T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Traffic moves along Center Street north and southbound near the Anson Street intersection on Tuesday afternoon. During Monday night’s meeting, the Marshalltown city council voted to move forward with plans and specifications on a project that will remove the triangular median near the entrance to Hy-Vee and replace the center median at an estimated cost of $100,000.

During Monday night’s regular meeting, the Marshalltown city council engaged in a lengthy conversation on the potential replacement of the South Center Street median near Hy-Vee before eventually moving forward with the plans and specifications as originally presented.

Public Works Director Heather Thomas explained that the project was estimated to cost $100,000, and bids are due March 4 with a substantial completion date of July 25 set. It will be completed in two stages, she added — the first will involve taking out the triangular raised median that requires drivers to take a right turn into Hy-Vee, and the second phase will be taking out the center median area.

“Taking out the triangular median allows us to keep traffic moving in the north direction and south direction while we’re doing that median project. It will not be going back in. We will be painting that area as opposed to having a raised median,” Thomas said. “We’ve had a couple accidents in that area, so we did have that request from the street department.”

As she opened up the floor to questions, Councilor Jeff Schneider wondered about the rationale for removing the triangular median, and Thomas said there have been some minor accidents involving people who see the median, forget they’re in the right lane and quickly try to merge left without checking for traffic first. The new configuration would provide a little more time to move over, she added.

In response to another question from Councilor Melisa Fonseca, Thomas told her there would still be two lanes of northbound traffic — the right one painted and signed for right turning traffic only and the left lane going straight.

“That’s not going to change from what it is today. The only thing is that the raised median there that people are hitting right now because they forgot that they needed to be in the left lane, we’re hopefully minimizing that potential impact,” she said.

Schneider then opined that he felt the triangular median was put in place to protect vehicles turning left onto Center Street or turning left into Hy-Vee coming from the north to ensure there was only a single lane of traffic. Thomas said there was no best practices guidance on the issue, but she understood that a previous public works director had asked for it to be installed as a raised median to solve a perceived issue. If accidents increased as a result of the change, Thomas said it could be re-evaluated then.

“If I put on my 20-year-old hat, it’s just gonna give people more reason to pass on the right and hurry downtown. I’m pretty sure that’s why it went in because I remember when it went in,” Schneider said. “I would like to see it go back in unless we have some other proof that we can do the paint markings to keep people from doing that.”

Reiterating her previous comments about the lack of clear guidance one way or the other, Thomas said she would listen to the council’s input on what they wanted to see. Councilor Gary Thompson commented that the only alternative he envisioned was moving the sidewalk to the east, moving the lane over further and putting a median between the two lanes so the driveway to Hy-Vee starts at the corner, a “curved wall” that would force people into the right lane and break bad driving habits.

“I don’t know what the cost would be. It would probably be half a million dollars to do all that, but I’m like Councilman Schneider. If you don’t put some kind of median back in even more than that triangle, you’re gonna have people racing. It opens it up. I just think it opens it up to more people racing to beat the traffic in the center lane,” Thompson said. “So I guess I agree with Councilor Schneider on this one that at the very least, something needs to go back in there.”

Councilor Mark Mitchell echoed Schneider and Thompson’s comments and said he wouldn’t want someone running into the side of his vehicle, endorsing the idea of some sort of barrier.

Fellow Councilor Barry Kell shared a different opinion and noted that there are several other areas of town where multiple lanes of traffic are managed without raised medians. Racing might become more of a problem, he felt, if people are trying to hurry up and turn before they get to the median, and he said removing it might give drivers “a little more runway.”

“I think we also know the long-term maintenance of medians are not aesthetically pleasing to this community with plows and such too, so I would be in preference of trying painting that to shape behavior,” he said. “You look on the north side of the viaduct along the Emerson Innovation Center. That used to be two lanes. People have adapted, and it’s one lane now.”

