City Council - workshop

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, everyone that's here. And thank you for being patient. We were running a little late from our previous meeting. So we're going to go ahead and start with this study session. And the first one on the agenda is the item number one. And is that going to be you two? Or are you presenting? OK. If you can go ahead. Madam Mayor. Oh, go ahead, Larry.

Just for the benefit of the public, I do want the mayor and council and the public to know that we will not be covering the second topic this evening in study session, which is related to the recycling program options that we've been evaluating. There's been some recent items that have come to light that I think could have an impact, may have an impact on the options. And staff needs to do some additional research before we and gather some additional information before we make the presentations to the council. So I apologize for adding that. But we are here and have our staff here ready for the Mission Parkway and Cottonwood Lane intersection improvement presentation.

Perfect. Thank you.

No decision will be made tonight, but ultimately want to update the council on a dialogue that we had had several months ago. and some of the engineering work that we've done under the options that were evaluated. So with that, I'll hand it over to the Public Works team.

Great. Thank you. All right.

Hi. Good evening. I'm Natalie Stevens with Public Works. I'm joined by Matt Carman, civil engineer. We also have our traffic engineer, Clark Klattenhoff, in the audience as well. Tonight we're presenting an update on the Mission Parkway and Cottonwood Lane proposed improvements, and we'll go over the design alternatives, go over the public outreach and survey that was conducted, go over engineering's recommendation, and also ask for council's input on the project. Okay, let's get into the project background. The intersection of Mission Parkway and Cottonwood Lane currently meets warrants for a traffic signal, and that means that some sort of intersection improvements are required at this time. You may remember back in October, we held a study session to go over the project, and Council ASKED FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND RESEARCH. CITY STAFF DID CONDUCT A PUBLIC OUTREACH AND SURVEY AND ALSO CONDUCTED SOME ADDITIONAL Here are some of the options that were initially considered. We looked at the always stop, the traffic signal, and the roundabout. Each of these options were evaluated on safety, traffic operations, right-of-way needs, cost, maintenance, and also long-term performance. So we reviewed the always stop and this option is no longer being considered as signal warrants are met. It's not the most appropriate long-term traffic control for this location. The second alternative is a traffic signal. One of the benefits of the traffic signal is it provides familiar traffic control. A couple of The issues with the signal is it requires electrical and equipment maintenance and users may experience delays during high traffic volume periods. The third option is the roundabout alternative. One of the benefits to the alternative is it allows for continuous movement of traffic through the intersection. It also allows for the movement to be at lower speeds, which reduces severe and fatal crashes compared to a signal. This exhibit shows the proposed right-of-way. It's kind of small, but in red, that is the right-of-way that would be required for this signal. And then in blue, you can see that would be the right-of-way that would be required for the roundabout. This design is still conceptual. It might change slightly, but overall, the roundabout would require less right-of-way than the traffic signal. So Public Works conducted a public outreach to gather community input on the project and find out what some of the community's concerns are for the intersection. We did conduct a survey. We received over 120 responses. City staff held a public involvement meeting July 8th at Vista Grande Library. This allowed the community to review alternatives, ask questions, and provide feedback to city staff. Here are some of the residents' primary concerns that we heard regarding the intersection. Number one was speeding vehicles. Number two was traffic congestion. Number three was difficulty driving through the intersection. Number four was poor lighting. Another concern that we heard was the concern that if we construct a roundabout that we would not be able to expand that in the future. compared to a signal. But with the signal, we would have to upgrade the intersection in about 15 years. And so that would require us to rip out the pavement and replace the signal at that point. Whereas with the roundabout, we would be able to take the current design and it would require minimal pavement tear out. and that would allow us to expand to the minor arterial pavement section. Another benefit with the roundabout is it would hold the traffic flows five years longer than the traffic signal alternative. So whereas at the 15 year mark with the signal, we would have to upgrade the intersection, it would be another five years, it would be 20 years for the roundabout. And then here's a breakdown of our survey results. You can see 48% preferred the traffic signal improvement compared to 40% with the roundabout. So we considered this feedback along with safety, operational, and long-term performance when developing our recommendation. And so we'll get into the engineering recommendation. So the roundabout is the preferred alternative from the engineering department and we can talk a little bit about why that is the preferred alternative. So, Compared to a traffic signal, there are fewer severe and fatal crashes associated with a roundabout. The roundabout allows for continuous movement throughout the intersection, so it provides shorter travel times. The right-of-way needs would be equal or less than a traffic signal. and then we would be able to expand the roundabout when needed and we wouldn't have to do a lot of removal and upgrades compared to a traffic signal. Next we can look at the cost comparison. So here's the cost for the signal versus the roundabout. And then we also listed the right of way that would be required for both options. And I'm going to hand it over to Matt Carman to go over the signal tech staffing and the maintenance requirements.

