For several years, residents on Junction Street have complained to the city of Durango about speeders on the minor arterial corridor linking County Road 204 to West 25th Street.
Now, the city is turning to residents for solutions.
A neighborhood meeting with residents and city staff members is scheduled for Thursday at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 2611 Junction St.
Durango Multimodal Manager Devin King said the city has a blank slate as far as plans to address speeding, plus pedestrian and bicycle traffic, on Junction Street, and it’s seeking residents’ input before drafting conceptual plans for infrastructure.
“We’re going to just have a meeting with the neighborhood to get feedback on, you know, their concerns, and then the needs for the neighborhood and also what their vision for the neighborhood is,” King said.
In past neighborhood meetings, the city typically created conceptual plans before engaging the community about issues at hand. The city is taking a new approach to Junction Street by asking residents for feedback before it spends time on designs, King said.
He said possible solutions probably include traffic calming infrastructure as opposed to stop signage, given the existing traffic patterns on Junction Street, which is a minor arterial road that essentially has the right of way versus streets it connects to.
“Signage is unlikely as far as stop signs or anything like that is concerned,” he said. “We may look at what we term as our RFPs, rectangular rapid flashing beacons. We may investigate that further out, like (at) the Clovis crossing.”
Junction Street between Miller Middle School and Dalla Mountain Park opens up and invites people to drive faster, and a plausible solution would be to narrow the road or introduce curves so people don’t feel so inclined to punch the gas, King said.
The presence of the middle school and students crossing the road on their way to class heightens the need to control speeds on Junction Street.
“There’s a few strategies to do that (traffic calming on wide roads),” King said. “But at this point, yeah, we’re just really kind of trying to hear what the neighborhood is really looking for.”
In addition to getting drivers to slow down, the city has pedestrian and cyclist safety to take into consideration.
The neighborhood meeting on Thursday will feature interactive boards and maps at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church for residents to draw and write on to provide feedback, a city news release says. A presentation will begin at 5:30 p.m. and will feature a question-and-answer session afterward.
The project design, however it shapes out, will be funded by the 2015 half-cent sales and use tax fund, the release says.
cburney@durangoherald.com
