of Rocks Bridge traffic, and every morning as early as 4 am the amount of traffic starts increasing, and by 6 am there is slowing traffic as soon as you hit the curve right before the bridge in the westbound lanes. On the website I seen yellows and reds for speed detections in that area during the peak periods from time to time. This is proof that this section of 270 is approaching capacity and something needs to be done.

I'm updating the "Get Involved" section to include various Missouri officials. Keep sending complaints to them, maybe something will give soon.

The growing number of incidents.

MoDOT is changing the speed limits on their portion of the 270/255 loop again, given in the news that came out today. They are switching to variable advisory speeds, from the variable speed limits, as this video shows. You can read their results here.

This news came on the same day that a nasty crash shut down 270 at 367 for 2+ hours during the morning rush hour. 367 leads up to the Clark Bridge, which is a major alternate to the COR.

If and when MoDOT starts that new study being rumored, they better do it right this time. The section from 367 to the COR may only get a third of the average amount of traffic that 270 sees in West County, but that 5 mile section of 270 is where if anything goes wrong the entire area is screwed over with total lack of alternate routes. The incident this morning was a classic example of the nightmare that happened when it hits the fan. The December 8, 2010 incident displayed the classic aftermath of when something really does go wrong. Both those incidents got major news coverage as they happened. Looking back at news archives, anything major that happened on 270 between 170 to 255 got major news coverage, ranging from the TV news stations to the local newspapers. (If the Internet had been around during the early part of the 1990s, the incidents that happened in 1992 and 1994 would have been major stories as well.)

Last but not least, there was an incident at the Route 203 exit last week that had a tractor trailer breaking down in the middle of the eastbound lanes of 270. 4 mile backup during the afternoon rush as traffic was reduced to one lane to clear that incident. This, too, made the news. Something needs to be done to fix that section of 270 in North County and in Madison County, and it needs to be done now.