Now call to order the public infrastructure and utilities committee meeting uh for uh this Wednesday September 24th.

Uh Madam Cork, would you please call rolling?

Thank you, Mr.

Audible Present.

Vice Chair Schweitzer present Alderman Devoty Auderwoman Cox Entwe Chair Browning Present.

Auto Woman Clark Hubbard.

Alderman Devoty.

We have five present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Uh with that, we will move uh to item number three, which is the approval of the minutes.

Uh I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes of Thursday, August 14th, 2025.

So moved.

It's moved by the second year.

And this part is an opportunity to I just cannot believe the approach the project ID.

Alder Woman, can you uh mute your camera there?

Uh so that's uh move motion by the Alderman from the first seconded by the 10th uh to approve the minutes.

Uh Madam Cork, would you please call roll?

Audible woman Boyd aye.

Audible woman Clark Hubbard.

Vice Chair Sweitzer.

Aye.

Alderman Devotee.

Audible Cox Antwick.

Aye.

Chair Browning.

Aye.

Alderman Devoty.

We have five aye votes.

With that, the minutes are approved.

We will move into item number four, board bills for review.

We have two board bills today.

They're both having to do with speed humps.

They should go relatively quickly, and then we'll have a presentation uh by uh Griffin Lovato.

Uh we're looking forward to that.

But first, uh let's go ahead and call up uh Alderman Aldridge.

You are recognized on board bill number seventy.

Good afternoon, uh public infrastructure or the pew community committee today.

I present uh to you Board Bill 70, which is a speed hump bill, and I actually have an amendment to Board Bill 70.

Uh I would ask for the amendment to be adopted.

I move to adopt amendment number one to board bill number seventy.

Second previous roll.

And a call for previous roll.

Hearing no objection, uh, you are recognized on amendment number one.

Thank you, uh Alder Chairman Browning.

Uh amendment number one is just adding some more additional uh speed humps that we had left out in the high park area.

All these ones that are on the list are uh very close to each other, right there on Blair.

Um there's a uh a lot of speeding that happens between Blair uh and Angel Rock going all the way up to Salisbury and uh just uh last week or the week before that we had a few accidents um at the one near branch.

It's kind of a weird triangle um where there's a stop sign at branch and Blair um, but not necessarily um in other areas.

So just trying to use the speed humps to slow people down before uh another accident hopefully does not happen, and with that I will open up for any questions on board bill 70 as amended.

Uh with that we'll go through the committee and see if anyone has any questions.

Um start in order, Seniority, Alder Woman Boyd.

No question.

Okay, Alder Woman Clark Hubbard.

Alder Woman Schweitzer.

No question.

Alder Woman Cox Antwi.

No questions.

Alderman Devoty.

No questions.

I don't have any questions either.

I appreciate you looking out for your residence safety.

Uh with that, uh, we've already adopted the amendment, so I'll accept um you to uh begin your clothes.

Yep, I will move for uh favorable consideration of board bill 70 as amended in thank you.

I move that we um uh approve board bill 70 as amended with the due pass recommendation.

Is there a second on that?

Previous role moved by the second.

Objection.

Oh, thank you, Alderman Devotee uh Madam Cork.

Would you please call roll Audow Woman Boy?

Aye.

Vice Chair Sweitzer.

Aye.

Autumn and Devotee.

Aye.

Auto Woman Cox Antoine.

Aye.

Autumn Chair Browning.

Aye.

We have six aye votes.

Congratulations, Alderman.

Uh Board Bill 70 as amended has been passed out of committee with the due pass recommendation.

With that, we will move to uh the other item uh for review, board bill number sixty one.

Alderwoman Schweitzer, you are recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chair Browning and members of the committee.

Board Bill 61 is a uh speed hump bill, just one on um one block this time.

It was one of the uh few petitions that were returned over the summer months and to keep it moving before on maternity leave.

I didn't want it to be sitting and waiting for more blocks to be added.

Uh they did have the vast majority of people on that block sign uh 20 of 21 occupied properties on that block, so it's overwhelmingly popular.

Uh happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go through committee, Alderwoman Boyd.

No questions.

Alder Woman Clark Cubberd.

Alder Woman Schweitzer probably doesn't have any questions about her own bill.

Alderman Devotee.

No questions.

Alderwoman Cox Antwui.

No questions.

I also don't have any questions.

Appreciate you keeping this moving, Alderwoman.

You are recognized to close.

Thank you so much.

Uh I uh ask for your due pass recommendation for board bill 61.