Ms. Stevens, perhaps you can explain for the council and the staff, you spoke about the 15 year need to expand. Perhaps you can outline a little bit of scope and explain that a bit of what actually is transpiring at that point. In my mind, it's obviously widening the intersection there. But just to give everybody a context of what's driving that expectation at 15 years.

Definitely. And I think I'll actually hand that over to our traffic engineer because he has more of the technical expertise. So, Clark, if you don't mind.

Turned on, Clark.

Good evening. I'm Clark Klotnoff, Assistant City is the Traffic Engineer. The reason we walk through this is to point out when we're looking at the initial installation of the traffic signal. And if you look at the exhibits, Natalie, if you could roll back to the exhibit that we have there. And I'll explain one more back. I'll explain the coloring that's on there. A couple more back. There we go. So you see the gray pavement in the middle here? That's existing pavement. And so this alternative is built on widening the existing pavement. And the dark color that you see adjacent to it is pavement widening. When you look at the next alternative, which is the roundabout, you'll see that it's all gray pavement and then that the circle itself is a lighter color. That's concrete pavement. And the reason we do that is because your heavy vehicles will deteriorate, the asphalt will deteriorate faster in a roundabout. So we'll put concrete in there so that it gives you the long life that you're after. So Natalie, if you'll go back to the initial exhibit. Keeping in mind now that we now have pavement out there that we're moving to a minor arterial section that has a 20 foot wide median, and that's a raised median. The existing pavement that we're using in place is roughly 22 to 24 foot wide, so essentially all the existing pavement needs to be removed. Further, when we go to finalize this and you end up with the cross slopes, you're driving the edge of the road into the ground and drainage becomes more difficult. So when we were designing new roads like Thornton Road or Peters Road, we raised the profile of the road so that when you get to the edge, which is lower, that you're up in the air from the existing ground six to nine inches so that the drainage then can flow off into the existing ground level rather than being pressed further into the ground requiring more right of way because you have a deeper and wider basin and it also gets into where does it go. that is the reason why we're saying in the future it would be a total reconstruct as compared to the roundabout which we would be all new pavement anyway but while we're designing at the first iteration would be the build out of the roundabout as a four-lane facility and then we just remove some of the pavement either on the inside or the outside quite probably on the inside. So in the future, it's simpler to do, does this come in, widen on the inside, widen the approaches, and achieve the goal of the most cost-effective way of transitioning from a one-lane or two-lane roundabout to a four-lane roundabout in the future. Any questions on that explanation?

No, thank you. Questions? Thank you.

