GRIDLOCK GURU : ‘Cat tracks’ help guide left turners
Posted on Friday, July 4, 2008
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and The Guru is going to lubricate Rogers this week.
The city’s traffic squeaks the most right now.
It’s not that the city or Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department are failing at anything there. Quite the contrary. They are busy changing things, and it takes a while to work out kinks when new things are first put in place.
Rogers drivers face unfamiliar roads like the Whitaker Parkway that shoots west from the new Promenade Boulevard exit off Interstate 540.
Heck, the parkway has a roundabout plopped right in the middle of it, and Clark Griswold is still looping around it. Pull over, Clark. The Guru’s getting dizzy.
The Guru starts with Abby McCullough of Rogers who shares her thoughts on the parkway’s west end, and then Ken Stegner of Rogers tells what’s wrong at another Rogers spot.
Question: “If you head north on Champions Drive and are taking a left into the Pinnacle Country Club gate entrance, you will hit the car going south on Champions turning left onto Whitaker Parkway if you are not careful,” McCullough writes. “There is a problem due to how far up you have to drive before you start turning. When you do, the other car is in your way. I think it is dangerous.” Answer: The city fixed this problem last week, painting so-called “cat tracks” to guide drivers as they turn. If turning drivers follow the tracks, they won’t collide. The Whitaker Parkway and Champions intersection is at the country club’s main entrance.
Q: “What’s the deal with the lights at Horsebarn Road and the southbound I-540 exit ?” Stegner writes. “Traffic on Horsebarn backs up while a few cars exit off I-540. By back up, I mean 20 on each side of the light while 20 will exit from the interstate. It’s the same on the weekend. You would think the camera would notice cars waiting and no cars exiting from I-540.” A: Few intersections present a greater challenge to traffic engineers than two intersections west of I-540 that work in tandem.
One is where southbound traffic exiting I-540 meets Horsebarn Road. The other is immediately to the south where Pinnacle Hills Parkway meets New Hope Road.
Mark Lyons, a state Highway and Transportation Department staff traffic engineer, said engineers have struggled to keep traffic moving consistently through that area.
The Highway Department intends to fix the problem by putting in TraVis, a signal system built by a Kansas company that adjusts constantly to changing traffic patterns.
For instance, if overhead cameras detect only two cars turning left during 15 seconds provided for a left-turn lane, the signal will “adapt” and reduce how much “green” time the left-turn lane receives during the very next cycle. Few places need that kind of constant adjustment more than the area west of I-540, Lyons said.
The city and the state intend to split the cost of retrofitting the signal with the TraVis system, expected to cost roughly $ 30, 000. That should be installed by fall, Lyons said. Robert J. Smith, aka The Guru, writes on traffic issues in Northwest Arkansas each Friday. He can be reached at gridlockguru @arkansasonline. com or www. nwanews. com / gridlockguru.
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