WORKSHOP ITEM - Robert Therres, Public Services Manager
Title
129TH AVENUE DISCUSSION
Background
City Council asked to have this item placed on a workshop agenda for discussion. To facilitate this discussion, the following report provides the history of the area, street design information, traffic speed and count data, and an incident report summary.
129th Avenue from the East TH 65 Service Road to Radisson Road was constructed over a period of 39 years with three different developers. The western portion of 129th Avenue was constructed in 1976 and was built 44 foot wide with two drive lanes, parking permitted on both sides and no sidewalks. The eastern portion of 129th Avenue was constructed in 1996 and was built with a 31 foot median, 5 foot sidewalk in the median, a 16 foot lane in each direction, parking restricted on the north side and parking permitted on the south side. The center segment of 129th Avenue was constructed in 2015 and was built with a 5 foot median, 6 foot sidewalks on both sides, a 17 foot lane in each direction and parking permitted on both sides.
The street design of 129th Avenue changed over this 39 years. In the 1970’s, several streets in the City were built wide without sidewalks. In the 1990’s, the City was trying to find a residential collector street design that would slow traffic. It was thought that the 31 foot treed median separating two narrower lanes of traffic might be a design that would slow traffic. There were other collector streets built at that the same time that had different median widths, lane widths, and sidewalk/trail configurations. When the center segment of 129th was being designed in 2007, the two Ward 3 Councilmembers met with the existing neighborhood from the east side of the proposed development and discussed how the final segment of this street should be built. The neighborhood selected the design that was built in 2015 with the narrower median and sidewalks on both sides.
The design of the west and east portions of 129th Avenue could match the center segment when those sections of street are scheduled for reconstruction in the City’s Pavement Management Program. The pavement at both ends of 129th Avenue between the TH 65 Service Road and Radisson Road are still in good condition. The neighborhoods could petition for reconstruction sooner than the PMP, but the assessments would be significantly more going earlier. There are many other streets in the City that have reconstruction needs in the PMP before the east and west portions of 129th Avenue would be scheduled.
During the last ten years, there has been one property owner that lives on the eastern portion of 129th Avenue that has expressed concern over the speed of traffic. The City has placed the speed trailer and traffic count tubes on the eastern portion of 129th Avenue and the 85th percentile has been 23 to 31 mph. The last traffic count taken in 2016 on the eastern portion of 129th Avenue was less than 550 vehicles per day.
During the 2006 discussions of the design of the center portion of 129th Avenue, the City received a petition from the eastern portion of the street asking for speed bumps. The Council did not act on the petition because the City was in the process of establishing 129th Avenue as a Municipal State Aid route and speed bumps are not allowed on a MSA route. There were several other Council concerns in this area at the same time with the construction of the 129th Avenue overpass at TH 65, the County’s reconstruction of Radisson Road, and the City pursuing a signalized intersection on Radisson Road at 129th Avenue/Quail Creek Parkway.
The Police Department did a search of incident reports for 129th Avenue from the last three years and the following is a summary per area:
• Eastern portion of 129th Avenue
o 12/19/16 - 1895 129th Avenue - resident reported a vehicle went up on median
o 01/13/17 - 1895 129th Avenue - resident expressed concerns over speeding and reckless driving
• Central portion of 129th Avenue
o 07/25/16 - 1761 129th Avenue - contractor working on a new house reported damage to his left front fender while parked on the street
o 11/15/16 - 1644 129th Avenue - unknown vehicle damaged unit of 12 mailboxes
o 12/05/16 - 1605 129th Avenue - 17 year old driver reported they ran off road due to icy conditions
o 01/12/17 - 1644 129th Avenue - 16 year old driver drove into yard