City of Madison holds public meeting to discuss two road improvement projects

MADISON — Several citizens raised questions about the timeline and details of two major road improvement projects within Madison at a public meeting held Dec. 12 at city hall.

One of these projects is the widening of Hughes Road. The City plans to widen Hughes Road from three lanes to five lanes from Plaza Boulevard up to Millsford Drive. The expansion comes several years after citizens stopped similar plans to widen the road. As the city continues to grow, however, the rise in traffic congestion has created a dire need for the project to move forward.

The other project discussed at the meeting aims to improve Huntsville-Brownsferry Road from County Line Road to Burgreen Road.

“We’re shepherds of the public funds, and we’re going to get as much as we can out of the funds available to us, and we’re focusing on the areas that have the greatest congestion,” said Gary Chynoweth, the City of Madison’s Director of Engineering.

Chynoweth led the discussion and answered each question at the meeting about citizens’ concerns relating to traffic congestion, tree removal, sidewalks and overall effects.

“In general, both of these projects are just in a layout stage where we’re trying to see what fits where, and we will then send these drawings to the utilities to see what conflicts we might have with utilities,” Chynoweth said.

HUGHES ROAD

The Hughes Road project, which S&ME Inc. is designing, is estimated to start sometime in summer 2019 and take anywhere from 18 months to two years to complete. The project’s main objective is to combat some of the existing traffic congestion. After the widening is finished, the speed limit will stay the same. Chynoweth said traffic varies from 20,000-25,000 cars each day and is heaviest on the south part of Hughes Road.

“What we’re doing is taking the worst congestion of Hughes Road and passing it through what is the checkpoint right now, Eastview Drive, and giving about 1,000 feet north of Eastview Drive for those lanes to transition down to a single lane again,” he said. “That will take care of our morning and evening traffic congestion on that section of road.”

In addition to widening the road, the project’s plans include a 10-foot-wide multi-use path separated from the road by a grass barrier. The design also features a curb and gutter that will provide “a little extra safety.”

Chynoweth also noted that Hughes Road was originally designed to be a five-lane road, and though citizens convinced the City to build it with only three lanes, they still put the five-lane road base in. “We knew what the traffic volume was, we sized the roads correctly, but we didn’t get to build it,” he said. Chynoweth also explained that the City has a 120-foot-wide right of way down the length of Hughes Road.

One group of attendees from the Villas at Madison off of Hughes Road raised concerns about the city removing the trees that separate their subdivision from the road. Chynoweth said the edge of road on that side will have to move at least 20 feet over, and there will be trees removed, but the City will try to minimize this as much as possible.

“We have existing right of way,” he noted. “We’re going to put a road in that meets our requirements at the least expense that we can with the least disruption for everybody. We do, unfortunately, have a subdivision that planted trees—beautiful trees—on public property, and I can’t let that distract what is a good decision overall for the city.”

One of the attendees, Ed Gaines, said he wished the Villas’ developer had planned for the trees to be planted further back and out of the city’s right of way.

“Their right of way virtually takes all of our separation from the street out—that berm with all the trees,” Gaines said. “Our only option is to get a wall on the other side if, in fact, all the trees are gone. I think they will be. That’s going to be an expense. It’s not going to look as nice. The trees look much better. I hate to see that happen, but then again, it is their right of way.”

Despite his disappointment, Gaines recognized that landscaping is always in danger of disturbance as long as it’s on city-owned land.

“A lot of people … put plantings on right of ways and never expect the plantings to be in danger, but this time, they are,” he added. “It’s progress, I guess.”

There are currently two rows of trees that separate the Villas from Hughes Road, and S&ME Project Manager Harry Wilson said it is possible that the back row of trees will be safe.

“The multi-use path’s not going that far, so there’s no need to go all the way to the right of way to put that in and take all those trees out just because of that,” he explained. “We won’t take any more trees out than are necessary to get to the multi-use path in there.”

Other citizens at the meeting showed interest in the plans for a sidewalk along Plaza Boulevard to reach the public library. To implement that, however, Chynoweth said the City will have to remedy an issue where two driveways at the intersection are too close together.

“The driveways have to be pulled out, and this medical facility (540 Hughes Road) will get a new driveway in the back area, and this walkway will be placed in there,” he explained. “… We’ll be working with them to close that driveway and give them a new one so that their customers can actually use the signal.”

