Delmar Road Diet is Key to Vibrant East Loop

{Delmar in the East Loop envisioned with two traffic lanes and median streetcar}

The idea is being floated to give Delmar Blvd from Des Peres to DeBaliviere a diet. In order to maintain four lanes of traffic along with the trolley several stretches of street parking would be sacrificed. Reducing Delmar to two lanes like it is to the west would keep the street parking. As it is this part of Delmar most of the time has little traffic and motorists often drive too fast. Neither promotes the pedestrian experience that the community would like to extend from the west.

During rush hour westbound traffic backs up due to the reduction of lanes at Des Peres. With the already planned reduction of DeBaliviere fears are mounting. With population declines and good mass transit coverage how can this be? One only need look at a map to see why congestion increases quickly. So many streets have been closed or one-wayed that cars that otherwise wouldn’t be on the major streets must spend more time on them. This funneling overwhelms our bigger streets, and they cannot cope. Take a look at historicaerials.com to see how the street grid was complete back in 1958.