Councilor Greg Nichols agreed with Kell and liked that removing the median would force drivers to merge more quickly. Thompson asked if Hy-Vee had been approached about paying for any portion of the project, and Thomas said there hadn’t been any conversations to that effect as the city owns the street and the primary focus is the center median.

“What if we just take out the right lane completely and we solve the problem? We just have one lane going north off of the intersection. What if we just take out this whole lane?” Thompson asked. “Then people in the one lane can turn to go into Hy-Vee, or they can go straight over the viaduct. Then no one’s racing, no one’s cutting in. I mean, does Hy-Vee really get that much traffic that it necessitates their own lane?”

Thomas responded that she wasn’t aware of any traffic study being conducted but also questioned what problem or perceived problem Thompson’s proposal would solve, and she felt reducing the lanes of traffic would likely result in more rear-ending incidents. She then explained how traffic would be handled during the construction period and the additional signage that would be installed, and Fonseca expressed concern for drivers turning left out of Hy-Vee.

Mayor Pro-Tem and Councilor Mike Ladehoff recalled the days when Anson Street was the only entry point to Hy-Vee and felt the raised median achieved nothing but “wrecking people’s cars.”

“Gary called it a raised piece of concrete. I call it a jump ramp. However you want to say it, I don’t think, because someone made a mistake, that it oughta cost them car damage myself,” he said. “Plus, medians are really, they’re hard to take care of.”

During the public comment period, Dave Grieve agreed with Kell that paint is better than “hard things” and suggested reducing traffic to one lane if racing is a major concern. Jim Shaw said he didn’t really care if there was a triangular median in place or not, but he joked that when he sees someone in the right lane who isn’t intending to end up at Hy-Vee, he likes to speed up to make the lane change difficult and make the driver end up at the grocery store.

“If you take that out, it’s just gonna allow us a little more confrontational area,” he said to laughs around the room.

Marco Yepez expressed his support for leaving the raised triangular median in place and was also grateful that the center median was being replaced due to its current condition.

“I’m also in the school of thought that this driveway shouldn’t really exist in the first place. You have two things that are going on here. You’re turning right to Hy-Vee and then you have another case where we’re merging. You go north to Center Street, so it’s really two things that are going on here and I think that’s why a lot of people are just kind of racing to get into the lane or turn right or whatever,” he said. “Given the reality that this driveway is going to exist for probably decades, I think we should keep that triangular concrete thing.”

After a motion and second were made, Schneider amended it to direct city staff to keep the triangular median with a second from Mitchell. Fonseca then asked Thomas what would be painted in the right lane, and she responded that it would be the right turn arrow as it is today.

Thompson then welcomed Police Chief Chris Jones to the podium and inquired about whether merging from the right turn lane into the left lane constituted a violation of traffic laws.

“(If) you were involved in an accident, it would be failure to merge correctly, yes. More than likely in those situations, we’d be understanding of a driver that might need to make that lane change,” Jones said. “Looking at the totality of this, I can also talk as a driving instructor. From coming down Center Street northbound, we’re really looking at an issue of traffic congestion at that Anson intersection. Anson and Center is probably one of the higher level rates of accidents that we have for rear end collisions in that area, so having that right lane to turn right decreases the congestion in the intersection to allow people to go straight into Hy-Vee. Hy-Vee has a lot of customers, a lot of traffic, especially on the weekends. That extra lane decreases the amount of congestion for people to get in. It also decreases the amount of accidents for people to take that right turn and make three lane changes over to the left to get into Hy-Vee from that secondary entrance.”

He said most people take the wide lane, which is also illegal, and end up merging into other vehicles, calling it “an equal push” with the possibility of collisions regardless. Jones endorsed keeping the right lane open to decrease the amount of rear-end collisions at the Anson intersection and recommended the painted median over the triangular median.

The amendment to keep the median failed by a 4-3 tally with Fonseca, Kell, Ladehoff and Nichols opposed and Mitchell, Schneider and Thompson in favor. The original motion to approve the plans as presented then passed by a unanimous 7-0 vote.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.