Both Wilson and Chynoweth said they believe Hughes Road should be widened all the way to Highway 72, but the current project will only address the section from Plaza Boulevard to Millsford Drive.

“I wish we could do all of Hughes Road all the way up to 72, but we can’t,” Chynoweth said. “We just have to take it a piece at a time. Now, part of Hughes Road is starting to suffer a lot of wear, and the area north of this project we’re going to resurface … this fiscal year.” That project will run from Millsford Drive north to Roema Drive. “We’ll keep it serviceable until we can get it widened, and we’re having to protect what we’ve got as well as improve what we can.”

Chynoweth had submitted a project to ALDOT for their ATRIP program that would receive funds from the state to help widen Hughes Road to Highway 72. He also submitted a project to widen Highway 72 from Hughes Road to Balch Road, which did get approved, and Wilson said that project has been tied into the City of Huntsville’s “Restore Our Roads” initiative. Huntsville also has plans to widen Highway 72 from Providence to County Line Road.

If there are funds leftover in the project, Chynoweth said the first additive alternate would be to extend the multi-use paths on the new section of road down to Old Madison Pike and Brownsferry Road and connect the new paths to those existing sidewalks. Another additive alternate would be to put two left-turn lanes on north-south Hughes Road intersections to have two lanes turning to Old Madison Pike and two turning to Brownsferry Road. “Currently, we don’t have two lanes to receive those,” Chynoweth said.

In addition, the Publix project includes plans to widen Brownsferry Road from Hughes Road to Plaza Boulevard as a five-lane road, according to Chynoweth.

“They’re taking care of our ability to turn two left-turn northbound going west, and as part of this project, the two left-turn lanes southbound turning onto Old Madison Pike—we’re proposing, if money is available, to widen Old Madison Pike five lanes to Sunset Boulevard, which is Madison Towne Centre,” he said, “If we can accomplish that, then we will take care of our worst north-south and east-west congestion problem.”

Once Hughes Road is widened, the City can begin to consider widening Wall Triana Highway. As far as the new traffic lights on Hughes Road go, Chynoweth told attendees the City is working to better coordinate those signals to improve traffic flow.

Design plans for Hughes Road can be viewed at www.madisonal.gov/documentcenter/view/12582.

HUNTSVILLE-BROWNSFERRY ROAD

The improvement project for Huntsville-Brownsferry from County Line to Burgreen roads is also anticipated to begin in summer 2019, though at an estimated timeline of 12-18 months, it is expected to take less time to complete than the Hughes Road project. Chynoweth said the work will “more or less” be tackled one side at a time, and the budget for this project is about $2.6 million.

“It’ll start out as a five-lane section past the commercial zone to the subdivision roads, and then it’ll neck down to a three-lane road after that going through Burgreen Road,” he explained. “That intersection will change from a four-way stop to a traffic circle, and that work is covered under our base bid.”

Leftover funds would allow for such additive alternates as an extension on Gillespie Road of five lanes east from County Line to Browns Ferry, which Chynoweth explained is because the City has seen an increase in traffic just within the last 18 months.

“We’re anticipating that signal will begin to suffer in the near future, so we want to improve the capacity of that signal as part of this project if money is available and if council approves,” he added.

Madison City Council has already approved the base bid, and any additive alternates will have to be approved separately.

In addition, the City is looking at the intersection of Burgreen and Huntsville-Brownsferry. “It’s all zoned commercial, so we’re preparing turn lanes, which will hopefully beat commercial traffic,” Chynoweth said.

One citizen brought up his concerns pertaining to the intersection of County Line and Gillespie roads, particularly with cars cutting through the Walgreens parking lot to avoid traffic. Chynoweth said whether Gillespie gets fixed or not will determine whether there will be a dedicated right-turn lane or a through-right lane. Right now, he said “it looks like it will not be a dedicated right lane.”

“We’ll be able to improve the efficiency of that intersection with this project, and Walgreen’s won’t be cut through anymore,” he added.

The proposed improvements for Huntsville-Brownsferry Road can be viewed at www.madisonal.gov/documentcenter/view/12564.

Chynoweth said a surveyor is now working on getting more topographic and boundary information for the projects.

“We need comments,” he added in regard to both projects. “We will address the comments if we can, and some of them we’re not going to be able to help, but we will minimize it as much as we can.”