Driving in St. Louis

If you live in St Louis, you'll understand this.

If you've ever visited St. Louis, you'll understand this.

If you've never been to St. Louis, consider this your

Visitor's Guide to Driving in St. Louis.

1. There are 75 "unofficial neighborhoods" in the City of St. Louis. St. Louisans commonly give directions — especially for restaurants — to strangers based on these neighborhoods, which aren't marked on any maps that are handed out by the tourist board, the AAA. or MapQuest.

2. There are 54 school districts — on the Missouri side alone — each of which has their own school bus system with scheduled times to block traffic.

3. There are 91 official municipalities in St. Louis County. Each municipality has its own rules and regulations, and often their own police departments.

4. More importantly, most have their own snow removal contracts, so it's not uncommon to drive down a road in winter and have one block plowed, the next salted, the next piled with snow, and the last partially cleared by residents wanting to get out of their driveways.

5. Snow plowing is never a problem in the City of St. Louis. They plow nothing, and if the forecast calls for snow, they close everything. Except on "The Hill" (refer to #1 above), where each homeowner goes out to the street and shovels out one car-sized rectangle and then stands watch over it.

6. Any car parked longer than 4 hours in the city is considered a parts store.

7. The City of Ballwin actually proposed that drivers use connecting strip mall parking lots to get from place to place rather than drive on Manchester road to cut the traffic on Manchester. (And for good reason. There is a stoplight at every intersection on Manchester).

8. Laclede Station Road, McCausland, Lindbergh, Watson, Reavis Barracks Road, Fee Fee, McKnight, Airport Road, Midland, McKelvey, and Olive mysteriously change names as you cross intersections.

9. Gravois Road, Spoede, and Chouteau can only be pronounced by St. Louis natives. (Highway 40 is pronounced as "farty.")

10. A St. Louisan from South County has never been to North County, and vise versa. West County just has everything delivered.

11. No native St. Louisan knows that Lindbergh runs from South County to North County. And if you tell them, they will not believe you.

12. Lindbergh belongs to every neighborhood except Kirkwood, which had the nerve to creatively change the name to Kirkwood Road. (Which may be the reason for number 11.)

13. There are two interchanges to exit from Highway 40 onto Clayton Road and two for Big Bend. Stay alert, people!

14. If you need directions to O'Fallon, make sure to specify Illinois or Missouri. This is also true for Troy, Maryville, St. Charles, Springfield, and Columbia.

15. The Page Avenue extension and Airport expansion projects took over 20 years to get approved. St. Louisans lost track of how many political figures claimed them as their own ideas.

16. St. Louisans were aghast when the federal government required them to redo the highway signs to indicate that the federal highways went to cities in other states instead of local municipalities.

17. Drivers are starting to cut their OWN plates rather than go through the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles to get new tags. You can also purchase tags from dealers behind Quick Shops in the city. They are cheaper, the clerks are nicer, and the service is faster.

18. Lambert Field and St. Louis International Airport really are the same place. The East Terminal, however, is a different place.

19. Highway 270 is our daily version of the NASCAR circuit.

20. You can go all four directions on Highway 270: North and South in West County, East and West in South County, and East and West in North County. Confused? So are St. Louis drivers.

21. The outer belt is Highway 270, which turns into Highway 255 in South County. The inner belt is Highway 170. Highway 370 is an outer-outer belt. Highway 40 is the same as Interstate 64 (but only through the middle part of St. Louis). If you are listening to traffic reports and they are calling it 64, the traffic jam is in Illinois. If they are calling it 40, the traffic jam is in Missouri.

22. The morning rush hour is from 6:00 to 10:00 AM. The evening rush hour is from 3:00 to 7:00 PM. Friday's rush hour starts Thursday morning.

23. Never ever try to cross a bridge in St. Louis during rush hour, unless you have a sack lunch and a port-a-potty in the car.

24. "Yield" signs are for decoration only. No native St. Louisan will ever grasp the concept. (Actually, the drivers who are supposed to yield will not, and the drivers who are not supposed to yield will wait politely for the ones who are supposed to yield, so it all works out.)

25. If someone actually has their turn signal on, it is probably a factory defect — or has been on for the last 17 miles.

26. Construction on Highways 40, 64, 70, 255, 270, 44, 55 and 170 is a way of life, and a permanent form of entertainment.

27. All blue-haired old ladies in Cadillacs driving on Olive west of 270 have the right of way.

28. If it snows or rains, stay home!

29. It is called a rolling stop at any stop sign intersection. Only native St. Louisans can do it just right.

30. In West County, 20 cars will go through a yellow light. Longest yellow lights I have ever seen. If you slow or stop on a yellow light, you will get rear-ended or someone will angrily sound their horn at you.