So I just wanted to give a little bit more context into these 10-year maintenance costs and what's driving them and a little bit of additional information that I think maybe isn't necessarily included in those costs but should be part of the project consideration as a whole. So the primary driver on the 10-year maintenance cost of the signalized intersection is the asphalt maintenance, right? So as the asphalt wears out, we have to do surface treatments to repair that asphalt. Really, that cost is also the same in the roundabout, right? About the same amount of pavement. The costs there aren't too different from each other. Where that increase comes from really is the maintenance of the equipment, right? So on a traffic signal, you have bulbs that go out, you have wires that oxidize and corrode and things to replace in that aspect. Equipment that fails, right? They're controlled by controllers and all the computer equipment that goes into those as well. So really that's kind of the main cost driver and the difference and kind of going into that a little bit deeper, one of our main concerns right now is trying to address the existing traffic, the existing signal system as it stands today rather. We looked a little bit into the FHWA's traffic signal operations and maintenance staffing guidelines as part of our staffing request last year and just looking at our system as a whole. They do recommend that we have about one signal technician per 30 signals that we have through the city. Right now, we're sitting at about 38 traffic signals, two hawk signals, and then 13 advanced warning signals, whether they're like pedestrian flashing beacons, things like that. And the assumption that the FHWA is making is based on a team that's just responding to traffic signals. Our signal team also responds to about 5,000 streetlights throughout the city. So as we're considering adding new signals, it is a big concern from the staffing availability side of things to make sure that we have somebody that can maintain those signals and also have an adequate response time. We really strive, and our goal is to make sure that if we have a signal that's down, A, we get notified of it as soon as possible, so we have to make sure that our system is built, that that notification occurs, and that B, we have it up and running in an hour, two hours tops. When the time to repair starts to exceed that, we have really bad detrimental effects on the traffic system as a whole. And so it really is our priority to make sure that we're getting those fixed an hour or less. As we consider a signal at this part of town, one of the things that we have a struggle with our current system is making sure that our radio communications that report those failures are able to reach out to our existing traffic control system at the North Operations Center. We consistently have challenges, for example, at our Thornton and Peter signal and the Thornton and Lucid driveway entrance, being able to communicate with our overarching signal system. That's primarily due to distance and interference with the roadways between our current system and that signal. We suspect that that problem will probably be very similar at Cottonwood and Mission Parkway just because of its proximity to the freeway as well as the distance away from our traffic system. So the way we combat that is installing a hardwire connection. That original cost wasn't forecast into this original estimate, and crossing over ADOT facilities and trying to have a hardwired connection to that is another concern that we're a little bit worried about with this project in order to make sure that we have a signal that when it fails, we know that it fails, and we can get somebody out there to fix it quickly. So just wanted to bring up those kind of concerns from a staffing point of view and a maintenance point of view that we're not just looking at this signal. We're really looking at our entire signal system that quite frankly we're getting pretty taxed on having manpower to address it all. So adding one more to that on top of, you know, I'm sure everyone's aware of all the other signals that have been put in recently. You know, we're a little bit concerned with making sure that we can have an operating system that works consistently every day, all day, 24-7.

Okay, then we'll move on to recommendations and next steps. So engineering's recommendation is to move forward with the roundabout alternative. City staff is currently working on selecting a design firm, and so we're requesting council's recommendation as we move forward, and so we can direct the design firm on which option we wanna go with. And with that, we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have, thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Sure, Bob.

I actually have a couple. We've heard several times that accident reduction, that fatalities especially are reduced with a roundabout. Do you know how significant those statistics are? Is there a percentage reduction? Is there?

I will have Clark speak to the percentages, but I do know with a roundabout, since you're going slower through the intersection, the crashes are less severe and they're more likely to be like a rear end, like a fender bender type of accident. But I'm not sure if we have that data available.

And all that does make sense. But if it's a 1% reduction, then I don't know. But if we have some kind of numerical value, I would appreciate it.

Consulting with our other senior traffic engineer. And we are on the same page that it's in the 75% plus range reduction in severe and fatal accidents.

Well, that's significant. That's not 1%. I mean, I can look forward to that because I know that intersection as is can be dangerous and I can see with the light it would still be dangerous. My other question is that Is this a sign of the time or is there criteria that you look at an intersection? I mean, I could overreact and say, well, every intersection in town that has a light, we ought to switch them to roundabouts. But is there criteria you look at that you would have a different opinion of a roundabout and say, no, we need a light here?

