City Looks For Funding to Improve Hazardous School Crossing

City officials are considering safety upgrades to a potentially dangerous intersection near the Inver Grove Heights Middle School, if the city can secure federal grant funding for the project.

For years, city and School District 199 officials have kept a worried eye on the intersection of Cahill Avenue and 81st Street, a heavily trafficked crossing frequented by students walking to and from school. A traffic study on the crossing completed in early 2010 found that roughly 6,800 vehicles travel along that portion of Cahill each day. To make matters worse, as many as 500 vehicles arrive and exit from the middle school and Simley High School parking lots each morning on a school day, according to the study. Much of that traffic uses the intersection of 81st and Cahill to enter and exit the middle school parking lot.

The report, completed by Minneapolis-based SRF Consulting Group, Inc., also reviewed crash data for the intersection. From 2003-2007, only five accidents were recorded at the crossing. While the number of accidents was “minimal,” two of those crashes involved a pedestrian or bicyclist, and both occurred during the morning on school days, when traffic is at its busiest.

“In looking at the records for accidents there, it’s not inordinately high, something that would raise a red flag, but there were, anecdotally, lots of stories for near-accidents,” Public Works Director Scott Thureen said. The speed limits along that portion of Cahill are 35 mph, Thureen added.

When the study was completed, the consultants made a number of recommendations to improve pedestrian and traffic safety in the area—many of which the city and school district already implemented.

The completed upgrades include stronger overhead lighting around the intersection, removing obstructions in front of traffic signs near the intersection, moving the crosswalk on Cahill Avenue from the north to the south side of 81st Street intersection and adding pedestrian-activated “flashers”—lights that warn incoming drivers of people in the street. The city also installed school zone speed limits along that portion of Cahill.

But one of the most significant recommendations—installing a median on a segment of Cahill Avenue and converting two of the street's four traffic lanes into dedicated turn lanes at the intersection—was too expensive for the city to undertake. That is, until city officials learned of a federal grant that could pay for all or a portion of the $340,000 Thureen estimates it will cost the city to complete the street upgrades.

City officials applied for the grant this week, and expect to learn by the end of the summer whether they were approved for the money, Thureen said. If the city does receive the grant, Thureen said, city officials would begin coordinating with the school district to implement the improvements.

SAFETY UPGRADES

If the city receives full grant funding for the project, they would likely construct a median strip on either side of the intersection of Cahill Avenue and 81st Street, Public Works Director Scott Thureen said. On the southbound lanes of Cahill, the city may convert one lane of traffic into a dedicated left-turn lane and expand the street to construct a dedicated right-turn lane. One of the northbound lanes may also be converted into a dedicated left-turn lane. The city could also install countdown timers at the stoplights at 80th Street and Cahill to improve conditions there, Thureen said.

To view a full copy of the safety study by SRF Consulting Group and diagrams of the proposed improvements to the intersection, Inc. click on the pdf file attached to this article.