How Austin aims to fix its worst intersections
City plans $3.8 million in improvements for fifive danger spots.
With Austin moving somberly toward a record year for traffic deaths, city officials naturally have been searching for answers, and for solutions.
And intersections, inherently more dangerous than the intervals in between, have been one focus of that search. The Austin City Council this month, seizing on a statistical analysis that the Transportation Department had done of the city’s 25 most problematic intersections, cobbled together $3.8 million for improvements on fifive of the worst.
“Traffiffic safety is huge,” Council Member Ann Kitchen, chairwoman of the council’s Mobility Committee, said last week, especially given the 81 traffiffic deaths in Austin through last Wednesday. That matches the total for all of 1986, the city’s deadliest year on the streets up to now. “And it appeared we might have some money available.”
The Transportation Department started its review some months ago by compiling a list
of 78 intersections that might be most prone to accidents. A review of police accident records narrowed that list to 25, which were then ranked based on crash data, said Eric Bollich, the Transportation Department’s managing engineer.
The council approved money to make changes at five of those, though not necessarily the worst five. Improvements at some others on the list had already been funded, officials said, and in other cases the bad intersections are on freeway service roads slated for major work in the next few years. The changes needed on the service roads will be made in conjunction with those larger freeway projects.
But the list of five, approved for work by the Austin City Council earlier this month as part of the 2015-16 city budget, does include the two most dangerous intersections, Nor th Lamar Boulevard at Rundberg Lane and North Lamar at Parmer Lane , and three others among the nine most dangerous. Between 2012 and 2014, the years the Transportation Department ana lyzed, these five intersections had almost 250 accidents that caused serious injuries and one (at the U.S. 183 service road and Cameron Road) that led to a death.
The city, Bollich said, plans to be “aggressive” in getting the changes made.
“We’re trying to do this as soon as possible,” Bollich said. “Our goal is to at least have all of them designed and ready to go out to construction” by the time the city’s next fiscal year ends in September 2016.
Sam Alexander, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, said some interim fixes, such as installing plastic pylons on the center stripe at two of the intersections to prevent left turns out of adjacent shopping centers, likely are in the offing.
Here’s what the city has in mind, all of it subject to change and refinement during the detailed design process over the next several months:
North Lamar and Rundberg Lane
Danger ranking: No. 1 Crash data: Average of 41 colli sions per year, including 23 with serious injuries, in the past three years
Estimated cost of improvements: $525,000
This heavily commercialized intersection is bedeviled by drivers making left turns out of the shopping centers that line North Lamar — forays across speeding traffific that too often lead to crashes. The city plans to block those turns by installing a raised median in the middle of Lamar, running for about 400 feet north and south of the intersection at Rundberg.
North Lamar and Parmer Lane
Danger ranking: No. 2 Crash data: Average of 33 collisions per year, including 19 with serious injuries, over the past three years
Estimated cost of improvements: $525,000
Bollich said this busy intersection, just 200 yards west of Interstate 35, has an unusually high number of rear-end crashes, many of them involving drivers making right turns going to or from the interstate at relatively high speed on the “free” right turns cut into the corners. What typically happens, he said, is that a driver making a right turn has to stop suddenly because of traffific ahead, and the person behind can’t brake in time.
The city plans to “tighten” those right turns, Bollich said, by making them closer to a right angle, which tends to slow people down. That would have the additional benefifit, he said, of making it safer for pedestrians crossing those right turn bays.
Yes, he said, the tightening of the turns could increase backups at the intersection for people looking to turn right.
“In this case, we’re willi ng to do that to improve safety,” Bollich said.
West Slaughter Lane and Manchaca Road
Danger ranking: No. 6 Crash data: Average of 25 colli sions per year, including 15 with serious injuries, over the past three years
Estimated cost of improvements: $1.5 million
As with the Rundberg intersec tion, left turns in and out of shopping centers (particularly the H-E-B on the northwest corner) have been accident generators. The city’s intention is to add raised medians about 300 feet long on Manchac a north and south of Slaughter, add a second left-turn- only lane on all four sides of the intersection and tighten the right turns.
Interstate 35 southbound service road and MLK Jr. Boulevard
Danger ranking: No. 8 Crash data: Average of 25 collisions per year, including 14 with serious injuries, over the past three years
Estimated cost of improvements: $375,000
Right now, only one of the four southbound service road lanes goes through the intersection, with one reserved for left turns and two that are right-turn- only lanes. The city plans to convert one of those right turn lanes into one that allows drivers to go either straight or right. And it will realign the right turn lane from eastbound MLK to avoid conflflicts with those drivers going south in the newly opened through lane.
U.S. 183 service road and Cameron Road
Danger ranking: No. 9 Crash data: Average of 24 collisions per year, including 12 with serious injuries, over the past three years
Estimated cost of improvements: $900,000
Heavy congestion at thi s intersection, particularly during the morning peak period, leads to red-light running, Bollich said. So the city plans to squeeze in an additional southbound lane on Cameron under U.S. 183, allowing more cars to get through and perhaps lessening the frustration that leads to aggressive driving choices.
Bollich said a tightening of the right turn from southbound Cameron to westbound U.S. 183, similar to the work planned for North Lamar and Parmer Lane, is also on the menu.