Wheaton commissions study of intersection with speeding, impatient drivers

Over the past three years, an intersection in north Wheaton has seen at least nine reported crashes, the city’s traffic engineer says.

The city has done its own speed studies at or near Harrison Avenue and Washington Street.

“The staff conducted a number of studies over the last year or two about this intersection. And really, the solutions that we've relied on in the past, we really don't think are good enough,” City Manager Michael Dzugan said. “We wanted to spend a little more time looking at this from a traffic calming effort.”

So the Wheaton City Council has tasked an engineering consultant with studying potential traffic calming measures. The council approved an agreement to hire Hampton, Lenzini and Renwick, Inc., for a total cost not to exceed $17,600 plus a 10% contingency.

“Generally, the studies tell us that the drivers traveling on Harrison are speeding, and the drivers on Washington are not patient … so we're looking for a potential infrastructure change that will address those concerns,” Dzugan said.

The firm will produce a traffic calming report aimed at improving safety and reducing speeding as well as crash frequency at the intersection, per a memo from the city’s traffic engineer. The scope of work includes reviewing data, analyzing current conditions and preparing a formal report with findings and recommendations. The firm also will provide preliminary, “engineering-level” cost estimates for each proposed measure.

More broadly, “it might lead to some other areas that we will look at, depending on what we find,” Dzugan said.

City Councilman Bradley Clousing also said he’s hopeful that “this will be a little bit of a road map.”

Roughly 8,000 vehicles per day use Harrison Avenue, while Washington Street, currently designated as a north-south “local road,” sees daily traffic volumes ranging between 2,500 and 4,000 vehicles, suggesting it may warrant reclassification, according to the engineer’s memo.

There are stop signs on Washington. The south leg of Washington also “presents a sight-distance issue,” meaning that drivers “must pull forward past the stop bar, after checking for pedestrians, to gain adequate visibility for safe turning decisions,” the engineer wrote.

“I’m very happy that we're moving forward on this,” Councilwoman Erica Bray-Parker said of the new study, “and I really appreciate the neighborhood's patience so we can get this right.”