Uh we'll entertain a due pass recommendation for board bill 61.

I move that we uh pass board bill 61 out of committee with a due pass recommendation.

Second uh it's been moved by the Alder Woman from the 8th, seconded by the Alderman from the 10th.

Uh do I hear a call for previous roll?

Hearing no objection, congratulations, Alderwan.

Thank you.

And with that, Board Bill 61 is passed out of committee with a due pass recommendation.

Uh when we will move on to the next item.

We have no more board bills for review.

Uh the we also don't have any resolutions for review, so we'll dispose of item number five, move to item number six, committee discussions.

Today we uh have a special treat.

We have a presentation by Griffin Lovato.

Uh but before we get going on that, uh I'd like to introduce Charles Bryson.

He is the uh policy director for Trailnet, and uh he is going to introduce our speakers for today.

Uh Mr.

Bryson, you are recognized.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, and members of the public public youth public infrastructure and utilities committee.

It's always great to be before you.

Again, as the chairman said, my name is Charles Bryson.

I'm policy catalyst with Trailnet, and uh that's the regional nonprofit dedicated to safe streets and sidewalks for all users.

Today we are excited for you to hear from Doris Scott, who's the academic director of data studies at Washington University, and Griffin Lovato, a grad student who use state and local crash data to craft a study on pedestrian safety at by-state and metrollink stops throughout the city.

Trailnet has enjoyed a multi-year partnership with to the GIS class, helping us and them define deep further into our crash report while giving students a valuable real world experience.

I want to thank this body for hearing this report, which was not designed to nor should Griffin Lovato have solutions for these issues.

His role was to identify the locations for further study, and hopefully collaboratively by the city and by state.

After Griffin's presentations, Professor Doris Scott and I will be here to answer any questions you may have.

And with that, I will introduce to the body Professor Doris Scott.

Hello, Chairman and Committee members.

My name is Doris Scott, and I am the academic director of data studies at WashU, continuing in professional studies known as CAPS.

We have a GIS, so Geographic Information Systems Certificate Program.

And this project that Griffin did was part of a capstone, which was designed for students to get real world experience with a nonprofit organization or any other organization of their choice.

Griffin chose to work with Trailnet because he first started to work with Trailnet in a class that I taught called Digital Cartography that focuses on map design and how to design effective maps for, for example, this situation.

So I am going to pass it on to Griffin to present his final project.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Ovado, we're pleased to have you here.

Although we do share some committee members, including Ms.

Cox Antwey, as well as uh Alder Woman Schweitzer who sit on that Transportation and Commerce Committee.

So you do have a dual audience here today.

And we are excited that you'd like to come and talk to us about uh these safety concerns that affect uh our residents in our city.

So with that, please take it away.

Thank you, Alderman Browning for an introduction.

Hello, Chairman Browning and members of the committee.

I am Griffin Lovato.

I am currently a student person with a master's in statistics at Washington University of St.

Louis.

Um, but I am a previous graduate of the CAPS GIS certificate, um, graduating in this summer.

This pro this project was undertaken as part of the GIS clinic, essentially the capstone experience.

Excuse me, could you speak into the mic, please?

My apologies.

Um to my face.

There we go.

Yes.

So I completed this project as part of the semester long capstone project to complete the clinic.

And with this all being said, let's get into my findings.

Next slide, please.

Sometimes it takes a bit to catch up.

Gotcha.

All right.

So going into this product, I began with three primary goals of what I wanted to learn with using state provided and uh city of St.

Louis provided and St.

Louis County provided information.

This is revolved around my first goal, which is revolved around Shodan geographic insights about around which Metrolink and Metro bus stops are potentially dangerous to get to for those who are using them, specifically pedestrians and cyclists with the presumption that people are not driving to stations.

This is this, of course, not entirely true.

The second is to show geographic insights about which wards and municipalities are these stations or stops are in that are disproportionately more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists to access.

And then finally, I wanted to indicate the specific details of accidents, such as the year and light condition, um, to helpfully and helpfully inform recommendations made by others in future.

Next slide, please.

So this is just an introductory slide of the uh St.

Louis Public Transportation Network featuring uh Metrolink stations and Metro bus stops.

Uh known this is for future reference and later slides.

So generally trends, can you metrolink stations clustered around downtown as well as the metro bus stops are generally more prevalent in St.

Louis City than the South.

Uh also important note in this slide is important symbology that will be retained for the rest of this presentation.

Every square is a St.

Louis public transit node.

Smaller ones are metro bus stops and larger ones are Metrolink stations.