So I'll have some comments. Clark might have some comments as well. First of all, I don't want to advocate that we switch to roundabouts at every intersection in town. I think that's not the appropriate solution. But to your point, from an engineering perspective, we try to look at all the tools in our toolbox. And when we look at a project like this, we're in a rural area of town. For example, where having existing electrical hookup is going to be a challenge to the project. We do have ED2 as the power provider out there. We tend to like our system powered through APS, because that's just where most of our signals are powered through anyway right now. So that would kind of be an atypical process for the rest of our system. speeding, you know, you brought up kind of driving concerns in that area. This is a very rural road that is a straightaway, right? That's approaching an interstate. It's very typical for drivers in those conditions to drive well over the speed limit. A roundabout is an effective measure to help slow those drivers down by physical barrier, right? You just can't go through the roundabout without slowing down. At a traffic signal, you're more likely in a scenario like this to have people running the red light because they're just going really fast down that straight way. So there's a couple reasons why we think for this project specifically, a roundabout's a better solution. Not saying that a roundabout's a good solution for all intersections, but when we look at things in the strategic plan of council of trying to address public safety and those things, that's why we feel like this is a good example for a roundabout. Do you have anything to add to that, Clark?

I would simply reiterate that it's not a solution fit for every location. It takes the right balance of traffic in order for it to function properly. If you have too many approaches that are heavily loaded consecutively, the second or third one in the sequence may not get any vehicles all into the roundabout itself. So it does take the right situation in order for it to effectively provide the reduction in delay that we're looking for or the efficiency that we're looking for in terms of operations.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob. Any other questions?

Yeah, I've got actually a few. You talked about being a rural area out there and everything like that. Well, what about future development on the east side with the increased population as population starts to increase on the east side? Has that been put into factors on that roundabout?

One of the things that we would propose doing with our consultant after we select them is what is called sensitivity analysis. And what we do there is not only take a look at what we think will be the traffic under our normal forecasting conditions for 20 years in the future. We will take a look at a few other scenarios. We will test and see, we'll project it to 25 years and see whether the traffic signal fails at that point or the roundabout fails at that point. We will test the limits to see where one or the other fails first and then see how many years further the other one will go before it reaches that same level of failure. As Natalie alluded, we would go ahead and when we have our consultants start looking at this, we would have the initial layout for a build-out scenario. In other words, a minor arterial on Cottonwood, a major collector on Mission. We would also add the north leg there to that intersection in the design. And again, it would be laid out so that we could add that effectively. So to your question now, effectively, if we look at some significant increase in growth from the east side, we could add that to the sensitivity analysis to see what that would look like.

That hasn't been done yet.

It has not. We need to select a consultant to do that.

And then I recently had the privilege, I guess, to ride behind a tractor trailer through Florence at the roundabout, going really slow around it. And I was really interested to see how that tractor trailer would navigate that roundabout. and they did just fine they they jumped the trailer jumped the curb and was driving up on the actual roundabout on the concrete that was it had it beveled up is that the design you're making you want to go ahead and go back yes that is exactly the reason for that interior apron

When you take a look at that, you can see on the left side, that's a WB67. It's counting for if that's a magenta or red for the right turn, so on and so forth. You can see all the different movements that we have simulated through that intersection.

So those are those green lines that come up?

around the like where the yes so you can see where the the tractor and the trailer the it's always the driver's side if you're taking a left turn it's the driver's side trailer wheel if you're taking a right side it's the passenger side wheel and you can see all of those in that image

Okay. And then my third question, there's some massive trees on that intersection. Is this included in the bid to tear down those trees? Because those are a nuisance problem right now.

As shown on the image that you're looking at there, we would not impact those.

They need to come down, so I wonder if we can't get that in this, when we're improving the interstation.

We can always remove. I think their health is being stressed right now.

They're dead.

They're dead.

Severely stressed. They're dead in a doornail. I was being kind to the trees.

But as we improve that intersection, we sure need to look at, and as we work on that intersection, we sure need to, I would think, include those tree removals in that. If the property owner is not willing to do it.

If I may add, when we first started kind of the conceptual designs for this project, really about a year and a half, two years ago, we talked about what we were going to do with the trees. At that time, they still had green leaves and everything was happy. And we were going, oh, they're the biggest trees in the area. It would be a shame to have to get rid of them. Obviously, now as time has gone on, it appears that they're beginning to die. No, they're dead. So I think adding to the scope, the removal, regardless of how the project turns out, I don't think it would be a huge problem and shouldn't be, frankly, in comparison to the overall cost of the project, should be pretty cheap.

