The speed limit currently drops from 70 to 65 before the first Wentzville exit at Pierce Blvd. Then we drop to 60 mph before I-64. At this time we haven't looked at moving that any further west. I will forward your comment to our area engineer so they can review that.

I've had two other similar questions on Route N this morning. We are planning to add shoulders from Sommers Road to Z next year. Working on long term widening plans as funding is available.

Linda, Is there any possibility of at least improving the intersection of Hwy N and Perry Cate soon? That is the main culprit, and all other entrances/exits in that strip of road would benefit from that one intersection controlled by a stop light. I realize the funding isn't there to improve all of Hwy N, but how difficult is it normally to get a traffic signal added? A dedicated right turn lane from westbound Hwy N onto Perry Cate, with a traffic signal, would greatly reduce the risk for students and teachers.

If MoDOT did a traffic study of that strip of Hwy N that goes from Immanuel Lutheran west to the Catholic church, they would see a nightmare of people pulling out in front of oncoming traffic, people turning west out of the elementary school - just to pull a U-turn in the Catholic church entrance because there's very little opportunity to turn east out of the schools, buses that have to stop in the middle of the road to let other buses and traffic proceed for safety reasons, and on and on. It's a mess!

I know right where you are talking about. I will have our traffic engineers check and see if another sign should be installed there.

MoDOT is planning next year to add resurface and add shoulders to Route N from the intersection at Sommers Road to Route Z. We are also talking with St. Charles County officials regarding long term improvements of perhaps adding lanes.
I will have the striping checked on Wentzville Parkway over I-70.

On the Parkway: thanks for the review. I was hit at the lane shift (right/northbound) and started paying attention to traffic. Too many northbound cars don't make the shift. It is surprising that there aren't more accidents!

I saw the note about the "shoulders" on Highway N a couple of years ago. It was far more dangerous after the crumbled asphalt was added! Thankfully, it washed away very quickly.

See my previous answer on Route N. Working on long term plans there when funding is available. No new funding is coming yet.

I'm checking on the design of the shouldering work. I don't know if it will be thicker than what has been done before. I will post an update if I get more information from the engineers today.
I would note that the purpose of the shoulders is to provide the extra space to make corrections. Many of the crashes have been from overcorrecting when the tires go off the edge of pavement. By adding a small shoulder, it provides that correction room. Another key is to slow down the speed on these roads. They were not designed for all of the development that has occurred along them. Now we need the funding to widen the road, but in the meantime, we are providing the extra space for safety.

I will have the signal timing checked to see if we can't get more than 3 cars through. In regards to the yellow/red. The law is if you enter the intersection on yellow, you are allowed to complete your movement. You should not enter the intersection on red.

Thank you. Regarding color when entering...Many times you enter and it's green and turns red by the time you're in the middle due to people braking, turning very slowely, etc...As far as what is legal gets thrown out the window with the cameras there, doesn't it? They have no way to determine what color the light was when you started. Or does it? I don't know how the cameras function

If the intersection has a red light camera on it, it depends on how it is set up. My basic understanding is the camera is focused at the white solid intersection line. If you cross that line when the light turns red, you will see the flash of the camera taking your picture for a ticket. The other general rule is that you shouldn't cross the white solid line unless you can clear the intersection. Cars sitting in the middle are referred to by the police as "blocking the box", or the center of the intersection. I know a lot of people do this when turning left. I also understand it is hard when the person in front of you stops or goes really slow. You have to make a judgement call as a driver whether to enter the intersection or not.
In regards to the signal timing, I have sent a note for a call report for our signal crews to check the timing. Hopefully that can help your problem.

We have 200 trucks and 450 employees who work 12 hours shifts to keep all the equipment running around the clock in the St. Louis area (St Louis City and County, ST Charles, Franklin and Jefferson counties). We are responsible for the interstates, the major highways like 100, 364, 370, Lindbergh, etc and also the lettered routes in each county.

Marcia, I've alerted someone in the city's planning department to your question. Hopefully they'll respond!

I'm going to check with our staff too. Since the signal at Zumbehl and West Clay is right next to the Zumbehl and I-70 interchanges, we may have them all connected together. Thanks for the detail on the timing and your directions. That really helps the traffic engineers understand the problem you are having. If I get any info back on this, I will post it later today.