Just to avoid confusion later in the presentation.

This next slide is also an introductory slide revolving around population density based on ward and/or municipality.

Um also for reference in future slides.

Generally, we can see trends such as central south St.

Louis City had a highest population density in the area, as well as the city of Clayton.

One final one final introductory slide before we get into the bulk of the analysis.

This is the accident density per 1,000 population.

Essentially, this is based on the actual population within each ward and municipality.

So for example, uh guests or commuters arriving into the city commute may contribute to the accidents per density per 1,000 population, um, even though the actual numbered people living there is solely based on people with residences there, not necessarily uh commuting there, working there every day.

Generally, St.

Louis City is generally higher than St.

Louis County, likely for discometer reason.

And again, this is only uh pedestrian and cyclist involved accidents.

Let's start with our accident analysis.

So the map to the right is every single uh pedestrian and cyclist accident mapped on to in the city and county.

This solely uses the between the years uh in 2018 and 2019, specifically from November 1st, 2018 to November 1st, 2019, as well as November 1st, 2023 to November 1st, 2024.

Um these dates were chosen for a previous project to indicate um potential trends into where these accidents are happening between the years to uh to show the effects of like a where improvements happening.

Um and it still provides useful contrast for this project.

Uh for symbology's reference, every circle here is an accident from 2018 to 2019, and every accident that is a triangle is from 2023 to 2024.

I used uh kernel density analysis.

Uh that is indicated in the left map.

Um generally what that works is that uh more purple regions uh have a higher um average like accident density per square mile.

This is very useful when applied to the action when applying this kernel density analysis to see how it interacts with the public transit nodes, as we'll be done later in this presentation.

Some notes on light condition and a final explanation of some of the remaining symbology, namely uh accidents being colored yellow, orange, or red, or how I refer to them daylight, dark lit, or dark unlit accidents.

So the data recorded by the Missouri State Highway Patrol's officer from the SARS database, this is where all of the uh accidents, accident data I recorded comes from.

They have a very useful column called light condition.

In this case, a daylight refers to uh examples such as the uh top left picture here, accidents diagram roads with adequate natural lighting, broad daylight.

Dark lit accidents refer to accidents recurring on roads without adequate natural light in, such as during nighttime and/or inclement weather, such as say stormy night like we had last night, but with adequate artificial lighting from street lamps, like the middle example here.

Finally, dark and lit refers to accidents that occurred on roads without adequate natural or artificial lighting, likely due to non-functioning or just completely accident stream lamps.

This example here uh is what would be a dark unlit example.

Um this is taken DRNA blackouts.

So concentration based on the year.

Let's move on to some of the key insights between where pedestrian cyclone accidents are happening in 2018-19, which is 2020 to 24.

So zooming in on 2018 and 19 in 2019, this first this first area has a lot higher accident density in downtown, the downtown area.

Pictured here is Olive Street and Tucker Boulevard, 415, St.

Louis City.

And then here is a map broken down, where instead not broken down by year, but instead by light condition.

Moving from left to light, we have daylight daylight pedestrian cyclist accidents, dark lit, and then dark unlit.

We will move on to where those accidents are happening in concentration in future slides.

Now we have the hazard per stop slide.

So this is generated if we focus on the left map here.

So the kernel density overlay, purple, this is created from the actual accidents.

Metro stops large, bus stops are small.

And giving them an effective hazard rating, essentially indicating, like, okay, where is this?

What is the average accident density per square mile at this stop?

So looking at the right picture, this map indicates the result of that.

Uh accident density per square mile of specifically pedestrian and cyclist accidents.

Um this is all independent.

This is 1819, 2324, regardless of light condition.

We will do the breakdown later on.

As you can see, there is a higher concentration specifically in St.

Louis City relative to St.

Louis County, given all the red there.

Dark unlit accidents are relatively uncommon, especially compared to dark lit and especially daylight accidents.

However, um they are they are non less significant in their effect.

Um we can see from some key insights.

I go down on to next slides.

Dark lit stops are heavily concentrated within this within the city.

Um the above picture is this is that this is downtown all of an eighth.

Um dark lit hazard nose, generally high around downtown, as well as the Kings Highway, Central West End general complex where all the hospitals are.

Uh this below picture is also a site of concentration of dark of dark lit dangerous uh potentially high hazard rating stops.

Uh this is Grivoy and Grand in Ward 7.

Um, and the dark lit hazard per note is generally consistently high for bus stops along Grevo.

There are also also notable insights to be gained from uh looking at where the dark unlit stops um have the highest uh general hazard rating.