Okay. Just want to keep that in the staff's mind.

Thanks, Sean. Any other questions? Yeah.

On the pie chart about the public feedback, it was 48% for a traffic signal. When doing these, what was the main reason people gave for not having a roundabout? COMFORT WITH THEM OR WHY WERE WE, WHAT WAS THEIR BIGGEST ISSUE?

YEAH, I WOULD SAY LACK OF COMFORT AND THEN I GUESS LACK OF EDUCATION ON HOW TO NAVIGATE THE ROUNDABOUT, YEAH, WAS THE TOP CONCERN. JUST UNFAMILIARITY WITH THE DESIGN.

as I answered a lot of the questions that were going on, one of them that I typically got is the ability to expand the roundabout to accommodate the four lanes along Cottonwood and three lanes along Mission in the future.

That was one of my big concerns, too, is expanding that roundabout for future expansion.

I think the biggest comment I got is, why don't we build four lanes and a bridge and everything connected to the bay? Of course.

Yeah. anything else man that was all i had okay everyone else asked right and and no that that's funny because that's you know of course that number looks high you know for the traffic signals but i think 121 surveys i don't know i just not too impressed with 121 i you know would have liked to see more participation of course when you're on social media there's a lot more um but you know i mean you know but people don't have the the facts and and you're not answering asking consistent questions so that doesn't concern me too much. It seems almost about even. But the comfort level does concern me, because there's a lot of people that are just nervous about navigating. So the safety piece was really important to me, and I know you're really pushing that with the roundabout. i just um but with the after the presentation today when you went through and i think that was a quite great question bob when you asked you know what really is the criteria like what why are you choosing that for this location because i really wasn't sure i was like you know i just i'm fine i'm comfortable with the signal it's just comfortable for me but i respect all of you as engineers i'm not a traffic engineer i don't do this for a living you know you all see um you know the importance of all of this you know criteria so i respect your opinions and your research and what you've done you know as far as as far as outlining the why um so that criteria was really good you know being the rural area of town speeding, slowing people down, and you're right, people slow down in a roundabout. I hope no one will accept Steven Weaver. Kind of a little inside joke there. And the right balance of traffic, so that's good. But I think it's really that that safety thing and education. And how are we going to get people to feel comfortable with this? And one of the concerns was lighting. And so a traffic signal, there's light. So will there be lighting in the roundabout? I can't remember. In Florence, I've never been through there at night, but pretty lit up.

yeah so um regardless you know we have we have anytime we build a new project one of the standard requirements now is to make sure that there's adequate lighting so if there's new roadway going in whether it's a roundabout a signal new stretches of roadway we have we have to meet lighting standards particularly one of the reasons we looked at a roundabout at this intersection was because it's in a rural area we think that there actually even might be the ability to use solar lighting as part of this project a lot of similar projects at town of marana and tucson and other similar areas where they have kind of these rural roundabouts and if if the cost and the and the The upfront cost makes sense. It's a really good solution where we could have a really good lighted intersection and also, again, reduce some of those maintenance costs from actually paying for the electricity as well.

Right, right. Okay. Yeah, so the lighting thing and then finally the transition, you know, as there's future growth, you know, which is the easier route where we can expand? And I think you answered that question correctly. pretty clear that this would be a little bit easier to do this. I know this is a discussion right now, but I think that education piece is just gonna have to continue to tell the people why. Why, we're not just randomly putting a roundabout. Let's explain why this is important. how it addresses all of these different criteria and how we can push people. Because there's probably a few people in the audience that aren't excited about a roundabout. I definitely get input both ways. But I'm fine with a roundabout. So I just think that continuing, and if we continue to move this forward, that's going to be really important. But the flow makes sense, that it's going to keep people moving, you know, instead of stopped at a stoplight when only one car goes through or whatever. So I understand how that makes sense. Okay, any other questions? Any feedback? Sean, you gave some.

