Council selects Shive-Hattery to design road improvements

The Fairfield City Council approved hiring engineering firm Shive-Hattery of Cedar Rapids to design improvements to South Main Street.

The portion that will be improved stretches from Fillmore Avenue south to Libertyville Road, a distance of about half a mile. The road will be widened to 41 feet and contain three lanes instead of two as it does now. The middle lane will be for left-turning traffic, the same configuration as Burlington Avenue.

The project includes adding a 5-foot sidewalk on one side of the road and a 10-foot paved trail on the other. The trail will connect the interior of the city to the Fairfield Loop Trail.

Highway 1 will remain open during construction, which is expected in 2022.

Roundabout

Though it's not yet set in stone, the city may convert the intersection of South Main Street and Libertyville Road into a roundabout, making it the first in Fairfield. A roundabout, also known as a traffic circle, is a one-way counter-clockwise path that all cars enter at the intersection. Vehicles that wish to turn right simply take the first exit inside the circle, those going straight take the second exit, and those going left take the third. Vehicles entering the roundabout must yield to those already in it.

Fairfield City Engineer Melanie Carlson said the city sees great benefits to installing a roundabout. For starters, it uses no traffic lights and thus no electricity. But the real driving force behind roundabouts is their safety record.

According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, roundabouts reduced overall collisions 37 percent and fatal collisions 90 percent where stop signs or signals were previously used to control traffic.

The Washington State Department of Transportation lists three reasons roundabouts reduce the frequency and severity of collisions: 1) Speeds in the roundabout are low, around 15-20 miles per hour; 2) Drivers don't try to speed up to beat the light because there is no light; 3) The curved roads and one-way travel eliminate the possibility of T-bone and head-on collisions.

Carlson said an added benefit of roundabouts is that they are environmentally friendly because cars burn less fuel when they are constantly moving as in a flowing roundabout compared to the stop-and-go driving of traditional intersections.

Selecting firm

A committee of five people plus two non-voting members met to select the engineering firm to design the improvements. The committee consisted of city administrator Aaron Kooiker, councilor Michael Halley, city streets superintendent Darrel Bisgard, Jessica Ledger-Kalen and Anna Bruen. Carlson and Christy VanBuskirk of the Iowa Department of Transportation were the two non-voting members on the committee who answered the group's technical questions.

The committee voted 4-1 to recommend Shive-Hattery. Halley said at Monday's council meeting that Shive-Hattery had the most experience of any interested contractor in installing roundabouts, particularly installing them in towns that had never had them.

The full council voted unanimously to hire Shive-Hattery as the engineering firm, but did not sign a contract. Carlson said that step will come later.

The total project is expected to cost $4.7 million, but the city will only have to cover a small portion of that, $140,000. The state will pay for $3.5 million, and another $560,000 is coming from regional bodies such as Area 15. Part of that is a $320,000 grant to Jefferson County Trails to build a trail along the side of the road.

According to the request for qualifications the city sent to interested contractors, these repairs are needed to accommodate the increased traffic load on the south side of town.

'Not only has this side of the community seen residential and commercial growth, the Highway 34 bypass has changed the traffic patterns within the city,” read the request. 'With the Jefferson County Health Center located at the Highway 34/Highway 1 interchange, as well as easily accessible services, Highway 1 south is one of the most used entrances into the city.”