Heartfelt remarks at a January meeting have led to authorization by Milledgeville City Council for a traffic study that could lead to a major intersection upgrade.
Comments at the Jan. 19 city council meeting by Kayla Brownlow triggered discussion among city officials on the dangers of the Dunlap Road/North Jefferson Street intersection.
Brownlow shared the details of a near-tragic accident a week earlier that involved her husband and six-year-old son. A vehicle heading north on North Jefferson attempted a left turn onto Dunlap and collided head-on with her husband’s vehicle, traveling south on North Jefferson. Her family was not seriously hurt, though the other driver was, Brownlow stated.
Council members that night talked about previous accidents at the T-shaped intersection – some resulting in fatalities – and discussed possible remedies.
Alternatives mentioned included restricting turns at the intersection, lowering the speed limit on North Jefferson, a traffic light, and a roundabout. The panel agreed with council member Walter Reynolds’s suggestion that the city’s public works department look at the manual for traffic control utilized by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and engineers in such projects.
City Manager Hank Griffeth began the discussion at last week’s meeting in his report to council, reminding them of a previous meeting and the history of accidents at the intersection. He noted that one short-term measure would be to reduce the speed limit from 55 mph between Log Cabin Road and the intersection but added that due to the road being checked by radar, that will require GDOT approval.
“That’s a little more in-depth than just sending a letter to GDOT and saying, ‘Would you reduce it to 45 or whatever it should be based on whatever the data shows?’” Griffeth explained.
Griffeth referred council members to a proposal in the agenda packet from P.C. Simonton Engineering for $34,950 and pointed out that Paul Simonton was present at the meeting.
“The contract that is being authorized by this resolution has Simonton doing everything necessary to apply for the speed limit reduction on North Jefferson Street,” Griffeth explained, adding the plan is to look further toward downtown to Lakeview Drive.
Griffeth followed that up by stating he and Simonton had been discussing the intersection.
“In addition, (Simonton) has shared with me that the engineering and cost for the installation of an intersection controlled by a roundabout as opposed to a stoplight would be much less in cost. Simonton would gather data and cost estimates for that possible alternative as a part of the proposed contract,” Griffeth said.
“If it ends up that you agree that is what we need to do, we will begin moving toward finding some funding in order to do that.”
Simonton then discussed the traffic issue with Griffeth and council members. He volunteered that he had been through the intersection numerous times to get familiar with the traffic flow. He said the grade of the road on Dunlap nearing the junction would be a significant problem for a traffic light, as opposed to a roundabout.
“That’s a whole lot different than just having to slow down to make it into traffic,” he said. “I think it’s a great place for it if we can make all the details work out.”
Simonton pointed out what he considers a beneficial tool.
“One of the things we do is animate the traffic through there based on future projections,” Simonton said. “It’s pretty interesting when you put it up on the screen, you can see how things move together. That’s a big part of what we’re doing since we came up with that.”
Other work called for in the contract, which was approved unanimously, includes traffic count and movement at the intersection; field survey of the area; preparation of a base map; obtaining crash data and preparing crash exhibits to be included in the final study. It also calls for the preparation of a traffic design model to evaluate intersection alternatives and create a traffic model to predict queuing and level of service for each alternative.
Simonton said after the meeting that he planned to begin work on the project immediately and hoped to bring back a report within 45 to 60 days.
He pointed to the configuration of the roads as an aspect that must be addressed.
“You’ve got two lanes coming in one direction (from the south on North Jefferson) that all of a sudden goes down to one, so it will be interesting,” he said.