St. Charles County Transportation Plan 2030 - East-West Gateway ...

on Table 12. They total 135 miles. All major state highways were selected including the Interstates,
Freeways, Expressways, Major Arterials and some Minor Arterials. In addition, Mid Rivers Mall
Dr. was included as it is a Major Arterial. A test vehicle was supplied with the GPS unit and driven
during the morning, midday, and afternoon peak hours. These times were 6:30am to 9:00am,
11:00am to 2:00pm, and 3:30pm to 6:00pm. The GPS unit recorded the exact position and time of
the vehicle which then could be converted into speeds and delays that were encountered during the
run The test vehicle traveled each road a number of times during each time period so that data for
multiple days could be averaged. If weather conditions, crashes, other incidents, or unusual delays,
were encountered the run was aborted and reran on another day. The data was downloaded from
the GPS unit into the Council’s computer and analyzed. A report entitled St. Charles County Travel
Time and Speed Study August 2005, was prepared describing the results of the study. All of the
travel times during the peak hour periods for these roads were taken from this report.
A tabulation of the findings for these roads is shown in Table 13. It contains the direction, speed,
travel time, delay, and percent of delay during the morning and afternoon peak hours. Table 14
ranks the roads according to their percent delay for the a.m. and p.m. periods. These values are the
average of a number of runs. A discussion of the travel time, delay, and percent of delay follows.
I-64 eastbound traffic during the morning peak hour had the highest volume but traveled at the speed
limit without any congestion. Westbound traffic during the afternoon peak hour traveled at 56 mph
and delay was about 10 percent of travel time. This was due to the congestion on the Missouri River
bridge caused by the narrow lanes.
I-70 eastbound traffic during the morning peak hour between Warren County and Rt. 79 ran at 44
mph, 16 mph below the speed limit. The section between Bryan Rd. and Rt. 79 has serious
congestion problems that reduce speeds to about 10 mph with stop-start traffic. Delays were 35
percent of travel time. From Rt. 79 to St. Louis County speed was 54 mph. Sections between Rt.
79 and Mid Rivers Mall Dr. and to the Missouri River bridge had speeds of about 30 mph and delays
of up to three minutes. Westbound traffic during the morning peak hour had some delays but they
were not serious. During the afternoon peak hour westbound traffic experienced serious congestion
from the east of the Missouri River bridge to Rt. 79. Traffic traveled at only 50 mph and delays
made up 10 percent of travel time. Eastbound traffic did not have any serious congestion or delays.
U. S. 40/61 traffic eastbound during the morning from I-70 to Rt. K had speeds of 49 mph. Delays
were more than 15 percent due to the signalized intersections of Callahan Rd., Prospect Rd., and Rt.
N. From Rt. N east, speeds rose to 55 mph. Westbound speeds were slightly less, about 54 mph and
delays of up to one minute. This was mainly due to less traffic. During the afternoon peak hour,
westbound speeds were about 44 mph due to the signals and delays were as high as 27 percent of
travel time. Eastbound had higher speeds at 54 mph and delays were only 5 percent of travel time.
U.S. 61 experienced no delays and traffic traveled at the speed limit at all times in both directions
of travel from I-70 to Lincoln County.
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