Improving Some of Decatur’s Most Dangerous Intersections
Decatur Metro | September 6, 2010
Over at The Decatur Minute, Catherine alerts us to a community workshop being held by the city this coming Thursday, September 9th from 6pm to 8pm at city hall to discuss the scheduled railroad crossing improvements at BOTH McDonough and Candler Street and the streetscape improvements along North McDonough.
You can read the details of the proposed changes to both the railroad intersections in the Streets section of Decatur’s Community Transportation Plan (pdf).
Here’s the summary statement of the problems addressed for South Candler to get those juices flowing…
The intersection is too complex and intimidating for most pedestrians and bicyclists. In particular, the “Path” on the northwest corner is circuitous in that three street crossings are required just to avoid the most obvious direct crossing of Trinity Place parallel to the railroad tracks. Some crossings do not meet the minimum requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. None of these are “complete streets” as they do not include adequate facilities for pedestrians and cyclists.
The left-turn movement across the railroad tracks from northbound Candler Street to westbound Howard Avenue is problematic and contributes to a vehicular crash history that is higher than at any other intersection in Decatur. Residents living south and southeast of downtown are not likely to walk across this intersection unless they must.
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From a quick glance, these proposed changes look great. I use my bike to get around town a lot, and picking up groceries at the little Kroger, biking along Commerce through Church and Clairemont, taking a right from Commerce and biking along Howard, and then trying to get through the pretzel intersection at Atlanta Ave. to go over the railroad tracks and into Oakhurst = not fun. As an Oakhurst resident, I especially like rationalizing that weirdo Atlanta Ave. intersection, but it’s looks like they’ve done a good job of identifying the most problematic intersections all across town and doing something to help solve the problems.
And I’m 100% behind the overall idea of narrowing the car lanes a little in order to slow traffic a bit and to free up space in order to widen sidewalks and put in bike lanes.
Part of the plan is the closing of the short section of the triangle that runs from the crossing directly to North Candler. That would slow traffic considerably for cars wanting to go up N Candler to Sycamore or Ponce (a cut-through, I know) since they would have to make a greater than 90 degree right followed by a 90 degree left. I can see traffic getting backed up northbound from the crossing because of that.
The prohibition of left turns from Candler to W Howard makes sense from a traffic standpoint, but would seem to make W Howard from Candler to Church almost a dead zone, since it is one way westbound.
Why not make that stretch of Howard a one-way going east, instead of west? That westbound one-way never made sense to me anyway, since Maple (1 block north of Howard, between McDonough and Church) is also a one-way going Westbound.
That’s a great idea! It’s maddening to take such a roundabout route to get to Tesoro or thereabouts when coming from Howard.
Genius idea. That section of Howard should definitely be one-way headed east it makes a heck of a lot of sense. I assume that’s a vestige of when the crappy motel was over by Dairy Queen but not really sure.
Good point. A big downside to both those streets headed in the same direction is that they make it impossible for someone to go around the block. There’s a number of popular businesses in that neighborhood — Decatur School of Ballet, Color Wheel, Tesoro — and, as it works now, if someone needs to circle the block, they need to take McDonough all the way up to Trinity instead of just turning down Maple.
So, next time you’re annoyed by Trinity being overburdened with traffic, realize that the volume is, in part, by design. More possible routes equals less traffic per route.
that would make it SO much easier to get to the library from the west side of town! (Diane and I lamented about this in a different thread a while back.)
FYI: I sent this suggestion along to Amanda Thompson and she said they would definitely consider it.
Reversing that stretch would make it tricky for morning commuters trying to access Dekalb Ave. I always jump on that one-way portion of Howard when I’m headed to Atl. It really is the fastest way if you’re heading from the other side of town.
Even if Howard stays one-way westbound, the left turn from Candler at the RR crossing will be eliminated.
I’m with everyone else on making the stretch of Howard from Lotus Chiropractic to Dairy Queen go the other way. If you look at the schematic of the Candler McDonough intersections, it makes a lot more sense for it to head eastbound so people can get to DQ and what will eventually be condos(???).
What is the timetable on this? Also, I hope that they will be taking on one intersection at a time as opposed to tackling them all at once and creating hopeless gridlock.
Is this drawing “as-built” with proposed changes in redline?
If so, where did the extra through lane on Candler come from?
The drawing is “as proposed.” The redline is current conditions.
Does anyone know if there is a schedule or plan for the other projects in the transportation plan? I’m particularly interested in the plans for Church Street now that the park construction is done.
So will this be held in the old city hall?