Downtown, All Saints neighborhoods call for focus on 14th Street

Jennifer Kirby was walking with her friend, along with two dogs, on a warm January day this year when the outing took a tragic turn.

They were heading north on Main Avenue, about to cross 14th Street, and waited for their signal to walk.

“The light changes, we got a walk sign, and the cars started to proceed slowly, and the driver turning left who should yield, should stop, as he got closer, we realized he wasn’t going to stop,” Kirby said.

“My friend’s shoe got tire marks on it. She thought for sure she should be hit, and I thought for sure she would.”

Unfortunately, one of the dogs was hit and killed.

“It was so, so horrible,” Kirby said. “You take your dog for a walk, and you expect to return.”

She then chased down the driver, whom she calls “a nice guy just going home to let his own dog out on a lunch hour. I don’t know if he knew he hit anything or anyone. … He just didn’t see us.”

As the downtown population grows to the south, those residents increasingly are spilling into the adjacent All Saints neighborhood south of 14th Street. As a resident of the south end of downtown, “one of the benefits is that you do have access to neighborhoods with big trees and beautiful lawns, so if you want to have that neighborhood feel when you go for a walk, it’s right there,” Kirby said.

“The only problem is crossing the street to get to it.”

On Monday, March 31, the Downtown Residents’ Association and the All Saints Neighborhood Association will meet jointly to talk about the 14th Street corridor and hear from city traffic officials about potential options for it.

It’s not a new conversation, said Katrina Lehr-McKinney, who leads the All Saints group.

“There have been so many near-misses and issues with people’s actual physical safety along 14th Street,” she said. “We’ve tried lots of things before. We’ve gotten flashing speed signs along 14th Street through city grant funds. We’ve done murals. We’ve done other things.”

The area of concern — and opportunity — extends from Minnesota to Seventh avenues, she said.

“I want the city to listen to the neighbors and also allow us to help them collaboratively come up with solutions that are the best possible outcome for the neighborhood … to progressively think more creatively about redeveloping for the betterment of all kinds of people traveling, whether they’re in a car, on foot, on a bike, on a motorcycle,” she continued.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at The History Club of Sioux Falls, 758 S. Phillips Ave.

Representatives from the city’s traffic division plan to be at the meeting.

“It continues to be a corridor that people have expressed concerns about crossing safely,” city engineer Andy Berg said. “We have looked at things we could pilot or try out there.”

The idea of narrowing the number of lanes isn’t supported by the traffic volume that uses this stretch of road, he said, especially because that’s expected to increase.

One improvement could come from adding a lag to the traffic signals, similar to Sixth Street and Dakota Avenue near the Minnehaha County Courthouse, to allow some buffer time for pedestrians to begin crossing before a light turns green.

“That’s nothing substantial, but it is something that does work very well to make drivers more aware of people in those crossing areas,” Berg said.

Another opportunity could come with planned ADA-related improvements in the area that are being designed for this year to make ramp upgrades.

“With that work, we’re looking at where bump-outs can be done,” Berg said. “More so, we have the ability to do them on the side streets, Dakota and Main, but if we can gain even a foot or two on 14th to help narrow that up, we’re certainly looking at that too.”

Adjusting the timing of lights and signals could be helpful, Kirby said.

From her perspective, “just crossing 14th Street is scary depending on the time of day,” she said. “There’s a lot of traffic, and there are no setbacks between the road and the sidewalk, so it feels like you’re really close to cars that are going fast. It’s not a pedestrian-friendly street.”

There are certain times of day she won’t try to cross it, trying to stick to earlier in the morning when it doesn’t seem as busy.

“If things had been different by a second, I’m not sure I’d be alive,” she said. “How many close calls do we have until it’s not a close call?”