This above picture is taken award 14.

We have St.

Louis Avenue, North Florence Avenue, uh seen in that picture purple picture there.

That's from uh Google Street View.

Um, this large this very large one.

Uh in St.

Louis City, dark and lit hazard is generally outside the main downtown area, uh, but especially high along Chippwood Street, Florissant, and at Jameson and Lansdown Avenue, kind of to the south uh west.

Uh the below picture also indicates some danger inside the inside St.

Louis County in regards to dark unlit incidents.

This uh picture is of that looking down Chambers Road and Green Valley Drive, and then unincorporated area in St.

Louis County.

Generally, the hazard is high for bus stops for dark unlit accidents, bus stops in North St.

Louis County and Delwood, Ferguson, as well as as well as Jennings, Country Club Hills, and generally unincorporated areas as a whole.

In the south, uh hazard is generally high south in Kirkwood, some of the hills, and more unincorporated areas in the south.

We can find some more interesting insights by averaging the um average bus stop hazard rating or metro bus, a metrolink stop hazard rating by which ward or municipality they are located in.

Metro stops, they their average hazard rate is indicated on the left.

And for Metrolink stations, note that far fewer wards and municipalities have a metrolink station is visible on the right, mostly isolated, but relatively St.

Louis City has hot has generally higher hazard rating per stop in when averaging by water municipality than the county.

Breaking this down for the metrobus system, we can this is breaking it down by light condition once again.

We can see daylight on the top left, uh mostly in the city.

Um when looking at dark lit accidents, this is even more concentrated in the city, specifically kind of like the uh center south.

And when looking at dark unlit accidents, the first the first map, the dark left, this is uh unadjusted.

Unadjusted since again, dark lit accidents are generally less common.

When we adjust the dark unlit accidents to actually see some contrast here, we can see the same trends kind of observed around like the Dellwood uh North St.

Louis uh boundary with North St.

Louis County.

Uh there is a low concentration of uh of high hazard bus stops related to some of those warm stops.

Okay.

Within the city, uh ward three, uh, this picture in blue.

Um, this is looking actually at a bus stop next to construction.

This is at Merrimack and South Broadway.

Ward three generally appears higher than other wards in regards to hazard level of metro stops and dark and lit conditions.

It stands out in the city.

Uh the below example is in Del is in Delwood municipality out in the county.

This is looking again down Chambers Road and West Florence Avenue.

Generally, hazard is high in the same areas mentioned before with Delwood, Ferguson, Jennings, Centrical Hills, and unincorporated areas.

Finally, um, this map uh is broken down not by ward and municipality, but by census tract.

This is taken advantage of some important data gained by at the census level, uh specifically the proportion of workers living in that attract who use public transit to commute the work.

Um, an important notion to judge, like, hey, what what approximate hazard is does this oppose to just like the overall economy and workers trying to get to their jobs?

So this map has bivariate symbology, a little bit of an explanation of that.

Generally, the more orange tract um as can be seen mostly in the city and kind of like the central south area, the greater the hazard around metro bus stops is within that track specifically.

The more blue tract, the greater proportion of workers who live in that tract use public transit to commute the work.

Black black tracks are great in both, or just generally dark colored are great in both portion of workers and hazard white tracks are low in both, but low in their hazard and proportion of workers using public transit.

Some notable insights from this map.

We have the only uh tract indicating like high rates of both in Ward 11.

Uh this picture in a net tract looks along Natural Bridge Avenue and Prairie Avenue, um, and is the only tract with high public transit use rate and high metro bus stop hazard level, mostly ward 11.

Uh North St.

Louis City generally has high public transit use rate throughout, at least proportional to the rest of all the tracks in St.

Louis City and Lake Miami and St.

Louis County.

The below example looks at Grand Boulevard and Winnebago Street, Ward 6.

There's our particularly high hazard level down here, as well as a moderate public transit use rate at the ward 367 intersection, especially in Long Grand.

Um I believe Griff Boys, a grow up, which mentioned earlier, also um a problem street in this area.

South Maplewood faces a similar problem out in the county of having that high hazard level and moderate public use transit rate.

So some results in discussion.

Generally, some general ways that I learned from this is that uh, although not included from this, the Metrolink system is generally not affected by lack of lighting.

There were no accidents in dark unlit conditions in proximity to the Metrolink system.

Most accidents in proximity to the Metrolink system were either in broad daylight or dark but lit by artificial means.

Generally, Metrobus is far more affected by dark unlit crashes, especially in North St.

Louis City and North St.