You know, I got everybody telling me they hate roundabouts. I really don't care for them. But this seems like a good deal. Is there any plans for the center of the roundabout? I mean, what's the plans for architecture? Are we putting a statue up there or just a tree in the center? Or what are we doing in the center of the thing?

Initially, they were doing things like that. We recommend they no longer do that because of sight distance. So there's, you know, if we're planning for a fourth leg, the north leg in the future, there's criteria that we have to follow to be able to look left and right and be able to see, and part of it is through the center. So for line of sight, there won't be anything in the center at all? There will not be anything in the middle. It'll have to be very low growth if we were to install anything.

Any landscape at all? Okay. Yeah.

Could there be like decorative, you know, just the pavement or pavers or something to dress it up with?

You should have something to make it look nice.

I hope something. One other question, because I think we talked about this with Florence when they got the roundabout. Was there pushback at the beginning and did they feel that the community kind of, you know, after a few times through it, you know, kind of caught on and everything was good? I mean, did you guys, did anyone talk to Florence?

So I don't know. I don't think we reached out to Florence specifically. We definitely could. I know that that was part of some of the concern at the initial construction of it. I know they were able to get that project done under budget, and that seemed to be what made people more happy more than anything. It was under budget and on time, but haven't reached out. to see if there was any post feedback from residents.

And I think that could be helpful if you don't mind just reaching out and find some, you know, just best practices and, you know, what they did to combat some of that feedback. So, any questions? No? Other questions?

I can tell you in closing that Maricopa is building two roundabouts on the west end of town on State Route 238. As you come into town, you will hit two roundabouts before you hit your first traffic signal.

Have you heard any reaction from them at all?

I have not heard. I know the project is near design completion and that they had to do some special redesign because that's where there are rockets that are shipped there. I'm serious. There are rockets that are shipped through Maricopa down 238 there. And so they had to lower the profile of the roundabout because they're quite long. And so they had to be able to span a low boy to get over them. But They'll be built here shortly, but their concern is with speed. I mean they got people coming into town 85 miles an hour Yeah, you know and some more faster And they just need to slow them down.

Maybe we could look at Maricopa's residents to see if they've any pushback.

Yeah I know the traffic engineer there

Okay. Let us know. Okay. Anything, Larry, do we need from us at this point?

Madam Mayor, members of the council, as I said earlier, there's not a decision on this item this evening. Appreciate the feedback. I know that when we last had the dialogue with the council in October of 2025, there was some additional requests that were made for additional study. I think the important message that I want to leave for everybody is ultimately that a signal and a roundabout does work functionally. Obviously, there are some advantages to either of those. You hear that our staff is highly confident that this would be a good location. I don't know, I'm not sure that we're going to be able to really tip the scales from the community, right? I mean, it may be one of those scenarios that we move forward with that it may be a 50-50 type of a scenario related to this simply because of the fact that there's not one to really point to in Casa Grande, and this may be the first. But ultimately, we'll do the additional research that you've asked tonight with some of our neighboring communities. And Marana may be another one that we ought to get some information from them as well. But what I'm hearing tonight is that we'll move forward with selecting a design team to actually at least start some level of work in this. Obviously the council will very likely have to approve that particular item and we can bring that information back to you at that point in time as well along with the scope that is being recommended at that point.

OK. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Just one, for a point of clarification, this intersection, if we do a roundabout, it'll be constructed quicker than what a signal would be done? By how much time?

So I want to be careful how I answer this. Plus or minus. Yeah. Oh, we're recording you. So yes, it would be quicker, probably by the order of about a month or two.

Oh, that's a month or two off.

Yeah, the primary driver is going to be ordering signal equipment. So when I say it's going to be shorter, We're going to have contractors doing a lot of little work until the signal cabinet comes in. So if you look at maybe like our intersection at Centennial.

Depends on supply chain kind of deal.

Yeah, that's going to be the major thing is we can get all the work done, but we're going to be waiting for signal equipment to be procured and get to us. So that's what's going to really delay the project as far as timeline.

So slightly quicker. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We'll go ahead and adjourn this study session, and we'll resume the regular council meeting at 7 o'clock.

Adjourned.