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Public input helps narrow intersections for traffic analysis

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Photo by Madoline Markham.

Which Mountain Brook intersections will receive traffic improvements with a new federal grant? The city received feedback to help them decide during a public involvement meeting on Feb. 10.

The input will be used to select approximately eight intersections within the city for a detailed traffic analysis and development of recommendations for improvements.

For the past three weeks, residents have submitted comments regarding intersections to Skipper. Thus far, they have a list of 17 intersections of concern, and the firm will continue to take public comments through Friday, Feb. 13. Those on the list are:

About half of the comments from residents have been about Montevallo Road at Church Street and inability to turn left from Montevallo onto Montrose. Caudle and the council discussed this intersection for sure making the final list. Many other intersections under consideration are on Montevallo Road as well. One commenter called it “the U.S. 280 of Mountain Brook,” Caudle said.

Caudle said that that there are a variety of traffic factors involved that vary by the intersections. At Church Street and West Jackson Boulevard, divers are concerned about parents parking on the side of road, and this will change to one-way with Piggly Wiggly development in the next year. At Euclid and Montevallo, half of the intersection is in the city, and half is out. At Old Leeds Road and Cherokee Road, residents are concerned about sight distance when you turn left as you come off Cherokee.

 “There’s a story behind every one of these that are up there,” Caudle said. “All of the solutions are not going to be adding pavement. Some may be as simple as adding signal times or striping. We don’t need to think every one of these is going to involve a $500,000 road widening.”

During a time for public comment, resident Britton Carter expressed concern about the Mountain Brook Parkway-Overbrook Road intersection.

“It’s fine most of the time, but if the school or church is letting out, it can take you 25 minutes to get through the intersection,” he said. “I think it’s a simple timing of the light issue. During those times it’s a nightmare.

Resident Katie Grayson reiterated the importance of addressing the Montevallo Road-Church Street intersection, where her driveway intersections.

“It’s not intuitive particularly for people who don’t travel it often,” she said.

This traffic improvement project is a joint effort between the city and the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, with a portion of the funding provided by the APPLE (Advanced Planning Programming and Logical Engineering) Program. An APPLE grant will pay 80 percent of the project cost, and the city will fund the remaining 20 percent. In total about $50,000 is available for improvements.

Caudle also stated that certain roads including Montevallo, Montclair and Overton could be eligible for federal funding if the council wants to put together a project, but Kaczorowski said that these sorts of projects usually take a minimum of three years to receive federal funds.

Following the meeting, Skipper Consulting will take all comments received through Feb. 13 and their notes from their observations of the intersection and prioritize the most important ones. From there, they will meet with city officials to get their input, and then bring an edited prioritize list to the Feb. 23 precouncil meeting.

Residents who will be unable to attend the meeting are invited to share comments with Richard Caudle at richard@skipperinc.com or via mail at via mail to Richard L. Caudle, PE, Project Manager – Mountain Brook Traffic Study, c/o Skipper Consulting, Inc., 3644 Vann Road Suite 100, Birmingham, Alabama 35235. Comments must be received by Feb. 13.

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