By Gail Peckler-Dziki
Correspondent
Construction of a roundabout at the intersection of Highway 83 and Highway C in Salem is still on the Wisconsin Department of Transportations project list.
The project – estimated to cost about $2 million, 90 percent of which would be paid for by federal dollars – is slated for 2018. The state would pick up the remaining 10 percent of the cost.
Design Project Manager Cynthia Flower, along with Project Manager Joshua Jacek and Traffic Safety Engineer Stacey Pierce appeared before the Town of Salem Board for one final workshop April 13.
Town of Salem Supervisor Dan Campion had previously asked why the roundabout was being place at this site, versus at Highway JF and 83, and asked for accident statistics for the various intersections.
Flower and her DOT team brought the answers. There were a total of 24 crashes at JF and 83 between 2009 and 2013, with no fatalities and one severe injury.
Traffic control at that intersection is stop signs for east-west traffic that crosses 83 and no stop signs for the north-south traffic.
During that same time period, there were 30 crashes at the signaled intersection of 83 and C. While there were no fatalities, there was one crash that caused severe injuries and six crashes with non-severe injuries.
Campion had reported that the signals were out of sync at 83 and C, with a left-turn signal having a greater delay.
Flower said that the DOT had come out, observed the problem and changed it.
But more improvements regarding signals would also cause the need for widening the road and a larger cost.
Signal improvements to the 83 and C intersection would cost about $4 million, twice as much as the $2 million roundabout.
“If we decided to go with the signal improvements,” Flower explained, “we would lose the federal funding and this project would be put on hold. We all face the same budget restrictions and don’t have the money to pay for the more expensive project.”
Both Town Supervisor Dennis Faber and Town Chair Diann Tesar said the main complaint they heard from constituents was that “people don’t like the roundabout.”
“But once it’s in,” Faber said, “they seem to like it.”
Flower said, “There have been areas where the roundabout has been put in and the loudest critics have apologized to us afterward, because they discovered they liked it.”
Faber asked about the frequency of accidents at the intersection of Highways C and MB, where a roundabout was built two and a half years ago.
Flower reported that there have been only five accidents
in that time and none were severe or fatal.
“They are mainly property damage,” she said.
Some businesses are concerned about access to their establishments. Flower stated that they learn as they go and have discovered that with the slower speeds of vehicles coming through the roundabout, access to businesses can occur sooner than previously anticipated.
“The access can be about 150 feet out of the roundabout,” Flower said, “and since the speed is slower, there is less chance of accidents that with cars coming at 55 miles per hour through a signal.”
The Spring Valley Country Club, located at the southeast corner of that intersection, will lose four parking spaces during construction, but they will be resorted at the end of the project.