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New city council digs into roundabout details

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Warren City Council member Joe Michaels, right, asks a question of PennDOT management participating virtually while City Manager Nancy Freenock and Council member Maurice Cashman look on.

By JOSH COTTON

jcotton@timesobserver.com

Construction of a roundabout at Market St. and Pennsylvania Ave. scheduled for this summer will mark the end of an eight-year planning process.

Ninety percent into the final design, the Warren City Council plans to continue to deliberate the issue next week. PennDOT has said it is moving ahead.

The new council heard from PennDOT during Monday’s work session and asked a litany of questions that covered every aspect of the project.

PennDOT District Executive Brian McNulty started by explaining that the project as an idea dates to 2014 when it was identified by a regional transportation planning organization. He said the city first asked that a roundabout be considered in 2015.

The first face-to-face with the city was the following June. “(We) discussed some of the issues,” McNulty said. “What we were hearing was consistent… that the intersection was a concern.” He said feedback was that there was some accident history and that “people felt that it could operate a lot better…. It was a safety and function issue. PennDOT didn’t go looking to create it.”

He detailed the two alternatives provided to the city – the roundabout or a signal improvement – that were “somewhat close in the benefits that they provided.”

Council, going around the roundabout a couple times on its own, ultimately chose the roundabout a couple years ago.

Mayor Dave Wortman, who called for the work session, said the city has not seen plans to indicate that 90 percent of the design work has been completed.

Project Manager Chris Boyer-Krantz said the design is just awaiting a couple items to be complete but that the most recent rendering does indicate the final footprint of the project.

Wortman then asked if all property needed had been secured.

“All are, one will be by the 27th,” Boyer-Krantz said. “No property is going to be vacated… just little areas in each corner. (It is) such a large intersection that a roundabout pretty much fit in there with only moving sidewalks.”

A total of 29 parking spaces will be lost but she explained that the plan is “not really taking anything from CVS” but will impact the apartment building on the corner on some on-street spaces.

McNulty said $1.5 million has been spent on the project to date and Wortman asked for a breakdown of that total.

“The bulk of that is design engineering work,” Boyer-Krantz explained, “thousands of hours of design engineering work. There were traffic studies done. We had individuals out there for hours looking at vehicles” and documenting traffic and pedestrian data. “A lot of hours went into that engineering.”

She said $800,000 of the total was the preliminary engineering with another $364,000 spent on the final design.

Remaining “PennDOT overhead,” she said, is “not much compared to what we’re paying for experts on the roundabout to do that design work.”

Council member John Wortman raised concern that the decision was made in 2018 with elections in 2019 and 2021, meaning that this is the first opportunity “that the general elected public… could have a say on every single seat on this council with respect to this issue.”

He insinuated that council candidates were elected due to their opposition to the roundabout.

Wortman noted that the total has increased in excess of $1.75M more than initial estimates and asked “Would the taxpayers save money if this design was not moved forward with?”

“We do the best that we can in throwing together an” estimate, he said. “(It is) not uncommon to see those costs increase,” especially over a four year window and impacts from the pandemic. “Yes, we’ve gone up from $2.5M to $2.76M” for construction, but stressed that the signal option would also have seen an increase in expenses.

Boyer-Krantz said more subbase under the pavement will be added with the roundabout that would not have been added with the new signal option. She said that will make the roadway hold up better, especially with the amount of truck traffic it receives.

There was discussion about the source of the funds and Boyer-Krantz said it is a mix of 80 percent federal dollars and 20 percent state.

Council member Wendy McCain raised the safety issue and asked for vehicles per day and accident data.

Over 11,000 vehicles, data shows, use the roadway each day. There were also eight reportable accidents over a five year period.

PennDOT also explained that accommodations were made to the roundabout design to address the concerns raised from the trucking industry, both increasing the diameter of the circle and making the truck aprons flush with the rest of the roadway.

Council member Maurice Cashman argued that the pedestrian island element of the project will add to safety. He also made an environmental argument in favor of the roundabout.

“What we see with roundabouts in regard to how pedestrians move through them,” McNulty said, rather than frossig four or five lanes… in this case (pedestrians are) only crossing one lane of traffic at a time. (They) only really have to be concerned with looking in one direction.”

He cited data to show that roundabouts reduce pedestrian accidents by 35 percent.

Boyer-Krantz credited utility companies with lines under the intersection for being proactive in response to impacts from the project.

Mayor Wortman said the issue of safety “continues to be a common thing.

“Based on the data that we’re seeing on the current intersection,” he said, there are 500,000 vehicles annually that use the intersection with eight accidents. “That’s statistically insignificant. If we’re saying that we’re gonna improve this intersection with a roundabout, given the concerns we hear repeatedly (from trucking companies) what are we talking about specifically in terms of safety and what means something? The intersection as it currently exists, I don’t know how much safer it could possibly be.”

Boyer-Krantz said the number of accidents to be taken into consideration can’t just be the intersection but also the approaches.

McNulty said they have seen safety improvements every place they have built roundabouts but acknowledged safety wasn’t initially an issue here.

“Also congestion,” he said. “That’s why it was originally born as a project. Levels of service.”

PennDOT officials explained that all of the traffic studies were used to develop a model for how the roundabout would flow.

Mayor Wortman said the information from PennDOT is “helpful for the new council, what the project is and where it’s at.”

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