Louis County.

North St.

Louis City has a combination, and then North St.

Louis City has that combination of high public transit use rate and accident-affected metro bus stops.

Um to some data sources just to verify where I got all this from.

This uses is used a variety of publicly available data, um, including the Census Bureau for regarding the uh census track data, as well as the location of say uh just streets.

Um specific uh things to St.

Louis included like uh wards and municipal boundaries, uh, from MoDuck Ub, as well as the main um way that I actually found out where the actual accidents are occurring.

That is all from the state of Missouri stars reporting.

Um, and it's also one reason why I haven't expanded this uh fully by state like in the Illinois.

Uh in Illinois, different state, different reporting system um in the future.

Maybe looking at that.

Here are my citations.

Thank you to the committee for listening.

And I now stand ready for questions.

Thank you so much.

Uh this was really interesting to see.

Uh and um I think that when we are looking at our streets, there's been data that has come out from TrailNet's crash reports that has pointed to bus stops being somewhere where crashes occur more often, likely due to the presence of pedestrians.

Uh so this is I think important data that we can look at to understand how we need to treat our public transit stops in order to keep people safe.

Uh with that, I'm I'm gonna go through the committee and see what kind of questions or comments we have, and I'll start with uh Alder Void.

I can see her, but she looks frozen.

She might be frozen.

We'll go to Alder Will and Clark Hubbard while Alder Woman Void unfreezes.

This is a really great presentation, Griffith.

With pride is coming up for Saturday integration.

Go ahead, Alder1.

Griffin, you did an amazing job with this work.

First of all, I'm a little biased because people know I love maps.

So the visuals, I was just at the edge of my seat over here.

It was interesting.

Um not surprising though to see some of the correlations between the underserved neighborhoods and as they related to the stops, right?

And the um accidents and things that had happened at the stops.

Did you go into any more detail on what the incidents were that happened around those stops, or was it just in general and an accident?

Um no, this is based on the kernel density analysis from previous slides.

That just has basically puts a blob around each accident um independent of say like actual like street separation to get more of a general view.

Uh if the pedestrian or cyclist accident occurred directly was the accident was directly related to a metrobus stop, that's not captured by the star database, unfortunately.

This is just purely proximity based by the closest intersection to the accident.

Right.

Well, still very important, right?

Because when we want to look at how we want to dress those areas, great information to be able to look back to data to be able to look back.

So thank you for that.

Thank you for all your work on this.

I hope to be able to use this.

And for better informed decisions down here at the board too.

And um, please don't look.

I don't know what's next for you.

But just saying um your effort and and the work you put in this, I know it's gonna be great.

So don't forget about us down here wherever wherever the world takes you.

Thank you, Alder Woman Hubbard.

All right, we'll try Alder Woman Void again.

Alder Woman, are you with us?

I am, thank you.

It's kind of hard when you don't want two things at once.

I was at a hearing.

Well, no worries, Alderwoman.

Uh, do you have any questions for Mr.

Wavato or any any thoughts on his presentation?

No, thank you for the presentation.

And uh I'm just asked, are you gonna send that uh to the committee for us to review?

Yes, I can send the physical PowerPoint presentation to the committee for review.

Uh, are you curious about the actual data?

The R.

Yes, sir.

That's what I was looking at.

I saw that's why I was asking for.

Yes.

But your your presentation was very detailed, and I appreciate you bringing the information forward.

And so I just wanted to, since I'm multitasking, I just wanted to digest it to get you know more in ties to it.

So if I might have a question for you later.

Gotcha.

And in terms of the actual data, uh, Elder Woman Bond, what is sort of related to your question, the actual project file is approximately 30 or so gigabytes.

Um, I can't send that over an email.

Um, but I would be happy to have provided a hard drive or some location in the cloud to put that project.

Yes, sir.

You could just uh bring get a hard driving, give it to the at the border of and they can put it in my mailbox.

Gotcha.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you, Alderwoman.

Uh, we'll go to Alder Woman Schweitzer.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I really enjoyed it.

It's always interesting to learn more about the data around where the city has issues, especially the city, but obviously the whole the whole system where where there are accidents that occur.

Uh, I want to just make sure that you've shared this information with Metro by State and of where they might have stops that need more attention.

Yes, regarding uh sharing this committee, I can do that after we're start working on that with the hard drive plan after his presentation, but in terms of sharing this to by state, I don't necessarily have a connection to by state.

Um, I'm sure that Charles Bryson could answer some of those.

Sure, he can.

He can get in touch with anybody.

