Iowa DOT scraps proposed roundabout

    Representatives of the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that the department has no plans to change the configuration of the intersection of highways 1 and 92. The announcement came at the Washington Street Committee meeting in the former library Wednesday. Jim Phillips, DOT staff engineer, said the department might repave the intersection in 2012 but change nothing else about it.

    At a public forum in late April, the DOT presented plans to install a traffic light at the intersection or convert the intersection into a roundabout. The DOT?s maps had the roundabout extending into the territory owned by the Iowa Army National Guard southwest of the intersection. Members of the DOT met with the Iowa Army National Guard after the public forum. Phillips said that after listening to concerns from nearby business owners, from the National Guard and from the general public, the DOT decided that the intersection was best left undisturbed.

    The issue that consumed most of the meeting was whether to change West Madison Street (Highway 92) from four lanes to three lanes, using the middle lane as a left-turning lane. The DOT is also planning to repave West Madison from the intersection with Highway 1 to Second Avenue. Phillips said that since the road is getting new pavement, it would be an opportune time to repaint the lines.

    The DOT recommends changing the street from four-lane to three-lane to reduce the number of accidents. Phillips said three lanes are safer because they offer fewer ?conflict points? ? points where vehicles are liable to collide. Phillips said a three-lane road would be safer for the cars that enter West Madison from side streets because there are fewer lanes of traffic to worry about. 

    Street committee member Merlin Hagie asked Phillips if he had concrete statistics on the accident rate on West Madison. Phillips said the collision rate for that stretch of West Madison is 1 collision per 153,000 miles of vehicular traffic, which is almost 50 percent higher than the state average.

    Troy Jerman, assistant DOT district engineer, was also on hand to answer questions. Jerman was asked if a three-lane road would mean more head-on crashes since the cars in the center lane would face each other. Jerman said there are not more head-on collisions when a road goes from four to three lanes.

For more, see our Jan. 20 print edition.