St. Louis's Deadliest Highways and Corridors

From a 2026 triple-fatality crash on Route 367 to Gravois Avenue's five-year run atop the crash rankings, these are the St. Louis region's most dangerous roads, backed by MoDOT, Trailnet, and East-West Gateway data.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jul 1, 2026
6 min read

St. Louis's deadliest highways and corridors

St. Louis is really two things stacked on top of each other: a compact old city built on a street grid meant for streetcars, and a modern interstate system laid over it that funnels traffic from five Missouri counties and three Illinois counties into a handful of choke points. The regional planning agency that tracks all of it, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, covers the city of St. Louis plus St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin counties in Missouri and Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties in Illinois1. Between 2018 and 2022, that eight-county region logged 349,528 crashes, averaging around 200 a day, with roughly 302 fatal crashes a year2. The roads below are where those numbers concentrate.

The corridor everyone's talking about right now

If you've followed local news this year, you know the name: Route 367, also called Lewis and Clark Boulevard, running from just south of I-270 to north of the Halls Ferry Circle through Moline Acres, Jennings, and Riverview in north St. Louis County. On May 1, 2026, a sideswipe near the Jennings Station Road intersection set off a chain-reaction crash that killed three women, Cherese Fisher, 18-year-old Jordyn Williams, and Andrea Medina3. It wasn't a one-off. Another fatal crash hit the same intersection on January 2, 20263. East-West Gateway's regional safety analysis had already flagged the Lewis and Clark Boulevard/Jennings Station Road intersection as the single spot with the most traffic fatalities in the entire region4.

The corridor's numbers explain why: 859 crashes, 18 of them fatal and 291 causing injury, between 2018 and 2022 alone5. MoDOT's own speed data shows three-quarters of drivers on this stretch blow past the 45 mph limit, and half are going 50 or faster56. MoDOT is installing temporary median barriers this year and has committed up to $10 million toward permanent fixes, narrower lanes, raised medians, better lighting, with construction slated for summer 202756. A neighborhood petition organizer, Donnell Ellis, put it bluntly to local reporters: "We cannot afford to wait until 2027 to do something to prevent these deaths."3

Gravois Avenue, the city's five-year problem

Inside the city limits, Gravois Avenue (Route 30, also old Route 66) has topped Trailnet's annual crash ranking for five straight years7. In 2025 alone it recorded 23 crashes, 19 injuries, and 4 deaths; since 2020 the corridor has piled up nearly 1,000 injuries and 22 deaths87. The trouble spots cluster around Gravois's intersections with Arsenal Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Cherokee Street, where the road widens into six-way, five-to-seven-lane crossings with a posted limit of 35 mph that drivers routinely run at 35 to 457. MoDOT and the city have a rebuild planned, lane reduction, reconfigured intersections, new lighting, but construction isn't scheduled to start until late 20297.

Kingshighway and Natural Bridge, the other city arterials on the list

Kingshighway, particularly the stretch from Christy Road down to Gravois via Neosho, logged more than 5,500 crashes from 2018 to 2022, 129 of them serious or fatal and 95 involving a pedestrian or cyclist; the city's repaving and turn-lane project there is aiming for completion this year9. Natural Bridge Avenue (Route 115) has its own grim tally: 18 fatal crashes since 2012, 13 of them involving a pedestrian, for 20 deaths total, plus 1,469 crashes between 2012 and 2016 on a road that carries only about 12,000 vehicles a day, well below the volume of a typical urban arterial10. MoDOT's response was a four-mile "Travel Safe Zone" between Goodfellow and Parnell backed by more than $5.4 million in improvements10. Trailnet's report lists Grand Boulevard, Route 100/Manchester Road/Chouteau Avenue, and Broadway Street as the rest of the city's recurring trouble spots8.

The county's arterial grid

Out in St. Louis County, Lindbergh Boulevard (U.S. 61/67) has the county's highest crash count, with Chambers Road close behind711. West Florissant Avenue, specifically the segment between Acme and Emerson avenues, stands out even more starkly: East-West Gateway's analysis found it responsible for 9 deaths and 34 serious injuries in under three miles of roadway between 2018 and 2022, the deadliest short stretch anywhere in the region4. New Halls Ferry Road and the Manchester Road/Route 100 corridor round out the county's list7.