Uh yeah, I think that they would really like to see it.

You know, I I would suggest just for you know, ease of digestion of the data, having if you have any uh like a spreadsheet with the specific stop and number of accidents and the address, you know, that would be something that I think would help with some of the planning efforts.

I know, you know, in my ward, I was looking, you know, I always am looking at the again the whole system, but always gonna be looking at my ward in particular for for what can be done there.

Um, but one of the streets in my ward that has just an incredible number of pedestrian and and uh cyclist accidents and accidents in general is a graboy.

So I didn't know if any specific stops along that route stood out, uh, or if um there were any, you know, nearby, because I think we talk about doing more safety improvements along uh certain corridors around um places where there may be more pedestrians or cyclists, and that's not just the stop necessarily, but it's also in thinking about the crosswalks that are there or the safety buttons for pedestrians, and they can you know press a button to have a light go on and things like that.

So uh having that kind of itemized list of specific intersections or specific stops that might need more attention uh surrounding the stops, you know, based on the street conditions, things like that would be really interesting.

Um my last question is for the the lighting portion of it, one of the things that we're spending a lot of time thinking about is um the type of lighting that St.

Louis uses.

You know, right now it's a very bright kind of uh white light, like a 4,000 Kelvin light, where a lot of pedestrian spaces are recommended to be at a 2700, 3,000 Kelvin lighting.

So I wondered if there was any different uh difference or any way of even knowing whether the accidents were occurring in more pedestrian scale lighting locations, or in the sorry, the dark lit category, if they were pedestrian scale lighting, or if it was more um overhead street lighting, if that makes sense.

Gotcha.

Good insights, uh, Alderwoman.

So regarding uh having just a spreadsheet of individual bus stops and their haskarating, uh doesn't currently exist would definitely be a great idea uh to hand to the committee and by st and eventually by state, uh definitely possible with where the project is at now.

Um just simple rearrangement of some columns.

So as regard to uh kind of actually diagnosing where dark lit accidents are happening if in that pedestrian level lighting versus just like overhead lighting from like you you mentioned like just like built like billboards, like non-intent like things not intentional for not intended for pedestrians, just like big ol' the overhead.

Yeah, there's this, you know, street lighting is more for you know, vehicle traffic, that's more helpful for them, where then the lower pedestrian scale warmer colors tends to be better for pedestrian areas.

So I didn't guess places like the Central West End have really prioritized that pedestrian scale lighting, uh, and it's easier for pedestrians to see around them as well as cars, I would imagine.

Um, but in many areas, there is just the you know overhead cobra type lighting.

And I just was interested if if there was any comparison of the type of dark lit areas.

And that may be just taking it a step too far, but it just was something that I thought about while you were talking.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's not covered in this project.

Uh dark all dark lit is considered the same dark lit by the highway patrol officer at the scene, unfortunately.

Um, but if provided a map of that pedestrian specific lighting versus general street lighting and uh non like non-safety related lighting, like say like advertisements or buildings that just happen to light up the street.

If we write a map in the future, that would be a interesting thing to do.

A layer that could be looked at.

Thank you.

That's really interesting.

And and I I echo the the thanks of my colleagues here.

And uh I always hope that people who have interest in this topic and and talent around this uh sort of work to choose to stay in St.

Louis.

So I'll just make that plea that you choose to build your career here.

So thanks for coming here for school.

Where are you from?

I'm from Marina, Nevada.

Oh wow, okay.

Welcome.

I mean, you've been here for a minute, I guess, but welcome anyway.

Thank you.

Uh, we're happy to have you.

Uh thank you for choosing our city for your education, and uh reach out to any of us if we can't.

Thank you so much.

Alderman Devotee.

Yes, Mr.

Lovato, thank you for the presentation.

I found it fascinating.

I've got a background as a trial lawyer, and over the years I've handled uh a handful of incidents involving pedestrians or bike lists, bite bicyclists getting struck by motor vehicles.

So very, very interesting.

Uh one question in follow-up.

You I thought I heard you say the dark lit incidents were relatively uncommon.

Did I hear that correct versus lit or dark unlit incidents?

Uh dark unlit accidents uh were the ones that were the least common.

Dark lit are far more common, but less so than daylight accidents.

And what do you what do you attribute that to?

I would guess daylight lit accidents.

It's maybe a matter of volume, uh, the number of folks out and about.

But it surprises me that the dark unlit would be the the least.

What is your thought?

