ST. LOUIS – Police say speed is a likely factor in another deadly crash at one of St. Louis’s most dangerous intersections.
FOX 2 has learned the intersection has been left out of the city’s historic plan to make streets safer.
Carla Ennis was a passenger in a car driving through the intersection of West Florissant and Riverview in north St. Louis on Monday afternoon, about 12 hours after the latest deadly crash there.
“No, it’s not a surprise. It’s not a surprise. It’s not the first death, but it should be the last if we can do something about it,” she said. Sometimes you’ve just got to slow down and live.”
She thought of all the crashes at the very same intersection through the years, including a woman killed in a hit-and-run last year; three children ejected and critically wounded in a crash in 2020; and an accident after a rolling gun battle that left behind a downed streetlight and smashed cemetery fencing seven years ago.
Traffic safety improvements keep getting destroyed in crashes. A brick street marker has recently been rebuilt at West Florissant and Astra (a side street near the Riverview intersection). Two safety bollards along West Florissant leading up to Riverview have been knocked over and broken, and another is completely gone.
“That’s a death trap. That intersection is a death trap,” said St. Louis Alderwoman Pam Boyd of 13th Ward.
The intersection is in her ward. She said improving safety had been a priority since she was elected in 2017.
Boyd said she had the bollards installed only to see them get knocked down like toothpicks.
Another one was toppled in the latest crash around 2:30 a.m. One man died, and two others were hospitalized in the three-vehicle crash, according to police.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed the historic “Safer Streets” bill into law earlier this year. The city will spend $40 million in ARPA funds on “traffic-calming” measures like roundabouts, wider sidewalks, and fewer lanes for vehicles. Boyd said West Florissant and Riverview are not included in the plan. MoDOT controls that section of Riverview Boulevard, which is part of Missouri Highway 367, Boyd said.
She hopes to work around that complication and capitalize on MoDOT’s plans to improve the Riverview corridor with the coming St. Louis Zoo “Wild Care” safari park expansion in north St. Louis County.
“So now, we’re looking at the whole corridor … to see how to calm that around there,” Boyd said. “I told them, I’ll just pay. I don’t care. I’ll pay for a roundabout, so we can slow this down. I can’t keep doing this. One life (lost) is too many for me.”
She is organizing a community meeting of residents and business owners in the area to hopefully fast-track lasting improvements.