ST. LOUIS — St. Louis' mayor announced changes will be coming to downtown streets after a deadly crash involved a speeding car.
During St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s COVID-19 briefing on Monday afternoon, she also talked about the racing that’s been occurring on downtown streets.
She said over the last several weekends downtown has seen a lot of cruising and a lot of racing on vacant surfaces, parking lots and doing wheelies, doughnuts and firing off weapons. “It is not acceptable,” she said.
Krewson said the city has made several changes over the summer including to the riverfront and on South Broadway.
“Nevertheless, this problem is continuing to move around and we are going to make more changes. This week, we are going to work. We're considering closing some of the surface parking lots. These are privately owned lots for the most part,” Krewson added.
The mayor said the city is also looking at making some traffic flow changes downtown so there isn’t a long stretch where people can drive too fast.
“There are some 10,000 residents who live downtown. This kind of racing and dangerous behavior is not acceptable, not acceptable for the residents who live here. Not acceptable for the businesses that are here. And so we are going to continue to try to address that by making some more changes,” she said.
Krewson noted the changes may be inconvenient for some who are used to driving on particulate routes.
“And I'm sorry about that. But this is something that we have to get under control,” she said.
This comes after a fatal crash occurred on Washington Avenue early Monday morning.
“It was reported that the car was driving very, very fast,” Krewson said.
According to the police report from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, a Dodge Charger driven by a 25-year-old man was speeding and didn’t stop at the red signal at Washington and N. 10th Street and hit a Chevrolet Silverado with seven people in it. One of the passengers, 17-year-old Sierra Ward was pronounced dead from the collision. The collision caused four of the occupants who were sitting in the bed of truck to be ejected. Three people were transported to area hospitals.
“This behavior cannot continue,” Krewson said.
“You will be seeing some changes. The other thing I guess I want to say is that many of the folks that are doing this reckless driving don't even live in the city of St. Louis. You know, they're coming in from other parts of the region. I'm sure they consider this fun,” she added.
Mayor Krewson's spokesperson, Jacob Long, said the plans for more changes have not been finalized yet, so specifics have not been made available.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department plans to have a more visible police presence in the area.
"We plan to increase more visible police presence in the area with officers currently assigned to the district and supplemental resources," a spokesperson for SLMPD said.