ST. LOUIS — City leaders said Monday they had fixed a traffic signal facing the wrong way at a busy intersection in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ before a man was killed in a two-car collision Saturday.
But it was unclear why police reported it was again facing the wrong way following the fatal accident at Bates Street and Morganford Road, the latest in a string of fatal car wrecks that have killed at least six people on ºüÀêÊÓƵ streets in the past week.
The accident has raised questions about whether the city’s traffic division could have done more to prevent the crash amid escalating calls for stronger traffic enforcement and better engineering to force drivers to slow down.
At 12:30 p.m. Saturday, an unidentified man driving a Chevy Celebrity was killed as he traveled south on Morganford and was struck by a Lincoln Town Car headed west on Bates Street in the Bevo Mill neighborhood. A 46-year-old passenger in the Celebrity was in critical condition, and the driver of the Lincoln had minor injuries.
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Police, in their report following the crash, said the light for eastbound Bates Street was facing north toward southbound Morganford.
Ryan Lilly noticed Wednesday that the traffic signal at the southeast corner of the intersection was askew. At 6 p.m., he emailed his alderwoman, Anne Schweitzer, who promptly sent an email to Capt. Latricia Allen, commander of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ police First District, and traffic commissioner Jamie Wilson.
City officials did respond the next morning, according to Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones. The signal head was rotated back to the correct position at 11 a.m. Thursday. The traffic division also responded after a second report that the signal was facing the wrong way following Saturday’s crash.
By Monday afternoon, the signal appeared to be fixed, though why it had rotated back to the incorrect position after Thursday’s fix was still unknown.
“Keeping our roads safe is the Streets Department’s top priority, and immediately following Saturday’s tragic crash its Traffic Division launched an investigation,†Dunne said in a statement. “There have been no recent reports of damage to signals at the other three corners, and as such the Traffic Division will be investigating the cause of the damage and possible remedies to prevent future damage to the signal at this location.â€
Lilly, the resident who reported it to Schweitzer, lives nearby on Bates Street and drives through the intersection almost daily. It was the first time he’d noticed the signal facing the wrong way. He confirmed a fix did appear to have been made — on Friday, the signal was once again facing eastbound Bates Street.
“I just assumed someone had come out and fixed it, but I’m not sure if maybe just the wind was blowing it back and forth,†Lilly said.
Because on Sunday, after the accident, it was facing the wrong way again, he said, and the intersection’s signals had been switched to flashing red.
“On Morganford, people run that red light pretty often, so I’m usually pretty cautious going through there,†Lilly said. “But this is the first time I ever saw an issue with the actual traffic lights.â€
The accident crushed part of the fence surrounding St. Matthew Cemetery, about the 12th time in 10 years the cemetery has had to call Kennedy Fence for a repair, according to Dean Marshall. A sales representative for the company who was surveying the damage Monday afternoon, Marshall said he has personally been to that stretch of Morganford Road for cemetery fence repairs three times in the last four years.
“They just drive too fast and lose control,†he said.
Evie Hemphill, who lives nearby and pays attention to pedestrian and cyclist safety as an employee for nonprofit ºüÀêÊÓƵ BWorks, said she wants to see more “driver accountability†and education to reduce the traffic injuries.
“I really do think we have a crisis on our hands and I’d like to see more urgency from our regional leaders on this,†she said. “I don’t know what went wrong in that moment, but it’s scary to think that our lives maybe hang in the balance of a single light being blown a different way.â€