In the city's 2009 capital budget request to the Alaska Legislature a project wish list that asks for more than $23 million to be spent on 16 different improvement projects $950,400 is requested to begin work on the problem intersections. That money represents 10 percent of the total estimated cost of installing roundabouts or traffic signals at 11 intersections, the request says.
City Manager Walt Wrede said the $950,400 request to the Legislature was just to "get the ball rolling" and no specific construction project on any of the targeted intersections has been finalized.
If the city is successful in getting the request fulfilled, he would like the Alaska Department of Transportation to place top priority on two intersections in particular Main Street and the Sterling Highway and Heath Street and Pioneer Avenue. Those intersections, according to DOT, are the two most troublesome in Homer and must be improved, either with traffic signals or roundabouts, as soon as possible.
Homer Mayor James Hornaday, in an Aug.14 meeting with state Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, to discuss the budget requests, said he generally prefers roundabouts to traffic signals.
"Too many stoplights in this town will make Homer look like Soldotna or Wasilla," said Hornaday.
Roundabouts have been in use in Europe and in the eastern United States for many years and are generally seen by transportation officials as an effective and efficient means to direct traffic flow at intersections.
The Alaska DOT has been building new roundabouts in Anchorage and Fairbanks and said in a 2005 report that they now prefer them to stoplights "because of good performance, superior safety and reduced maintenance costs."
At a public meeting on the subject in June 2005, some Homer residents expressed resistance to the idea of roundabouts.
"A roundabout is a stupid thing to do," said Stan Welles at the meeting, adding that they were better suited to younger drivers than the elderly.
Gary Kulesza, familiar with the way roundabouts work from using them in Cape Cod, Mass., said at the meeting they were "a logical way to keep traffic moving."
The Homer Intersections Planning Study, a 161-page document published in Oct. 2005 by Kinney Engineering, USKH and Brooks & Associates for the state, proposed either roundabouts or traffic signals for 11 Homer intersections.
The study outlined traffic and crash statistics at those intersections, recommended possible fixes and detailed costs associated with construction and maintenance.
The intersections targeted were Sterling Highway and West Hill Road, Sterling Highway and Main Street, Sterling Highway and Heath Street, Sterling Highway and Lake Street (which had a traffic signal installed in December 2005), Pioneer Avenue and Lake Street, Pioneer Avenue and Heath Street, Pioneer Avenue and East End Road, Sterling Highway and Pioneer Avenue, Sterling Highway and Kachemak Drive, Pioneer Avenue and Main Street, East End Road and Fairview Avenue, and East End Road and East Hill Road.
"The city of Homer is in transition from a small rural community to an urban center," the study said, noting that overall traffic growth in the city is about 2 percent per year. Crash rates throughout Homer's major traffic corridors are "acceptable", the study said, but future growth will push those rates beyond DOT's minimum safety standards by 2010.
The study also noted that summer traffic volume was nearly twice the winter rate and pedestrians are sure to be negatively affected by increased traffic, especially on Pioneer Avenue.
Wrede said the city is not officially endorsing roundabouts as the solution to its problem intersections.
"That's just what DOT recommended. They told us that they're not necessarily 'roundabout guys' but roundabouts are safer and less expensive in the long run," he said.
Aaron Selbig can be reached at aaron.selbig@homernews.com.
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Homer Alaska - News -
Story last updated at
7:08 PM on
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
City seeks funds for intersections
By Aaron Selbig
Staff Writer
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