Sidewalks on McKnight on the Ladue City Council Agenda Monday

Is there light at the end of the tunnel, or should we say concrete along the road ways? The Ladue City Council will take up the issue of building sidewalks on McKnight Road and portions of Litzsinger Road too. This will be discussed at Monday's monthly meet in the council chambers at City Hall starting at 4 o'clock.

Ladue's Planning & Zoning Commission has already given the green light toward possible approval of this extensive project.

For the first time in some 20 years McKnight Road will be rebuilt from Ladue to Clayton Roads. Residents along the way have petitioned the council to add sidewalks to the project. Makes good sense since construction crews could add walking paths while they the project is underway. The road will be built with two new bridges in the project.

Beth Deutsch who lives on Godwin Lane has led a grass roots effort to get these walk ways done.

In a short time span, she gathered hundreds of petitions to put this project into motion. Mayor Anthony Bommarito has been favorably disposed towards this effort and has gotten very little opposition from his council members.

"We have high hopes this is going to get done," said Deutch. "There have been a lot of hurdles to get over." The group is counting on a federal grant which will be facilitated hopefully by the St. Louis East/West Gateway Council of Governments. "From their scoring and sidewalks always being high on lists, we are hoping this gets approved by June," said Deutsch. "This is always a wait and see game," she said.

The engineering firm of Horner & Schifrin has done preliminary studies on the feasibility of doing this without having to go to the tax payers with a city wide bond issue.

Homeowners along stretches of McKnight Road hope this will be the last meeting and the project will get final approval from the city council.