Road Diet To Get Underway In Oskaloosa

Road Diet Plan - Oskaloosa

Road Diet Plan – Oskaloosa

August 5th, 2022

Oskaloosa, Iowa – In January of 2021, the Oskaloosa City Council put forward a resolution for an agreement for engineering services with McClure Engineering Company for A Avenue and Market Street Safety Improvements.

The measure passed through the consent agenda by the City Council in September of 2021 and has been gearing up since then.

The project will begin to transform A Avenue at the intersection with Highway 432 going east to the corporate city limits.

The work will also be on Market Street from 2nd Avenue to 16th Avenue, making the roadway a 3-lane with a continuous left turn lane.

Construction will begin on Monday, August 8th, and will continue for 60 working days, with an approximate end date of October 28th, 2022.

The project will also include a new traffic light at the intersection of North Market Street and C Avenue.

The project is approximately 60 percent funded from Iowa DOT funds to the tune of $639,000 from the department’s Traffic Safety Improvement Program and $403,088.80 from the city of Oskaloosa.

The contractor agreed to leave access to homes and businesses along the construction route at all times.

The city began to work with the Iowa Department of Transportation [IDOT] to lower the crash rate in the community, with some intersections, like the one at A and Market, having one of the highest crash rates in the State of Iowa.

The Federal Highway Administration published a report on road diets. “Under most average daily traffic (ADT) conditions tested, road diets have minimal effects on vehicle capacity, because left-turning vehicles are moved into a common two-way left-turn lane. However, for road diets with ADTs above approximately 20,000 vehicles, there is a greater likelihood that traffic congestion will increase to the point of diverting traffic to alternate routes.”

“Road diets can offer potential benefits to both vehicles and pedestrians. On a four-lane street, drivers change lanes to pass slower vehicles. In contrast, drivers’ speeds on two-lane streets are limited by the speed of the lead vehicle. Thus, road diets may reduce vehicle speeds and vehicle interactions during lane changes, which potentially could reduce the number and severity of vehicle-to-vehicle crashes. Pedestrians may benefit because they have fewer lanes of traffic to cross, and because motor vehicles are likely to be moving more slowly,” the report goes on to say.

The final analysis by the Federal Highway Administration review of road diets and their potential to reduce crashes was mixed.

“This study found that a significantly lower (approximately 6 percent) proportion of crashes occurred at road diets in the after period than at comparison sites in the after period. However, no significant change was found in crash rate decreases between road diets and comparison sites. Thus, one may expect that converting a roadway segment from four-lane undivided to three lanes likely would reduce total crashes by 6 percent or less. Road diets were no better or worse than comparison sites with regard to crash severity.”

“Additional research is needed to determine whether the crash reductions observed on road diets can be attributed to lower speeds, fewer conflicts, or possibly other factors. There is a need for future safety and operational studies, under a range of traffic volumes and other conditions, to help identify the situations where road diets would be appropriate. In addition, traffic operations and capacity must be considered fully at a given site before implementing road diets and other lane reduction measures,” the report concludes.

The Iowa DOT released the video below to better help explain road diets or the 4 lanes to 3 conversion.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/humanfac/04082/index.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/10053/?fbclid=IwAR34zlnCgqLIM7cSbiJu2iVIz9F7RUUPUxSKR2-tXzzybfGsfM3dmZc-qp4

Posted by on Aug 5 2022. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed

         

Search Archive

Search by Date
Search by Category
Search with Google
Log in | Copyright by Oskaloosa News