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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-25-17 Public Comment - W. Wilsey - Kagy TrafficFrom: William Wilsey [rockheads@prodigy.net] Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 8:57 AM To: Richard Hixson; jeff.key@rpa-hln.com; Carson Taylor; I-Ho Pomeroy; Cyndy Andrus; Jeff Krauss; Chris Mehl Subject: Kagy Traffic; Save some lives! City of Bozeman Traffic Department April 25, 2017 This is a letter concerning the intersection of Kagy (E-W travel corridor) with Carol Place (a city- maintained street) and Fairway Drive (a private street and city trail). As you may know, Fairway Drive serves 58 private residences and 3 commercial buildings AND is the continuation of the N- S through- city trail system connecting the Galligator Trail to Sourdough Trail. As such, Fairway has combined traffic on the street of foot traffic, bike traffic, dogs and vehicles. Sidewalks on Carol Place and Kagy Blvd and bike lanes drop traffic off at the mouth of Fairway Drive. The speed limit on Fairway Drive is 15 MPH and all traffic on it is very conscious of the combined users but it IS a very complex mix of traffic. I have lived on Fairway Drive for 4 years now. I have, of course, seen many ‘near’ accidents around town. But nothing that compares to the dangerous interactions at this intersection. If you are leaving Carol Place to enter Kagy, you have a long line of sight west on Kagy and a very foreshorten line of sight east on Kagy, a combination of road curve and vegetation growth in the line of sight to the east (reminder, this is a city intersection). This shortens the time a vehicle has to make a left-turn onto Kagy or the length of time a bike or walker has to cross. The legal speed limit on Kagy is 35 MPH and traffic often exceeds this. For Fairway Drive traffic turning left onto Kagy, the line of sight is even shorter, due to the curve in Kagy and the aspens and bushes on the southwest side of the intersection. Due to the 35 MPH Kagy speed limit, turns onto and off of Kagy must be made very quickly from and onto both Fairway and Carol Place. Now add strollers, bikes, and foot traffic, all of which use the sidewalks of Kagy or Carol Place to enter/exit Fairway Drive at these blind spots to continue on the trail system. As eastbound traffic leaves the congestion of Kagy/3rd Street, it picks up speed very quickly. Conversely, coming down off of the hill from Highland or Church/Sourdough, traffic carries a lot of momentum through the Kagy Curve. There are only 4 streets off of Kagy, along the curve, between Church and 3rd. All N-S traffic between these arteries crosses these 2 intersections (Carol Place and Fairway Drive is one of the two). I have enclosed a photo illustrating the short line of sight. This distance must be less than is recommended for oncoming traffic of 35 MPH. Please, CITY OF BOZEMAN, do two inexpensive changes to help this predicament. * LOWER THE SPEED LIMIT ON KAGY TO 25 MPH, both ways, between 3rd until past the Valley View golf course (or past Sourdough/Church, another scary intersection). The curve in Kagy makes this zone have a limited line of sight. Protect the bikers and foot traffic. * RECTIFY THE VEGETATION blocking the line of sight, west from Fairway Drive and east from Carol Place. Enforce your easements! Your TMP maps count traffic from Kagy and 3rd east at 12,660 vehicles and west of Church/Sourdough and Kagy at 9120. 3500 vehicles exit or enter in a stretch of road with 2 residential intersections in between to disperse traffic. Add bikes and foot traffic---OMG! Fix this ASAP. As a comparison, Highland Blvd traffic from Kagy to Main has 2700 cars entering/exiting and includes many more residential houses, cross streets AND the only hospital access! And the city trail system here has a large parallel foot and bike path along Highland with trail crossings, no blind curves on Highland AND A SPEED LIMIT OF 25 MPH. Try to be equitable with the much more dangerous area of Kagy, Carol Place and Fairway Drive!! I have many examples of specific incidents, too long for this letter. A recent one had two unattended knee-high toddlers crossing Fairway about 20’ south from the Kagy sidewalk, in front of a car rapidly turning into Fairway Drive, completely unseen with no reaction time for the car or the toddlers. Slow Kagy traffic down! My number is 580-4811. Respectfully, Hillary Hutchison PS The one-way streets that encompass Main Street are an excellent traffic pattern. Keep the one ways! Draw a straight line from the driver's seat of the car on Fairway Drive to the vegetation to the west. No line of sight time!