The public will have the opportunity to voice their opinions on a recent proposal from the Newton Public Works department to change First Avenue East from a four-lane road to three lanes.
An open house is being held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at city hall, 101 W. Fourth St. S. where details of the project will be available for public view and city officials will be on hand to answer questions and hear feedback.
From approximately East 14th Street to East 28th Street, a mill-and-overlay project is scheduled for First Avenue. Through research completed by the city, to increase safety it recommends changing the four-lane road to three lanes including an east and west bound lane with a center turning lane.
“As a city we are always looking for safety, how can we increase motorist, pedestrian and bicyclists safety,” public works director Keith Laube said. “Through the comprehensive plan we’ve had comments about people walking on First Avenue, sometimes in the street. Also, people that bike along First Avenue. There is the shopping center, businesses and restaurants on or near this stretch of First Avenue and people need to get there and not everybody has a vehicle. With this project we are trying to encapsulate a few other things and do it as one big project.”
A “road diet” as the project is called is utilized to reduce the potential conflicts points on the street. Laube said research has found that in 14 Iowa cities that have been the conversion, the number of accidents reduced by an average of 53 percent.
“From 2012 to 2015, there were 145 accidents along 1st Avenue between East 14th Street and Iowa Speedway Drive. This is an average of about 48 accidents per year,” Laube said. “If Newton were to experience a similar reduction in accidents as other cities that have done the four-lane to three-lane conversion, we could expect to prevent about 25 accidents per year.”
If the lanes were to be reduced to three, the city would be able to install two bike lanes, each five foot wide, on both sides of the road. Those areas would give cyclists a designated area to ride, instead of traveling in vehicle lanes or on sidewalks.
A second part of the project introduces five-foot sidewalks to both sides of the road. Currently, there are no consistent sidewalks on either side of the street for pedestrians to use.
“I’ve been asked, why don’t we just put the sidewalk on one side of the street, and the reason is someone would potentially have to cross the street twice if they want to use the sidewalk to down the side of the street where they are going,” Laube said.
Laube did lay out a few disadvantages of the lane reduction, including the loss of passing opportunities which can be important if there are slow moving vehicles and mass transportation bus stops, school bus stops and curbside mail boxes that can decrease traffic flow.
The topic of lane reductions has been discussed at two of the recent Newton City Council meetings with the council eager to hear the public input on the matter. Mayor Mike Hansen went as far to say that if more time is needed to hear the public’s voice, additional open houses will take place in the future.
The Newton Daily News published a July 13 editorial against the lane reduction proposal.
The design phase of the project is set for this fall and winter with plans for it to go out to bid next summer. Construction would likely be in the fall of 2017 or spring of 2018.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com