Medians key to MoDOT safety plan for East Sunshine Street

Jeff Schrag: City Council could request that MoDOT not move forward with the plan.

Richard Ollis: East Sunshine Street business community does not want medians.

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The Missouri Department of Transportation has a plan to improve safety on East Sunshine Street, but an organized group of business owners and public officials expressed concerns about the plan at a Springfield City Council luncheon Dec. 9.

Though council listened to feedback, it is not the decision-making body empowered either to green-light or halt the MoDOT plan, which would erect medians and limit left turns on a section of road extending east from Glenstone Avenue to Blackman Road, part of a 4.3-mile project area extending east to Farm Road 199. The plan would also eliminate some driveways to businesses that have more than one. 

Sunshine Street – also known as Greene County Route D – is a state highway and is therefore under MoDOT’s control.

Brett Foster, the city’s assistant director of Public Works, cited uncontrolled left turns as being responsible for 74% of crashes. He added that council is committed to a goal of zero fatalities by 2040 and zero severe injuries by 2050.

From 2016 to 2024, the route had 1,808 total crashes with six of them resulting in fatalities, 35 resulting in disability and 530 resulting in minor injuries, according to MoDOT data. Among 172 U.S. cities with more than 150,000 residents, Springfield ranks 14th in terms of its traffic accident fatality rate, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2023. MoDOT wants to address the issue head-on by limiting left turns through the installation of raised medians in four locations on the route, amounting to three-quarters of a mile or 18% of the corridor. MoDOT projects that medians would reduce the crash rate on Sunshine by 37% and reduce the crash injury rate by 47%. The road is functioning at full capacity, according to MoDOT, with 28,000 vehicles per day in 2024. By 2041, MoDOT projections say 36,500 vehicles per day will put the corridor well over capacity.

The plan introduced to council this month for its feedback reflects previous changes requested by members of the business community on East Sunshine Street, said Kristi Bachman, MoDOT’s project manager for the corridor. But the disagreements over the medians themselves still remain.

Mayor Jeff Schrag clarified to council that the decision belongs to MoDOT, and the only action available to council is to request that it change the plan or not move forward with it.

City staff expressed full support of the MoDOT plan.

Opposition to project
Shepherding the opposition at the meeting was Richard Ollis, who first spoke out against medians in the waning days of his own City Council service in 2023. Ollis is CEO of Ollis/Akers/Arney, an insurance broker and consultancy firm located on the route.

Those opposing the route were jointly assigned a 20-minute slot – the same as city and MoDOT representatives – to voice their concerns. No community or business representatives spoke in favor of the plan.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott said he reviewed five years of data and found that 34% of accidents on the route are related to turn lanes and the median. His figures did not include fatality data. Arnott counted 402 accidents in five years, with 139 of those in medians. Of these, three were single-car accidents, 128 involved two vehicles, six involved three and two involved four. He said first responders can have a delayed response when medians are in place, as they have to find the nearest intersection or opening and turn around. He also expressed concern about the danger posed by illegal U-turns from motorists and by foot traffic on medians.

Sara Christian, store lead at the Walmart Neighborhood Market, and Tom Conroy, general manager of Sam’s Club, both on the eastern reach of the corridor, spoke together about what limited access would mean to their adjoining properties, with concerns about access for delivery trucks and the potential to increase cut-through traffic behind the stores, endangering employees.

Bachman said MoDOT’s expectation is for trucks to exit the stores via Blackman Road, which they would take south to Battlefield – the safest option, she said.

Christian said when medians were added at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at the intersection of Grand Street and Campbell Avenue, the store experienced a 15% decline in business in the first three months following the change. She added that Walmart is large enough to absorb that loss, since customers likely went to other Walmart stores, but the same would not be possible for smaller businesses with only one location.

Together, the two East Sunshine Street stores have approximately 7,000 customers a day, Christian said.

Todd Wilson, chief operating officer of Rapid Robert’s Inc., also had historical data to share, noting that when limited access was implemented at a store location at National Avenue and Kingsley Street, it sustained a loss of 14% of its fuel gallons, or 150,000 gallons and more than $400,000 in revenue annually.

“The harder we make it for people to do business in Springfield with things like this median, the more we could be losing to the surrounding areas where it’s easier to access fuel and stations,” he said.

