Changes show safety improvements on 14th Street after neighbors speak out

It was a horrible way for a dog walk to end.

Earlier this year, Jennifer Kirby was walking with a friend and two dogs when they began to cross 14th Street at Main Avenue.

A driver turning left who should have yielded didn’t. Her friend’s shoe showed tire marks. One of the dogs didn’t survive.

That story and other close calls prompted people who live and work downtown and in the adjacent All Saints neighborhood to call on the city of Sioux Falls to take further action — and the city did.

“It’s no mystery that 14th Street is a pretty traveled corridor and does act as a bit of a barrier for pedestrians,” city engineer Andy Berg said.

“We knew there were concerns, but we don’t always hear about the near-misses and told folks that. We know when there’s accidents because they’re reported, so … we asked the community to be more vocal about letting us know if those things happened.”

Between two neighborhood meetings this spring, the city added a lead pedestrian interval to traffic signals, delaying green lights a few seconds from the “walk” sign, similar to what’s done by the Minnehaha County Courthouse at Sixth Street and Dakota Avenue.

“We added those at Main, Phillips, Second and Seventh and heard positive feedback,” Berg said. “We were excited to hear that people noticed.”

Speed limits also were adjusted to be consistently 25 mph on 14th Street from Minnesota to Seventh avenues.

For Kirby, “I think the change in the pedestrian light timing has been an improvement safety-wise on 14th Street,” she said.

“It gives pedestrians a head start to start walking before cars can start turning. If this had been in place earlier this year, I believe the tragic accident my friend, her dog and I were in would have been prevented. I’m so glad that it is in place now. I believe accidents and close calls will decrease because of the city’s change.”

More changes are coming.

The city is finalizing design on an accessibility project in the area that includes curb ramp improvements and some bump-outs on side streets, as well as accessible pedestrian signals at those locations.

Berg said he expects work to start in the next few weeks.

Colored concrete, street-scaping and planters, a tree and a pedestal for SculptureWalk are being added at various locations where the bump-outs create the opportunity, he said.

“The bump-outs will shorten crossing distance for pedestrians as well as encourage slower vehicle turning speeds,” Berg said. “The intersections will be more challenging for the occasional truck to navigate but represent a balance between the pedestrian and vehicular needs at these intersections.”

The construction also will mean a chance to test how the area could function with fewer lanes. While it’s not a formal pilot project, the work “will narrow up lanes and kind of give us a little foresight into what a test run could look like with reduced lanes,” Berg said.

“We’re not ruling it out. We’re certainly contemplating that and will consider doing the pilot in 2026, but we’ll get valuable insight with how the traffic reacts this year.”