City to move forward with Church Street intersection traffic improvements
Wait times at Church Street and Montevallo Road could get shorter in the near future.
Richard Caudle of Skipper Consulting proposed a signal improvement project for the intersection at the May 26 city council pre-meeting, and the city plans to move forward with it.
“We saved the best for last,” Caudle said of the intersections Skipper has studied as part of funding from an APPLE grant. “It’s a significant problem during many times of the day.”
The traffic counts on the left turns from Church Street and Montrose Road onto Montevallo Road are both very small compared to the through movements at the intersection. Caudle said the signal would be much more efficient if the left turns from Church and Montrose ran together and then the through movements ran together.
However, in order to do so, the intersection would have to be reconstructed and restriped because now the left turns occupy the same paving in the middle of the intersection. These improvements would create separation between the left turns.
Caudle also suggested phasing the signal so the light would first allow the left turn and through movement from Church, then through movements from both Church and Montrose and finally the left turn from Montrose (or vise-versa, or Montrose left, next both through movements and then Church). Therefore, the left turns would be given all the green time they need, the side street through movements get more time, and Montevallo Road gets the same amount of time.
These changes would shorten the cycle length by 20 seconds, Caudle said, which would improve the flow on Montevallo Road as well.
During the morning peak hour, the, the overall intersection has an average delay of 180 seconds per vehicle of with long queues on several movements. The proposed improvements would change that to an average delay of 40 seconds per vehicle and a reduction in most of the queues.
In regard to traffic from Montevallo turning left onto Church Street, the queue itself would not be addressed but the overall cycle time would be reduced, hence reducing the time waiting in the queue. Caudle also said the queue would reduce by 220 feet, or about eight to nine cars.
The project would cost around $5,000 in engineering and $30,000 in signal construction. It would take about eight weeks to complete. Caudle will work with the city to prepare a contract to begin this project as soon as possible. The timeline would be tight to complete this before children go back to school in August, Caudle said.
A long-term solution Caudle suggested for the Church-Montevallo intersection would add an additional turn lane and cost around $400,000, Caudle said. Caudle recommended the city use future federal funding for this project and other larger intersection projects the city has looked at recently.
Also at the meeting, the council:
- Proclaimed May 2015 as Mental Health Awareness Month. Miss Alabama International 2015 Kaitlyn Hudson is advocating mental health awareness and requested the proclamation.
- Reappointed James Ernest “Bo” Grisham III as a regular member of the Village Design Review Committee to serve without compensation through April 13, 2018.
- Authorized an Agreement and Assignment of Excess Cost Recovery Funds to allow the Alabama 9-1-1 Board to use excess cost recovery money toward an Internet protocol based next generation and integrated emergency communication network for wireless devices and connection with plans to extend the network for wireline connections.
- Authorized the creation of an administrative assistant position for the Planning Department.
- Awarded the bid and authorized a three-year contract for janitorial services for The Emmet O’Neal Library to Protek Services Inc.
- Authorized a professional services agreement with Skipper Consulting for a traffic signal modification design for the intersection of Overbrook Road at Mountain Brook Parkway/Pine Ridge Road.
The next regular meeting of the City Council is scheduled for June 8 at 7 p.m. in the Council Chamber of City Hall at 56 Church Street.