Um I would say for like the nine 9 a.m.

and 5 p.m.

commute, typically within daylight hours, that's when a majority of uh pedestrian pedestrians are out about especially commuters to and from work as well as uh cyclist and motorists doing the same thing, which is what I would generally attribute the um high daylight um hours.

The data uh from stars does actually include the exact time the accident was recorded.

So again, that could be another useful column to view in the future and have presented on a map.

Um but in terms of the kind of rarity of dark unlit accidents.

I don't there's not that many places where that can occur, especially in the highest density areas, those areas within the city.

There's street lights and and billboards and signage everywhere that's contributing to that prevalence of artificial light.

It's hard to it's hard to find in an area that's just completely uh blacked out, except during a literal blackout.

I had to, that's where I had to find the example of that for the picture of dark unlit was during a blackout.

That may have contributed to why it's rare.

I I appreciate that.

Thank you for the clarification.

Did your analysis look at uh within an area where the crash happened and and how the pedestrian came to be where they were.

Meaning, did it happen in the street, off the sidewalk, in a crosswalk, that kind of thing.

Uh all of the data regarding the actual accident, again, from that stars database.

Uh they don't include circumstances regarding like hey, where specifically did the accident occurred.

They don't even include a lat long.

The most locational data from that uh highway patrol stars database is the at street and the on street.

Um at st on street, what street it's on, at street, whatever the closest intersection to that is.

So that's about as honed in as we can that as I can possibly get using just a STARS database.

So unfortunately, those circumstances regarding like near nearby crosswalk or at or in the bus stop itself are outside of this project, unfortunately.

Unless provide it with better data.

Fair enough.

I appreciate it.

Thank you again, sir.

Thank you.

Alanit Devody.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you again.

Uh I'll echo my colleagues' uh congratulations on this amazing presentation.

Uh, this information is helpful for us, um, not only to have good information about the number of accidents that are occurring, but also to help us think preventatively about how we can address some of these.

So I appreciate you being here to help us work on that together.

Um, I shared Alderman Devote's uh surprise with some of the correlations that you identified.

Um, and one that stood out to me was when you said that the uh metro transit stops, dark unlit circumstances were actually less prevalent than the bus transit circumstances, which is something that to the general public you might think would be the other way around.

Uh so in a similar vein, what do you think the rationale may be for that situation is why some of our transit centers may not have as many accidents in comparison to some of the bus centers.

Yes.

Uh good insight that I initially questioned when uh doing the analysis of like, hey, the Metrolink stop, they have basically completely zero dark unlit accidents within that general like purple blob kernel density area for along the entire network, at least on the Missouri side.

Uh what I would attribute that to is for um at least from where the blue red and blue line split, um, I believe that's in the Forest Park stop, uh, all the way to downtown.

That quote that corridor is uh very dense, very uh lit.

There's hardly any dark unlit accidents down there because there's no possible place for them to occur.

Um alongside that uh metrolink stations, unlike Metrobus stops, are separated from streets, um, usually by by a degree of say that there's like they're down some stairs, um, they're physically on a different level, like the stop at uh uh at a Delmar, um, which uh users actually had to walk down this ramp, and it's relatively far from Delmar Boulevard itself.

Um I I would probably attribute it, I I may attribute it to that relative to say like a metro bus stop, which um from some of the pictures can be a sign on the sidewalk, and that's it.

Um so that's what I would attribute that discrepancy to, I believe.

Okay, that's very helpful context.

And I think I mean Alderman Browning and Auter Woman Clock Hub would agree we share that kind of central corridor path of the Metrolink, and I know we all get a lot of questions about that and about safety, wanting to make sure people feel more comfortable riding public transit.

So thank you for breaking that down for us.

I think that's really helpful.

And I would echo everybody and saying hopefully we could keep you here.

My partner's family is from Reno, so I've been there quite a bit.

And I have bias in saying St.

Louis is a little better.

So hopefully we can keep you.

Thank you.

It's a yellow man.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Wavado.

I really appreciate you uh reaching out to this committee in the first place to offer your research and offer the presentation of it.

It's important for us as legislators to be aware of the problems facing our city and see data backed approaches to understanding those problems.

Uh when I look at the maps that you presented, it it is interesting.

I can see Gravoy stick out.

I can see Lindell stick out.

Um FYI, everyone, we're doing a traffic study on Lyndall right now for that exact reason because we know it's a very dangerous road.

Uh and so one thing we're looking at is bus stops.

Uh how do we make them safer?

And looking at bus islands that are essentially um, you know, uh beyond the bike lane, but you'd step out into that island and then the bus would pick you up in lane rather than uh pulling over to pick you up.

