The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Intersection replacement plans
SYLVAN BEACH, N.Y. » A roundabout for the Route 13 and 31 intersection?
In order to cut down on the number of severe car accidents that have taken place at the Madison County intersection, the New York State Department of Transportation is proposing the single lane roundabout as one of two options to increase safety at the crossroads.
The other option is to replace the existing turn signal and install left hand turn lanes on all four legs of the intersection.
More than 30 Madison and Oneida County residents attended a DOT informational session regarding the proposed changes to the intersection on Tuesday night, taking the opportunity to ask questions of the DOT officials at the Sylvan Beach Municipal Building and hear a roughly half-hour presentation on the two DOT designs.
“The roundabout, right now, is the preferred alternative,” DOT Regional Design Engineer Brian Hoffman said.
The decision for a change to the 13/31 intersection is driven by DOT statistics regarding significant motor vehicle accidents at the location that have taken place during the course of the
past three years with 11 personal injury accidents associated with the spot and one fatality.
“They really have to do something,” said Town of Lenox Supervisor John Pinard. “I’ve been pushing for two years to reduce speed limits in all directions.”
Pinard says businesses are starting to popupalong the Route 31 and speeding drivers pose a danger to others navigating the intersection or nearby shops. Other members of the public at the Tuesday meeting also questioned whether or not the DOT would reduce speed limits near the intersection, but DOT officials at the meeting said simply posting reduced speed limits does not always have the desired impact as motorists may choose to ignore the signs. A roundabout, DOT officials posited, forces drivers to speed down by the nature of its design.
“Without a roundabout it is very difficult to slow speed down. We will definitely look at it. We will have to post warning signs,” said Regional Traffic Engineer Linda Lubey. “We will also consider rumble strips.”
Lubey did note that the DOT would have to be careful when considering rumble strips as a warning for the roundabout because nearby homeowners would be disrupted by the noise.
Some residents questioned whether or not the roundabout would lead to an increase in accidents as residents would not be accustomed to traversing such a road design.
“A lot of times there is a small spoke, but then it reverts to the normonce people get used to it,” Lubey said.
The cost associated with the two proposals is separated by nearly $1 million, but the DOT was adamant that cost is a factor to con- sider, safety is the most important factor.
The proposed 120 foot diameter roundabout comes with a roughly $2.4 million price tag while installing left hand turn lanes to all legs of the intersection would run approximately $1.4 million.
“We feel we can make [the cost difference up] in safety benefits,” project team leader Chris Mosher said .
While a signal lane solution is more familiar and lower in initial cost, the DOT says there is also an increased maintenance cost. The roundabout on the other hand, eliminates statistically more dangerous 90- degree turns, allows for a free flow of traffic, and reduces the number of conf lict points -- areas where traffic direction can change -- from 32 to 8.
Among the members of the public to comment was Greater Lenox Ambulance Director Kyle Cashel who questioned how emergency vehicles would navigate a clogged roundabout.
Already, Cashel says, the intersection can be problematic for emergency vehicles. DOT officials at the meeting said they would look into the initial designs and consider the problem further, but did say the roundabout’s island, though not ideal, is low enough for an ambulance to potentially go on two wheels to try to navigate around civilian vehicles.
A rough timeline for whichever design the DOT ends up choosing was laid out as follows as the meeting:
•Obtain design approval - Fall 2017
•Issuing a notice for bids - Fall 2018 •Start - Spring 2018 •Finish - Fall of 2018 “One construction season,” Hoffman said of the expected schedule once work begins on changing the intersection. Lubey added that the DOT takes busier holiday and or special event weekends into account when formulating a week-by-week schedule in response to concerns regarding construction high-density traffic events at Sylvan Beach.
The DOT, Hoffman says, is planning another public information meeting in the near future, this one in the Town of Lenox, but an exact date has yet to be determined.