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Home » Diet » Berkley to give update on Coolidge road diet, reactions mixed – The Daily Tribune

Berkley residents and business owners can get an update on the study of the citys temporary road diet on Coolidge Highway.

The issue is on the agenda for the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday.

Its been six months since Berkley changed road striping and reduced motor traffic from four to two lanes on Coolidge Highway between 12 Mile Road and 11 Mile Road.

The two-year pilot project included adding a center left-turn lane and bike lanes on both sides of Coolidge. Adding the turn lane was expected to increase safety and reduce rear-end car accidents.

City Manager Matt Baumgarten said city residents began weighing in on the project with emailed comments through the citys website at berkleymich.orgafter the road diet began in May.

The response to the road diet has been mixed, he said. The feedback weve gotten (ranges from) people who say it has had no effect to people who do not like it at all.

One of the chief complaints has been about motor traffic backups on Coolidge during peak commute times, much of it near Catalpa and Berkley High School.

A left-turn signal on Coolidge at Catalpa may help address that issue, Baumgarten said.

Weve also heard from people saying they are having a hard time making left turns from side streets at high-traffic times, he said.

Some people in Berkley want to change the location of the bike lanes. They are pushing to have the bike lanes on Coolidge next to the curb with the horizontal parking spaces to the left, to buffer cyclists from motor traffic.

Before the study began, traffic counts were done along Coolidge and some neighborhood side streets on average daily traffic, peak-hour numbers and motorists travel speeds.

Recently the city had the Traffic Improvement Association re-measure the same data, along with any accident numbers, as part of a continuing comparison.

Berkleys Downtown Development Authority last year did a traffic study through the Traffic Improvement Associations to measure the benefits of reconfiguring the number of lanes on Coolidge.

The DDA is covering the roughly $200,000 cost of the road diet study project, which also included two pedestrian crossings that were added two years ago then closed following an accident.

Berkleys DDA members saw a road diet as a way to transform Coolidge from a low-speed highway through the downtown into a local road more friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Andrew Gilbert, chair of the DDA board and owner of Berkley Eyewear on Coolidge, plans to attend Mondays council meeting.

Im aware we have some new data, but I havent seen it yet, he said. From my view as a business owner, the (road diet) seems to be very effective in controlling the speed of motor vehicles.

Slowing motor traffic and encouraging more foot traffic is often beneficial to downtown areas.

Ferndale made a similar move on Nine Mile Road near Woodward Avenue in its downtown nearly two decades ago.

At the time, many in Ferndale feared that reducing traffic lanes on Nine Mile Road would swamp side streets with traffic. However, the impact was not as great as expected and the road diet on Nine Mile played a large role in revitalizing Ferndales downtown and attracting commercial investment.

All the research we did on this showed (the road diet) would have a positive impact on business, Baumgarten said.

The two-year pilot road diet is also a way for city officials to determine whether it is acceptable to residents before making any permanent changes to the Coolidge roadway.

Officials will continue to monitor resident comments before making a final decision after the study period ends in May 2021.

If we get more email from people who dont like it than from those who do, were going to end it and re-stripe the road back to four lanes, Baumgarten said.

Continued here:
Berkley to give update on Coolidge road diet, reactions mixed - The Daily Tribune

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Home » Diet » Berkley to give update on Coolidge road diet, reactions mixed – The Daily Tribune