Uh, this is something we've seen used to great effect in other cities.

Um I guess my question for you is uh did you look at the type of bus stop or location of the bus stop?

You mentioned like metrolink stations are a little bit more separated from the road, but the I think part of the reason we see bus stop crashes more is that they uh they're they're right there in the traffic lane, and buses typically travel on high capacity roads, and so that is a higher danger to pedestrians, and then there's a higher likelihood that the pedestrians are around that area seeing how it's a transit stop.

But I'm curious if you looked at the the designs of each of these stations or stops in any ways and saw any trend about what might be safer for Gotcha.

Good question, Alderman Brown.

So, in terms of actually discriminating between different types of bus stops.

I am unconfident if that data is actually in the by state uh data set that I used.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was, but I did not in the context of presentation.

But it is an important point.

Not all bus stops are created equal, for example, for example, right behind us or me, uh the enterprise bus stops at the Enterprise Stadium, those are huge, well protected, generally have their whole own area to accommodate for the bulk of people leaving from games there.

Those bus stops are not the same as one with, say, like a a covered area in a bench, which is not the same as one that again, literally just a sign.

Um definitely something worth looking to uh at in the future, especially from that by state data set which had all this bus stop and metrolink locations, as well as for Metrolink different types of Metrolink station designs.

That may be able to be done on a case-by-case basis since again, there's fewer Metrolink stations.

There's approximately 20 on the Ms on the Missouri side.

Not entirely sure.

Um but yes, could be definitely indicated on maps in the future as a potential feature.

Thank you.

And I and I know how it is to do research sometimes, and you you do have to pick a lane and kind of narrow down in that lane, and then of course, when you present it, everyone did you research this other thing?

And it's like, no, I researched this thing.

Uh but uh, but it's it's highly informative what you what you have looked at.

Um my colleagues asked a little bit about the lighting conditions.

I'm kind of I'm curious why why focus on the light?

Is it a matter of was your theory visibility of the of the pedestrian or the cyclist is the driving problem with a crash happening?

Um so the reason I focused on light when I was that was actually just a project of looking through that stars database, what what was available as a potential way to um this was in the project of brainstorming phase uh to look at okay, how can I how can I make this potential how can I uh cause a more interesting insight in regards to the actual recommendation that can be based.

I'm not gonna make a actual like safety or infrastructure recommendation.

I would recommend that to Charles Bryson again, but I believe that based on the actual lighting condition, different lighting conditions would require different infrastructure changes.

I or at least I would presume that to be true.

That's mostly why I focused on it.

I found it the most interesting out of all the uh all of the stars crash data, uh individual features, especially for this project.

Uh yeah, again, there are other features and up in that data set worth looking at other aspects captured by high patrol officers at the time.

Thank you.

I I think that's another thing that comes up with research all the time is that you work with the data you have, and so you it sounds like you started from a sound places to say this is the data I have.

What kind of story can I tell with this data uh rather than trying to find something that you didn't couldn't find data for or that you couldn't dig into.

It also really emphasizes the necessity of collecting good data because if uh, for instance, our officers when filling out accident reports would put more of those details, we would be able to tell more about each situation and how we can prevent it in the future.

Um I was just sitting down with a captain this morning talking about the three E's of traffic safety, uh enforcement education and engineering.

And without all three of those, we don't get traffic safety.

So it's important to acknowledge how we uh design our bus stops and our Metrolink stops, but also what does happen near them so that we can understand what we need to do in the future.

And I think if this if this presentation hasn't shown us the need to really look at our streets around these places where pedestrians and cyclists are present and make sure that we're protecting them, I think that we're we're now keenly aware of of the places that we need to look, and so that served a good purpose.

Um I just want to again thank you for reaching out to us and for presenting today.

I know this is kind of like a a second defense where you have to sit here and talk to this really imposing setup here where we're all sitting here and judging you, but um we're not that we're we're actually we're really really happy with what what you presented today, and we just really appreciate uh the initiative you took in looking into this.

Thank you so much for comments, Chair Brown.

Absolutely.

Um, with that, uh unless anyone has any other comments, we'll go ahead and close this discussion item.

Uh Madam Court, do we have any written testimony?

We have none.

Okay, and uh with that, uh, does any member have any announcements?

Seeing none, uh all members who are present, no need to excuse anyone.

And with that, I'll accept a motion to adjourn.

So moves.

Previous roll.

Moved by the other one from the first, seconded by the other one from the tenth.

Call for previous roll from the autumn first.

Hearing no objection, we are adjourned.