by Jim Eaton
Let’s get
real. This whole big thing about street lights
started over concern for the safety of pedestrians who want to cross
Highway 89A in West Sedona at night, in the middle of blocks, against
oncoming traffic. Although there’s less foot traffic
and less motor traffic after dark most nights, concern for their safety
is valid.
There’s even
more concern for safety in the face of all the vehicles making
uncontrolled left turns across traffic – and others using the suicide
lanes for acceleration or even passing lanes! This
has been a much bigger concern for the 25 years since I’ve been in
Sedona. How many hundreds of accidents have
resulted?
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The need for
center median dividers on West 89A is well-recognized, and several times
has been designated a Council priority. After all, more people run across West 89A in daytime than at night,
with no safety island. However, nothing has been
done – usually because of opposition by a few West Sedona business
people who fear less traffic past their stores. I
submit that this fear is not at all valid, and I cite the steady
increases in West Sedona traffic and the fact that it all comes out in
the wash – what goes west comes back east, and vice versa.
Provisions for change of direction take care of that.
So contrary to
usual political practice, let’s try some common sense.
It appears that the choice between lights and no lights has gone
away. The choice between highway medians and no
medians is only a matter of common sense and money.
So let’s install the medians at the same time as the lights, and put the
lights in the medians! Only half as
many lights would be needed, and only one power line instead of two --
half the money! The lighting for pedestrian safety
would be in a safety island in mid-street, where drivers can see the
pedestrians. The lights could be lower, because they
need only reach half as far. Better safety, darker
skies, less money. Why not?
ADOT and the
City have offered you 68 different options, ranging up to 325 light
poles, some as high as a four-story building, for up to $5,000,000 –
that’s Five Million Dollars, just for installing lights!
And no medians? Now please draw your own
conclusions, and maybe see the light.
Readers' comments
#1 Lovely concept, Mr. Eaton but who will
pay for it?
#2 Mr. Eaton may have missed the meeting
where the City and ADOT talked about the
median proposal. #1--they would have to be
medians WITH OBSTRUCTION TYPE WALLS so that
people can't jaywalk and just hop the
median. Can you imagine what kind of
barricade you would need for 2.5 miles?
#2--ADOT said that if you do the medians you
have to do ROUNDABOUTS at every intersection
so that people and the big trucks can turn
around to get to their destination on the
other side of the median. The city manager
estimated $7-12 million for this much of it.
#3--you would have to condemn (translate
that into PAY FOR) private land at each of
the intersections that that would be taken
so that the roundabouts would be bigger and
much wider than the highway. There was no
estimate for how much it would cost to
condemn (buy) the private land at each
intersection corner but I don't think $20
million is out of line considering who all
owns the dirt at Soldiers Pass, Northview/Rodeo,
Coffee Pot, Andante, and Dry Creek Road
intersections.
#3 In response to Reader #2 above:
Jim did not miss the meeting; reader #2 has
made a few small errors. FYI, I was on the
89A safety Panel. From our meetings and per
The Panel's final recommendations:
a. The medians were standard center of the
road bumber-height (7 to 10 inches +/-)
medians that ADOT agreed to at (mostly)
ADOT's expense. Exactly what ADOT agreed to
were "strategically located medians" per the
safety needs along 89A.
b. The Pedestrian Barriers (what the reader
calls Obstruction Walls) that we agreed to
were along the outside edge of critical
locations of the sidewalks (in front of
Coffee Pot Restaurant for example) to keep
pedestrians from jaywalking at known
dangerous locations when a crosswalk is only
a few hundred feet away.
c. Medians are usually paid for on state
roads by ADOT (aka the state) as they have
on 179, 89A just west of the Y, and on 89A
as you drive west and up the hill towards
the high school. Using medians in West
Sedona would serve to make the state roads
(179 and 89A) through Sedona consistent.
