After Crash, Benton Park Residents Want Stop Sign Along Jefferson Ave.

After a weekend car crash, Benton Park residents living on South Jefferson Avenue say their busy stretch of the road needs at least one more stop sign.

On Sunday afternoon, a group of neighbors living near the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Lynch Street were outside surveying damage and doing what they could to help individuals who had just been involved in a car wreck. A Nissan sedan heading north on Jefferson had to swerve out of the way to avoid an SUV heading south that cut across lanes making a left turn onto Lynch.

The driver of the Nissan avoided being struck by the SUV, but ran her car into a residential building. She suffered some minor scrapes requiring medical attention but everyone in the car and the building was spared serious injury. The SUV left the scene.

Carole Dent lives next door to the building struck by the Nissan. The fence in her front yard sustained damage in the crash. She says this is the third time a car careening off Jefferson has struck her fence.

The intersection at Lynch and Jefferson ought to have a stop sign, Dent says.
Jer Wilcoxson says in the short time he's lived near the intersection since moving back to St. Louis from California, he's seen multiple instances of motorists on Lynch collide with cars "just flying" down the five lane Jefferson Avenue. "People are usually flying on freeways in California but not so much on the side streets," Wilcoxson says. "St Louis is a completely different city. Here it feels sedate on the highways, and it's crazy on the side streets."

He agrees with Dent about the need for a stop sign though, this being St. Louis, he can't help but wonder if there were a sign if it would mostly be ignored.

Ward 8 Alderwoman Cara Spencer says that last week, she was emailing the City Department of Streets after parents of McKinley Middle School students voiced concerns about an uptick of crashes on Jefferson. One of the crashes involved five cars, two of which were totaled, in front of Sump Coffee in the 3700 block of Jefferson.

On Thursday, Spencer wrote in an email to Department of Streets Director Betherny Williams that “there have been 3 serious accidents in the past 10 days at or around the intersection of S Jefferson and Chippewa.” She asked Williams for more details about plans to invest in the street to make it safer.
In reply, Spencer was told that Williams was out of town and that “there is an internal group reviewing the crash sites to determine next steps and how we move forward." The reply went on to say that the department was not ready to share the work with the alders or the public.

Spencer says she felt the response from the department left much to be desired.

"I'm dismayed that they're not ready to communicate to the alderpeople or the general public about what they're doing about it," Spencer says.

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