Rita Baron, owner of Baron Design & Associates LLC, said she has five properties on the route and feels like she has enhanced the corridor by renovating old buildings along it. She added that she pays more than $400,000 annually in property taxes. 

Baron thanked MoDOT for being responsive, but she said she believes the road will become more dangerous from the changes.

“We’re here to build this community – to help each other,” she said. “We can cooperate and work together and find a way to prevent accidents and traffic, but for us to build something like this and hurt the majority of us … I feel that’s not the appropriate way to do it.”

Two lawmakers, Missouri Sen. Curtis Trent, R-Springfield, and Rep. Bill Owen, R-Springfield, shared constituent concerns about the project, and Owen said the members of his caucus in Greene County sent a letter about those.

Trent said the proposed changes had been a contentious issue for a long time, but so far, they have flown under the radar.

“My concern based on the experience that I’ve had and conversations around the county is that there will be a great deal of concern amongst the general public as well about how that will impact their day-to-day business as they try to go through this very significant economic corridor in our city,” Trent said.

He said it is his hope that some middle ground is reached or that the project does not move forward.

Ollis concluded by giving the example of Bryan, Texas, a city that is looking to remove medians retrofitted onto a route, like the Sunshine Street plan. He said that Bryan businesses experienced a 15% decline in sales where medians were installed. He also noted that the city of Springfield brings in 65% of its revenue from sales taxes that are a result of business activity.

“I’d really encourage you to consider the economic impact of what we’re about to do,” he said.

The business leaders’ ask, Ollis said, is to move forward with intersection improvements, pedestrian upgrades and repaving – but not with medians. 

Business input
The public engagement process for the Sunshine Street corridor has been ongoing, with a virtual public meeting in October 2022 yielding 724 website views about the project. MoDOT also had 28 on-site business meetings in 2023 and 2024 and conducted a summer 2023 economic impact study that included a survey and roundtable discussion. A public hearing was held in February 2024.

The public input yielded some changes, among them the addition of three U-turns on the route and the elimination of planned median near Sunshine’s intersection with Oak Grove Avenue, as Bachman showed on a slide.

MoDOT would fund the bulk of the improvements to the corridor at a cost of $11.2 million, a figure that covers resurfacing, traffic signals, pedestrian facilities and other improvements, according to MoDOT’s presentation.

The city’s investment in the project would be about $200,000, according to Foster. Those funds would be used for aesthetic work, such as stamped concrete in the medians, and to correct some gaps in the sidewalk system. 

Councilmember Callie Carroll asked if the plan was all or nothing; for instance, she wondered if improvements could be made in phases, forestalling the medians until a later phase after assessing the impact of other changes.

“Our intent is to deliver it as one project,” Bachman said. “I think the concern that we have is not getting the safety benefit that we need on Sunshine Street, and anything that we do less than what we’ve proposed, we will not achieve that goal.”

Safety the focus
Councilmember Brandon Jenson said it’s impossible to dispute the dangers of the city’s roadways, with its ranking as the 14th most dangerous city for traffic fatalities.

“I understand this request for a compromise, but installing intersection improvements and pedestrian access points does nothing to address the safety concerns of our community. They do not meaningfully impact safety in any significant way,” he said. “As we talk about potentially piecemealing this project, doing those other things, we’re not going to realize any safety improvements, which is the primary function of this project and should be the primary function of this project.”

Jenson said businesses are already being impacted by safety concerns. Bachman pointed out that a 2022 study by MoDOT showed 32,000 vehicles per day on the route, but the current traffic is 28,000 per day, the maximum recommended for the route.

“You’re seeing already a decline in the number of cars that are passing in front of your businesses because they know that this section of Sunshine is not a reliable transportation corridor if you need to get to or from somewhere in a timely fashion,” Jenson said.

MoDOT first proposed improvements, including the addition of 8-inch raised medians, to Sunshine Street in a 2022 study. Through an April 2023 resolution sponsored by then-Mayor Ken McClure and Councilmembers Ollis and Abe McGull, council asked the department to suspend plans to add medians. Councilmember Monica Horton cast the sole vote against that measure.

Bachman said the plan had been revised after MoDOT held a series of input sessions and met with members of the business community.