Original collective signature: Frightened Citizens
Mr. Paul Spellbrink Director of Streets City of St. Louis
Dear Mr. Spellbrink:
This is a letter from the several thousand of us who live close to Skinker Boulevard. If you recall, some months ago your employees did a traffic study that revealed six, eight, and ten wheel trucks rumbling along Skinker at a rate of more than one every minute. That study has evidently been forgotten.
We would like to remind you that this is a residential area.
We ask this not only to maintain a residential character of our neighborhoods, but to protect the life and limbs of those of us who must in the course of our daily rounds, use Skinker Boulevard, or even more frightening, walk across it .
if you will ask some of your employees to play Skinker roulette, a simple game of making a left turn on or off of Skinker, our problem will become very real to your employees. Some of us have a little motto, “If you can’t turn right, don’t go.”
The adults in the neighborhood are not agile, but we’re cautious. Our children are agile, but inclined to trust drivers to stop at stop signs, to yield to pedestrians, and to think that because they can see truck drivers, the truck drivers can see them. Before we lose any of our neighbors we’d like you to consider what your office can do to get the trucks off Skinker and install some walk lights timed to allow those of us who can’t sprint to cross Skinker in safety.
Sincerely, Frightened Citizens
Original photograph caption
THE JAM ON SKINKER IN THE LATE EVENING RUSH. The increasing truck traffic and planned further expansion make it almost impossible for residents to use the street during these hours without risking life and limb. Photo by Sue Johnson
Originally published in The Paper, December 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_12.pdf, printed page 2.
