City of Lawrence

TRAFFIC ENGINEERING DIVISION

MEMORANDUM

TO:              Charles Soules, Director of Public Works

                   Terese Gorman, City Engineer

FROM:         David Woosley, Transportation/Traffic Engineer

DATE:           10 January 2006

SUBJECT:     MID-BLOCK PEDESTRIAN CROSSING

                   New Hampshire Street between 8^th Street and 9^th Street

                   Traffic Safety Commission Item No. 5

At the December 5, 2005, Traffic Safety Commission meeting, the TSC heard a request to construct a MID-BLOCK PEDESTRIAN CROSSING on New Hampshire Street between 8^th Street and 9^th Street, due to the move of the Farmer’s Market to the parking lots on the east side of the street, and voted unanimously to recommend construction.

A mid-block crossing is feasible (however, several parking spaces will be lost) under the following conditions:

1. Bulb-outs should be constructed on each side of the street to shorten the distance that pedestrians must cross, shorten the amount of time they are in the street and provide better visibility of the pedestrians (estimated cost, $40,000).  It would be desirable to construct the crossing as a raised crosswalk, however, this is probably not feasible as it would require extensive storm sewer work since there is no storm sewer in the area;
2. Street lighting should be provided at the crosswalk similar to what was recently installed at the crossing in the 1000 block of New Hampshire (estimated cost, $10,000).

Implementation:

• Several projects will be occurring in the downtown area this summer: water main replacement on Massachusetts Street, mill and overlay on New Hampshire Street (from 6^th to 8^th Street), and reconstruction of the intersection at 7^th and New Hampshire.
• The National Collegiate Cycling Championship will be held May 21^st.
• Therefore, the mid-block crossing improvements will be coordinated with other work and occur later this year.

Finally, these improvements were not anticipated in the 2006 budget and may need to be bond financed.