Where the interstates bottleneck

Downtown, I-55 and I-64 squeeze onto the Poplar Street Bridge to cross into East St. Louis, Illinois, and the interchange where I-44 meets that same I-55/I-64 corridor in south St. Louis ranked 33rd on the American Transportation Research Institute's 2026 list of the nation's top 100 truck bottlenecks12. That kind of congestion, trucks and commuters merging at speed through aging, tightly spaced ramps, is a different animal from the arterial crashes above, but it adds up: statewide, Missouri logged 955 traffic deaths in 2024 and was on pace for a similar toll through most of 2025 before the year ended with 909, a 4.81% drop from 20241314.

Why these roads keep killing people

Across every corridor above, the same two factors keep showing up. Speeding is tied to 30% of the region's fatal and serious-injury crashes from 2018 to 20222. And pedestrians, who make up just 1% of crashes regionwide, account for 20% of fatalities and 11% of fatal-or-serious-injury crashes2. Nearly all of the deadliest streets here, Gravois, Kingshighway, Natural Bridge, Lindbergh, West Florissant, Lewis and Clark, are wide arterials designed decades ago to move cars fast through what are now dense residential neighborhoods.

What's changing

East-West Gateway's "Fifty by Fifty" plan aims to cut regional fatalities and serious injuries in half by 2050, and the plan makes the region eligible for up to $8 million in federal safety funding24. MoDOT has active projects or studies running on Route 367, Gravois, Natural Bridge, and Kingshighway simultaneously, though most of the permanent fixes won't be finished until 2027 or later75610. Trailnet, the nonprofit that publishes the annual crash report cited throughout this piece, keeps pressing for faster timelines811.

If you or someone you know was hurt in a crash on any of these roads, an attorney familiar with Missouri and Illinois crash claims can help you sort out what comes next; you can find one through our legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

  1. East-West Gateway Council of Governments, "Where We Are." https://www.ewgateway.org/about-us/where-we-are/

  2. East-West Gateway Council of Governments, "Gateway to Safer Roadways." https://www.ewgateway.org/gtsr/

  3. First Alert 4 (KMOV), "After a fatal crash and safety concerns, the push and plea to make a change on Route 367." https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/05/30/after-fatal-crash-safety-concerns-push-plea-make-change-route-367/

  4. St. Louis Public Radio, "East-West Gateway report suggests ways to cut traffic fatalities in the St. Louis region." https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2024-06-28/east-west-gateway-report-st-louis-traffic-fatalities

  5. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Missouri Route 367 Safety and Operational Improvements in St. Louis County." https://www.modot.org/projects/missouri-route-367-safety-and-operational-improvements-st-louis-county

  6. First Alert 4 (KMOV), "MoDOT takes first steps to address safety concerns on Highway 367." https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/06/19/modot-takes-first-steps-address-safety-concerns-highway-367/

  7. St. Louis Public Radio, "Gravois is one of St. Louis' deadliest streets. A safety overhaul is in the works, for 2029." https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2026-07-01/gravois-is-one-of-st-louis-deadliest-streets-a-safety-overhaul-is-in-the-works-for-2029

  8. Trailnet, "The State of Our Streets 2025." https://trailnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Trailnet-State-of-Our-Streets-2025.pdf

  9. KSDK via Yahoo News, "Construction revamps in STL to cut crashes, ease commutes." https://www.yahoo.com/news/construction-revamps-stl-cut-crashes-032045334.html

  10. Missouri Department of Transportation, "Natural Bridge Safety Initiative." https://www.modot.org/natural-bridge-safety-initiative

  11. St. Louis Public Radio, "'Safer streets are not created by chance': Group looks at causes of St. Louis walking, biking deaths." https://www.stlpr.org/news-briefs/2026-06-23/safer-streets-st-louis-walking-biking-deaths

  12. American Transportation Research Institute, "Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks, 2026." https://truckingresearch.org/2026/02/top-100-truck-bottlenecks-2026/

  13. Spectrum News 1, "MoDOT warns drivers after fatalities climb." https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/news/2025/10/28/modot-traffic-fatalities-st-louis

  14. Missouri Department of Transportation, Coalition for Roadway Safety, St. Louis Region. https://www.savemolives.com/mcrs/StLouis-Region

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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