Modified Two-Lane Roundabouts Coming to Route 109 in Wildwood

Big changes will be coming to Route 109 in Wildwood this year that will force residents in the area to adapt how they navigate the stretch of road from Route 100 to Clayton Road.

In an effort to improve the safety of the roadway and relieve congestion, the City of Wildwood and the Missouri Department of Transportation are teaming up on a $5.3 million project that will expand it to four lanes and replaced two intersections with roundabouts. It will also add in a median that will prevent left-turn access into or out of the subdivisions in the area.

The project will begin next month and last until late 2014. Route 109 itself will never be less than two lanes, but there will be some brief closures of the roads feeding into that will involve detours.

Officials held a public meeting in Wildwood Tuesday to provide details on what the project will look like, what kind of timeline it will have and what residents in the area can expect. Many such residents attended the meeting and came ready with questions and concerns.

Jill Mangels said she was worried that driver’s unfamiliarity with roundabouts could create problems.

“It’s going to slow down the progress of traffic worse than it already is,” she said.

Access was also an issue for Mangels and several other residents huddled around one of the large boards set up to show an overview of the project. The median will mean that some subdivisions will no longer have direct, cross-traffic access to Route 109.

However, resident Rich Rosenlof noted that making left turns onto Route 109 is “always very difficult” with people often squeezing into unofficial center lanes, so less of them might not be a bad thing.

MoDOT Engineer Michelle Voegele said the improvements are an effort to reduce what has become a dangerous stretch of road. MoDOT began studying the area after a fatal accident occurred at the Route 109 and Pond Grover loop intersection.

“It has twice the amount of accidents per year that you would expect for a similar roadway,” she said.

The 20,000 per day cars that ravel the road also means extensive backups at that intersection and Route 109’s intersection with the on/off ramps for Route 100 further south. This in turn prevents drivers from turning left across traffic and into their subdivisions, triggering further back-ups.

The result is what traffic engineers call “the wave,” Voegele said, where people have to wave through cars that are attempting to turn.

But the roundabouts planned by MoDOT and Wildwood aren’t just any roundabouts. They are modified two-lane roundabouts, something much more rare in the St. Louis metro area, according to officials. 

“They will take some getting used to,” said Ryan Thomas, Wildwood's director of public works. 

However, Thomas said roundabouts have been shown to be safer because they eliminate the kind of dangerous left-turn movements that can result in serious accidents.