CHESTERFIELD, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Transportation has removed a controversial safety feature from Chesterfield roads and begun removing them from future plans on New Halls Ferry Road.

Shuvette Young moved into a home on New Halls Ferry Road in north St. Louis County just a few months ago and says the traffic at times can be scary.

“You know how people like to swerve in and out of cars. I see people doing that a lot,” she said.

MoDOT says on her road from Shackelford south to Dunn Rd., there have been 1,800 crashes in a five-year span. So, it developed plans for safety upgrades there as part of its $52 million Safety Improvement Project around St. Louis County, St. Louis City, and Jefferson County. But one of those planned improvements, curb bump-out islands, were so controversial that they were just removed from Clarkson Road in Chesterfield.

“Missouri Department of Transportation pulled this on us with zero notification and that just really irked a lot of us, so yeah, huge win for the residents of Chesterfield,” resident Ben Murphy said.

Curb bump-out islands are designed to slow the speed of traffic. But a volunteer EMS driver tells us they just created new hazards.

“It made a lot less room for cars to move over and yield to emergency vehicles and for emergency vehicles to use those side lanes, the shoulders,” Alter Love said.

After a lot of backlash, MoDOT removed them in Chesterfield. It also held a public meeting about its plans for New Halls Ferry Road. Based on feedback received at that meeting, MoDOT has decided to remove curb bump-out islands from those plans as well. Other features like flashing stop signs, reflective traffic signals and modified right turns will move forward.

“It’s just greatly appreciated and it’s good to see that they’re really looking for the best solution,” Love said.

To see the plans for New Halls Ferry Road, click here.