ADOT agreed to pay for the strategically
placed medians at mostly their expense. As
to why they then forced the Sedona City
Council into a corner by telling them now
that Sedona had to pay for the medians is a
mystery. Again it is a state road;
improvements to a state road become state
property, and are not paid for by a city
then "gifted" back to ADOT.
d. It is not simply the width of 89A that
would be the limiting factor in building
roundabouts in West Sedona. While 89A has a
set width (4 traffic lanes plus the suicide
lane = 5 lanes) along the roadway, that
width increases quite a bit in an arc at
each intersection. At the location where a
roundabout would replace the traffic light
and intersection, 89A is much wider. The
full width of 89A along the roadway is
slightly more than 5 times the width of a
single lane. However, the diameter of the
exact locations for roundabouts along 89A is
approximately 9 times a single lane without
condemning land. If any cutting would be
required, it would be the actual physical
corner of the sidewalk as it was rounded.
Try this: at Coffee Pot Drive, on the north
side of 89A, walking west, cross in the
crosswalk when it is legally allowed; as you
walk, look left into the intersection; then
look right and up Coffee Pot. The
roundabout's circumference would almost
exactly fit in that circle's diameter and
circumference. The land is already there, it
is owned by the City of Sedona, and it is
the first 20 or 25 feet of Coffee Pot Drive,
and the first 20 or 25 feet of Sunset Drive
decreasing in need as you approach each of
the four corners. A nice circle (roundabout)
fits in there. It is simple geometry and it
would not take $20 million.
Many people have made this error in geometry
and have wrongly calculated the diameter of
the roundabout (a circle) to be equal to the
main width of 89A (5 lanes).
It was always about safety: It was not about
saving 60 seconds on a truck's left turn
(rather than continuing on to the next
roundabout and coming back for their
delivery). It was not about the quickest
possible business access for cars; it was,
is, and will always be about safety.
This is why it was called The Sedona 89A
Safety Panel!
#4 I am reader #3 following up to my own
response that I sent in yesterday.
The geometry and the math:
I went out today and measured the 2-lane
roundabout in front of Caldwell Banker and
the main Post Office.
I also measured the intersection at 89A and
Coffee Pot and Sunset. Sedona has all
rounded corners at our intersections; they
are not sharp corners.
I have constructed a model of the roundabout
and a model of the intersection.
I then set the 2-lane Caldwell Banker
roundabout model on top of the model of the
intersection of 89A and Coffee Pot & Sunset.
From what I see, it is almost a perfect fit.
I believe ADOT and the city would need to
take back approximately 30 square feet from
the Arco, Walgreens, the old KFC, and M&I
Bank.
It is likely that each of the 30 square foot
oval areas are in the right-of-way owned by
either ADOT or the City of Sedona already.
So the cost to purchase land should be zero.
Even if they are not, each of the 4 rounded
corners is landscaped and 300 to 400 feet
away from the businesses and would in no way
detract from the beauty that these 4
businesses have created.
I can't imagine any corner business owner
complaining about 20 to 40 square feet when
medians and roundabouts are clearly the
Cadillac of safety improvements: 90%
decrease in crashes per the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety, a source that
all DOTs like to refer to.
By far, most people in Sedona are good
people; business owners in Sedona are good
people; and when safety and facts are
presented without "being economical with the
truth"; the people and the businesses of
Sedona will respond as good people do.
Driving along 89A, the businesses at the
intersections are quite far from the already
rounded-corner intersections: 100 to 200
feet at Dry Creek and Andante, 100 to 500
feet at Rodeo, 300 to 400 feet at Coffee
Pot, 150 to 200 feet at Northview...
In my opinion, and after analyzing the
intersections along 89A in West Sedona,
roundabouts would fit with very little
concession required.
This is another non-issue that certain
people in our city have misstated due to a
lack of facts or actually not taking the
time to learn before they speak.
It is simple geometry. Isaac Newton was
right in his book, "Principia".
#5
A lot of good comments. But this
boils down to money - plain and simple. The
city of Sedona does not have it and the
state of Arizona does not have it.
ADOT would like nothing better than to give
this road to Sedona so that we would have to
pay for not only the improvements but the
maintenance expense as well.
I was at the final meeting before the lights
got shoved down the city's throat. ADOT's
"Plan B" was to give the road to the city if
they did not get behind the lights.
I like the idea of medians and round-abouts
but who is going to pay for them and HOW???
Until solutions for those questions can be
answered, everything else is just rhetoric.