Marcia, Kevin Corwin with St. Charles City says this is a MoDOT signal.

The signal timing here is run by MoDOT because it is part of the overall signal timing for the I-70 interchange. Our traffic engineer just changed the signal timing for off peak hours so it should cycle 30 seconds for each direction. That should help it move around the different movements faster. Not much more we can do here with the tight spacing of all these signals going through the interchange. I do believe the City of St. Charles has an upcoming project to add some turn lanes at this intersection, so that should help this situation.

Here's the answer I got from David Wrone at St. Louis County Highways:
Per our Division of Highway Planning: We expect to let our Sappington Road infrastructure project (encompassing that portion of Sappington from Gravois to Big Bend) some time this spring. This is a relatively large project - $1.3 million, with federal funds accounting for 80 percent of that figure. Long Elementary is considering revisions to their internal circulation, and, because those potential revisions would impact Sappington Road, we’re working with the school. School district officials also are working directly with City of Crestwood, since the city also has streets that would be affected by the changes. As part of our infrastructure project, St. Louis County plans to remove the existing signalized pedestrian crossing and install a new signalized intersection at the school entrance.

Our engineering department will review the situation and see if it's possible to do this given the pavement we have there. Since I'm going to be doing this Patch Pro chat once a month, I will post an update hopefully in March.

The outer roads to Route 364 (called North and South St Peters Parkway) are timed by MoDOT. I'm checking with our traffic engineer on the timing. What time of day does this happen to you?
Kisker is definitely one of the hardest to time because there is so much demand coming from Kisker. We get complaints that the Kisker traffic has to wait too long and we get complaints that the outer road has to wait too long. It's a tough spot. I will get you an update as I get one.

I found out from our traffic engineer that the cross streets along the outer roads currently aren't programmed to be in coordination all along Route 364. We are working on a contract for signal optimization to get this work done later this year.

I'm checking with St. Louis County on your question. MoDOT does not maintain Forder Road.

I heard back from St Louis County and was told the street lights are not theirs either. Sometimes it can be how the subdivisions were built and some developers put in street lights and some didn't. I'm not sure who you should check with. The County said they don't install street lights and have very few that they maintain. MoDOT is similar on the streets we maintain.

I checked with our traffic engineer on this location. It is a spot that we are reviewing for new equipment to allow yielding lefts.

At the spot you mentioned, Bates and Route N, you will notice a grassy area between the South Outer Road and Route N. This is where the new road will be located between the two existing roads. Right now Route N turns and connects to the South Outer Road right at Bates. When construction is complete, this will not be there anymore. Route N will be built to go straight to Bryan Road and be a north outer road. There will be a full interchange at Bryan Road with access to the new route 364. There are some basic maps of this on the project website, www.modot.org/route364.

Thanks Linda! And thanks for answering all these questions. You're doing a great job.

There are countless tiny glass beads within the paint that we use to stripe the highways. The beads are there to create more reflectivity from headlights. One of the most effective things for rainy conditions is reflective pavement markers. You will see these predominantly used in southern states. We are researching and looking for ones that are resistant to our snow plows. It is the snow plow that does the most harm to the reflectivity of the striping. That is why every spring we restripe all of of highways in April and May to give them a fresh coat with glass beads once the snow season is over.

DJ - I couldn't agree more. We had reflectors on the roads up in Chicago, and the paint was definitely more reflective. I make this comment to my husband almost every day on either Hwy N or I-70 crossing the bridge in the right-most lane heading east. On the latter, those stripes were just done in November, and they're already so faded that you have to guess where you're supposed to be.

I'm answering MoDOT questions for the entire St Louis area. Who you need to talk to about striping is dependent on which road you are having the problem with. MoDOT roads do have striping that loses visibility especially by this time each year. So it could be a MoDOT road. If you tell me which road, I can tell you which agency is responsible.

Linda- thanks for doing this! It was very educational and I hope more of our state's agencies will consider doing the same!

Thanks so much for answering all of the reader questions Linda! Have a great weekend!

Thank you for your time, Linda, especially following a busy winter storm!