| By Big Radio News Staff |
City Engineer Brad Reents tells Janesville’s city council that a cutoff and all-way stop at East Milwaukee Street and Centerway will keep westbound traffic from smashing into cars turning at the Garfield Avenue crossing.
Reents says the city cutting off a 150 segment of East Milwaukee Street where it now runs straight through Garfield Avenue without stopping and instead forcing all westbound traffic to funnel into Centerway — then make a two-direction turn to stay on East Milwaukee — would make the crossing “function well and efficiently.”
Reents told the council if the city changes the way that three-sided intersection works, “You’re going to see minimal delays; It’s a much safer intersection.”
Reents presented the changes on Monday night, giving the council a rundown of options to mend the intersection officials say has the highest crash rate in the city.
Traffic studies blame the way the intersection funnels cross traffic through Garfield Avenue creates “58 traffic conflict points,” and has led to two dozen crashes at the crossing in the last few years — six of which have left motorists injured.
About 9,000 vehicles a day travel through the intersection where Centerway branches off to the north and west and skirts around downtown, and East Milwaukee funnels to a one-way that carries westbound traffic into the downtown.
City Council member Rich Neeno says he likes the proposed change.
He says he drives through the intersection daily, and every day he wonders if he’ll get hit by another vehicle because Garfield Avenue has stops that conflict with cross traffic.
The new intersection would become an all-way stop. Milwaukee is chosen as the street that would need to turn across the intersection off the stop because city officials say it has turn angles that are friendlier to trucks, ambulances and fire trucks.
The stretch of East Milwaukee from Garfield to Atwood Avenue would remain a westbound one-way; Reents says dual bike lanes now on the route would be re-set to be bi-directional, side-by side lanes.
Reents indicated the changes would encourage bike traffic on East Milwaukee while encouraging more westbound vehicular traffic to instead take the two-way Centerway toward downtown.
The change would make Centerway flow as more of an arterial route for fire trucks and ambulances in and out of the Central Fire Station, which is set at the nearby intersection of Milton Avenue and Centerway.
Council member Heather Miller worries the change would confuse drivers and create traffic snarls for the 9,000 vehicles who cross the intersection daily.
“I just feel like this is not going to flow as well as we would hope,” Miller said. “You have a four-way stop there, you are going to have traffic discombobulated. Because you’re waiting for somebody and they’re blocking the intersection, and nobody knows where to go…”
“Somebody’s going to get in an accident just for being stupid.”
Reents’s presentation was unusual for a first read of a city ordinance. Normally, such items are slated for public hearings later on without discussion or questions from the city council.
City council president Dave Marshick explained Reents’s detailed presentation Monday, calling the intersection change more involved.
“It’s a thing,” Marshick said.
Council member Larry Squire asked Reents to bring to traffic counts to a a Dec. 9 public hearing on the proposed change, saying he’d like to know how many vehicles a day take East Milwaukee Street downtown versus Centerway.
He’s curious how traffic patterns might change.
Similar to other, recent road rebuilds, the work would replace water mains and dozens of lead water services along East Milwaukee from Atwood to Garfield.
Reents says the waterworks on that section street were first installed in the 1890s.
Neighbors have a chance to hear about the proposed intersection changes at a neighborhood open house at 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 4 at the city’s central fire station at 303 Milton Avenue.
