With a June deadline looming to begin an overhaul of the intersection of Madison Avenue and Eisenhower Boulevard, city project managers are moving fast to conclude negotiations with 11 property owners for easements.
But after two years of talks, just three contracts have been signed giving the city title to land needed to widen North Madison Avenue to accommodate a “continuous flow” intersection, the first of its kind in Northern Colorado.
City councilors on Tuesday will consider a resolution authorizing the city to take possession of the remaining properties without contracts, starting a 180-day clock to negotiate final agreements with the unsigned property owners.
“The city’s M.O. has always been to work with owners, and that’s what we’re doing,” deputy city attorney Judy Yost Schmidt said. “We’re doing a project, and we have to get going on it.”
The voluntary “possession and use” agreements give both sides time to sort out specific valuation, contingencies regarding landscape and signs, and countless other nit-pickings that have stretched the process out.
“Acquiring property certainly takes a lot of effort and energy,” city engineer Dave Klockeman said. “But this project has been needed for quite a long time. We have a good solution in place, and we have a timetable to do it this year.”
The continuous flow intersection, pioneered in Baton Rouge, La., and used in other cities, Salt Lake City being the closest example, requires widening one four-lane street to six lanes.
The solution, city engineers say, will fix one of Loveland’s most nettlesome traffic problems, with southbound motorists on Madison turning left onto eastbound Eisenhower having to wait through two and sometimes three light changes to get going.
Longer light times on Madison also impede traffic on Eisenhower, the city’s busiest street.
When work is completed in September, southbound drivers on Madison who want to go east on Eisenhower will be diverted at a signal to two left-turning lanes on the northeast edge of the widened intersection.
Like magic, when Madison drivers get the green light, the flow goes in both directions while left-turners sweep onto Eisenhower.
“When they’ve done this in other cities, there was a lot of apprehension to begin with,” project engineer Tom Knostman said. “But when they open, all of that goes away.”
To put the leery at ease, the city has posted two five-minute videos on its website describing the new design, one of them offering a driver’s-eye view of a trip through the intersection. Log on at www.ci.love land.co.us, then click on the “unusual intersection planned” button on the right-hand menu.
Councilors on Tuesday will also consider a measure that would end the city’s participation in an intergovernmental
agreement to operate the 34-Xpress bus service connecting Loveland and Greeley. The city’s Transportation Advisory
Board earlier this month recommended ending the service because it is so infrequently used.
By Tom Hacker
Source: reporterherald.com