The Municipal Services Committee met 08/26/2024. One of the items they took up was a request to apply for a grant that would help cover the cost of a traffic signal at the Richmond Street/Ridgeview Drive intersection. The intersection is just north of Northland Avenue and south of Capitol Drive and Highway 41. Due to the expected impact on traffic caused by the expansion work on Highway 41, the state will be installing a temporary traffic signal at that intersection. The grant, if approved, would help cover the cost of installing a permanent signal at that intersection.
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The committee voted unanimously to approve the request to apply for the grant.
Although perhaps not the most interesting of issues, the discussion did give greater insight into some of the considerations that go into how the city decides which intersections it installs traffic signals.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Per Traffic Engineer Eric Lom, this intersection as been “a stubborn thorn in our side.” It is close to meeting the requirements for a signal, and they have received a lot of complaints about it. The planned closure of the Ballard/41 intersection in 2025 is expected to increase traffic at the Richmond/Ridgeview intersection and put it over the edge in terms of the metrics to qualify for a traffic signal. As a result, the state will be paying 100% of the cost to install a temporary traffic signal at that location.
Per Traffic Engineer Lom, “[O]nce you put in a signal, it’s very hard politically to remove it.” People that start using that street during construction get used to it and continue using it once construction is over. Additionally, there are people who would like to use that intersection but don’t because it doesn’t have a traffic signal; once a traffic signal is installed, they will start using that street.
Appleton already has an agreement with the Wisconsin DOT to keep that temporary signal in place until spring of 2026 when the Richmond/41 interchange will be closed. At that point, the signal will be removed, but it probably won’t be bad because traffic will be markedly lower due to the interchange being closed. The city would then like to install a new, permanent traffic signal at that location.
There was some discussion about how traffic flow would be impacted by having a signal so close to the Richmond/Northland roundabout. Traffic Engineer Lom said that they ran this scenario through their micro-simulation model. They did not expect northbound traffic to experience much of a problem at all. Southbound traffic was trickier. On a normal day they would not expect southbound traffic to get backed up all the way from the roundabout to the intersection, but it was possible that there could be a minute here or a minute there that traffic did back up. There were not any great options that prevented the occasional backing up of traffic but that also facilitated pedestrian crossings and allowed vehicles to make unrestricted turns. He believed the proposal in its current form was the best solution.
The total cost is estimated is estimated to be $640,000, 10% of which would have to be covered by local entities. In addition to the $64,000 local share, they expected to have to spend $25,000 to acquire land needed for the permanent changes.
The intersection was on the border of Appleton and Grand Chute and Grand Chute had agreed to split the local costs 50/50 with Appleton.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the request.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1226864&GUID=3DA77B94-225D-4252-A3A5-51C9F88D7130
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