Traffic study offers vision for South Main
SK DESIGN GROUP
This perspective drawing of a section of South Main Street created by SK Design Group for a recently completed traffic study of the heavily traveled retail corridor illustrates plans for greenspace, pedestrian walkways and improved landscaping. Other features contained in the plan include improvements at the South Main/South Avenue intersection, a decreased number of parking lot driveways, and a northbound left-turn lane at 285th Street near the entrance to the Kawasaki Motors plant.
No one can say the Maryville City Council doesn’t dream big.
The five-member governing board spent more than an hour Monday night listening to a detailed report for overhauling the often-congested South Main Street traffic corridor delivered by John Chamberlin, director of engineering for SK Design Group.
If fully implemented — an effort that will likely take years — the three-phase, $12 million plan calls for transforming the retail artery into a smooth-flowing, tree-lined boulevard complete with new north-south and east-west connector/feeder streets, aligned parking lot entrances, ample turning lanes, greenspace, and sidewalks
SK, which has designed a number of big-budget projects for Maryville, including the West Fourth Street streetscape, has been working on the $62,000 study for about a year.
The analysis divides the corridor into three sections from south to north: Highway 71 to Route V, Route V to Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart to the intersection of South Main and South Avenue, which Chamberlin described as the strip’s most troublesome intersection.
He said the two-volume plan, which is thick with traffic counts, accident tallies, aerial views, diagrams, perspective renderings, and pages crammed with technical data, is designed to give the city the information it needs to achieve three basic goals: relieving traffic congestion, improving pedestrian access, and providing concepts and cost estimates for getting the job done.
Some of the report’s findings were driven by responses from more than 400 local residents who filled out an SK traffic survey, more than 90 percent of whom said they drive along the corridor at least several times a week.
Eighty-five percent of the survey respondents characterized the South Main strip as “very important” to the city’s economic health and vitality, Chamberlin said, with nearly 100 percent noting concerns about the corridor’s safety with regard to both motorists and pedestrians.
Tellingly, the poll also indicated that during peak morning and afternoon drive times, many of those taking the survey avoid South Main when possible in favor of such alternate routes as the Highway 71 bypass, Munn Avenue, Icon Road and South Walnut Street.
Other needs perceived by survey respondents, Chamberlin said, include sidewalks, setbacks for new development, separate bicycle trails as opposed to painted lanes, and improved landscaping.
As far as specifics go, Chamberlin said the most effective action the city could take in the near term would be continued improvements at the South Avenue/South Main intersection, which on SK’s recommendation was outfitted with radar-controlled traffic lights late last year.
While the new controls have worked, shortening weekday afternoon traffic queues that previously at times extended south as far as Wal-Mart, more work needs to be done, said Chamberlin.
“The intersection’s “level of service” — or wait time at the light — still rates at a “D” or “F” on a scale where the optimum grade is “A,” he noted.
Suggested improvements include adding eastbound and westbound left-turn lanes on South Avenue and extending an existing right-turn lane serving the Hy-Vee supermarket parking lot north to the intersection itself.
While agreements would have to be worked out with property owners, Chamberlin said the north end of the corridor, as well as other portions of the strip, would benefit from removing or combining numerous driveway entrances, especially those that allow overlapping left turns by motorists headed in opposite directions.
At the other end of South Main, near the entrance to the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. plant, the study calls for installation of a northbound turning lane onto Main from 285th Street.
One of the inherent problems for the Main Street strip is that the thoroughfare is just that, a strip, and lacks feeder and connector streets running east to west and north to south.
As future development moves into the area, the SK plan recommends construction of new north-south streets to both the east and west of Main along with the extension of Volunteer Avenue to the east in order to serve now-vacant real estate behind Wal-Mart.
Other proposed construction includes an 8-foot-wide walking-bicycling path on the west side of the street running north from near Kawasaki, as well as a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side of the street. A suggested 20-foot greenspace between the Main Street curb and pedestrian paths would accommodate ornamental trees.
One much-desired aesthetic improvement not included in the traffic study is the undergrounding of overhead utility lines, which both Chamberlin and City Manager Greg McDanel said would be prohibitively expensive.
Burying power cables, according to city officials, is simply not a priority for the Kansas City Power & Light Co., which supplies the city’s electricity.
“Undergrounding utilities is not something KCP&L is interested in,” McDanel said.
While making improvements along South Main has been adopted by the council as a “short-term strategic goal” for the coming fiscal year, voters will have the final say-so about the feasibility of major projects, most of which hinge on renewal of the city’s half-cent capital improvements sales tax.
A significant portion of the tax’s current revenue is earmarked for debt service related to already completed projects, such as the reconstructions of South Munn Avenue and Depot Street. Generation of significant revenue for large-scale work on South Main, therefore, depends on voters supporting renewal of the levy at the polls before it expires in September of 2018.
