Columbia City Council approves $96K contract for pedestrian safety study amid concerns of panhandlers standing in medians
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia City Council on Monday night approved an agreement with a third-party professional engineering service to conduct a street and intersection pedestrian safety study.
The $96,550 agreement with George L. Crawford & Associates, Inc. will look into potential changes to ordinances and procedures for the city to align toward Vision Zero, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
However, before the vote Ward 1 Councilwoman Valerie Carroll raised concerns over the cost, saying the money may be better spent on infrastructure. Some residents also felt that the study was a targeted attack on the homeless, not making pedestrians safer.
The agreement comes after the city completed a pedestrian safety study last year and found that from Jan. 1, 2022-Nov. 21, 2024, there were 91 reported crashes involving pedestrians within city limits. Seven of those crashes resulted in fatalities while 25 resulted in what the city described as “serious injury.”
The majority of the serious injuries and deaths occurred along collector, aerial and highway roadways while the bulk of incidents were reported near the downtown area by the University of Missouri campus. According to the Missouri Department of Transportation, the 148 pedestrians struck in killed across the state in 2024 is a record high in Missouri.
Columbia Public Works spokesman John Ogan told ABC 17 News in a statement that the decision to hire a consultant allows Columbia Public Works to pursue this matter more efficiently since the city is currently down two traffic engineers. Ogan added that the department expects the consultant to bring their expertise and experience from similar studies that they have conducted in other cities.
Steps have been taken in recent years to install traffic calming devices across the city, however, some safety officials are concerned about how panhandlers on medians and islands are affecting response times.
In an email to ABC 17 News, the Columbia Fire Department spokeswoman Katherine Rodriguez acknowledged that some of the department's large fire apparatus have significant blind spots and overhangs, which can make navigating around pedestrians — especially those standing on medians or narrow roadways— challenging.
Columbia Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer brought up these concerns during a Dec. 16 council meeting, when city staff discussed the results of the pedestrian safety study.
“Our drivers say that the people that are using [medians], what I would consider inappropriately, that want to panhandle, are not moving,” Schaffer said during the meeting. “So as we traverse to emergency calls, we're just another vehicle to them and they're not moving.”
Columbia Police Chief Jill Schlude also raised similar concerns during that Dec. 16 meeting.
“People should look at the medians in town because of the amount of time they get hit,” Schlude said. “I notice a lot (that) there's huge chunks missing out of them because they get hit so frequently to the point that sometimes you'll see the signs laying down. So there's they get damaged quite frequently. And so obviously people on the medians would not be good.”
Boone County Fire Protection District Assistant Chief Gale Bloomenkamp said while BCFPD also travels in Columbia with heavy equipment, he hasn’t encountered any issues with pedestrians on medians.
Elke Boyd, chair of the Bike and Pedestrian Safety Committee said safety is a concern in Columbia in spots that have narrow medians in high-traffic areas that are not designed for long-term occupancy. Because of this, she supports measures to prevent people from standing on medians for extended periods.
According to the council memo, the city hopes to hold a work council work session sometime in 2025 to discuss the results and plan the best way to move forward.
