H and K intersection to be redone in 2025
At a public involvement meeting April 13, officials offered details on the planned reconstruction of the intersection between county highways H and K, 6 miles south of Loyal and 6.6 miles north of Granton. The project will consist of reconstructing the existing intersection and lowering the profile of the hill on H east of the intersection, to increase sight distance and make the intersection safer for the public.
The project will begin 530 feet west of K and end 1,500 feet east of K, for a total of 2,030 feet, or approximately one-third of a mile. It will end prior to the cemetery east of the intersection on H, so as not to disturb it.
The purpose of the project is to improve the safety and functionality of the intersection. The need for the project is due to the high crash rate there. The five-year crash history from 2017 to 2021 shows six intersection crashes, including a double fatality in July 2020.
County H has poor visibility to the east of the intersection. This project has qualified for Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding.
“So once you have a fatality, it gets flagged,” said Tara Krista, engineer for Short Elliott Hendrickson, the company that is managing the project, in a public involvement at Loyal City Hall last Thursday. “Once you start having fatalities and serious accidents, it will prompt us to look at it and determine if it is intersectionrelated. After we rule out other factors like weather-related, drunk driving, (or) deer, then we start looking at, is it the intersection itself that is unsafe and leading to more crashes?”
The project is estimated to cost $1.2 million to $1.5 million. However, because it is a HSIP project, it will qualify for 90 percent state/federal funding, with the county only responsible for paying for 10 percent. All the real estate costs and utility relocation costs will be funded by the county.
The main change of the project is it will reduce the vertical profile of County H east of the intersection by 4 feet to 5 feet. This will improve the stopping sight distance and intersection sight distance. The new roadway corridor will consist of 12-foot lanes and a 6-foot shoulder, with 5 feet paved. Currently, only 3 feet of the shoulder is paved. There will be eastbound and westbound right-turn lanes added to County H. The turn lanes will be tapered and 12 feet wide at their max width. There will also be the addition of curb and gutter at the intersection and right-of-way areas to reduce impacts to properties, cemetery and the environment.
County H has an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of 2,100 vehicles per day, while County K has an AADT of 1,300 vehicles per day. From 2017-2021, crashes
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consisted of one double fatality, two type A (suspected serious injury), one type C (possible injury) severity crash and two property damage crashes. The proposed improvements would target four of the six intersection crashes, including all the fatal/injury crashes. There would be an anticipated overall reduction of crashes by 37.8 percent.
The proposed reduction in the profile of County H will also improve the stopping sight distance from 493 feet to 594 feet. Stopping sight distance is the total distance traveled during perception and reaction time, plus the distance to stop the vehicle.
“So it’s how long it takes you to stop from when you see a hazard there, something like a car in the roadway,” said Krista. “Currently this is substandard.”
The standard stopping sight distance is 570 feet for this highway, assuming a speed of 60 miles per hour (WisDOT sets their standards based on 5 mph above the posted speed limit). Currently, this section of County H is only meeting a design speed of 50 mph.
The reduction of the roadway surface will also improve the intersection sight distance, which is the distance a motorist can see approaching vehicles before their line of sight is blocked, from 1,120 feet to 1,205 feet for northbound vehicles on County K making left-turns onto County H. The standard condition is 1,120 feet.
Finally, the project will improve the decision sight distance from 800 feet to 1,105 feet. The standard is 990 feet. Decision sight distance is the distance at which a driver can detect a hazard in the roadway environment, recognize it or its potential threat, select an appropriate speed and path, and complete an avoidance maneuver safely.
The project will require temporary and permanent property acquisitions along the route. The property most affected will be the one on the northeast corner. Krista did not give a specific number of acres that would be lost, but showed the property owners the proposed layout. A third-party consultant, hired by the county, will work directly with the property owners for appraisals and acquisitions.
“We added curb and gutter to keep it as tight as we can and try to preserve as much real estate as we can,” said Krista. “The goal is to complete the project successfully with the least impact as possible.”
Construction is anticipated to begin in May 2025. The roadway will be closed to traffic except for locals. The detour routes will utilize highways 98, Y, 73 and 10. Access will be maintained for the property owners that live next to the intersection.
Gary Eibergen of the Granton Fire Department asked about the fire department being able to cross County H for calls north of H. Krista asked him how long of a delay it would be for the fire department to go a different route. Eibergen said the delay would be significant.
“It’s significant, so that would need to be that you would need to go through the intersection… So we’ll make sure we have a plan for that in our specials,” said Krista.
The project timeline is as follows. From now through May, steps include the topographic survey, agency/utility coordination and environmental coordination. By the end of August, the goal is to have the design 60 percent completed, as well as a finished traffic management plan and a preliminary right-of-way plat. From September 2023 through May 2024, engineers will create a final right-of-way plat and do final utility coordination. The design should be 90 percent complete by May 2024, with the design finished by August 2024. Construction will take place anywhere between May 2025 and November 2025. The window of time for the project total place was left pretty wide open on purpose.
“If we don’t tell someone where they have to fit this in their schedule, we will get better prices. The bigger schedule we can give them, the better prices we’re going to get.… It will take about 70 working days (two-and-a-half months),” said Krista. “Once the road bans are off, we anticipate they will start this project as early as they can, but depending on what other projects they have, it could slide a little bit.”
There are three school buses that go by that intersection.
“We try to get it when school’s off, but that’s when everyone tries to get it so it can be hard,” said County Highway Commissioner Brian Duell.
The county will solicit bids for the project.
One of the citizens at the meeting questioned the need for turn lanes on H, as the vast majority of the accidents happened with people coming from the north and turning east onto H. Duell didn’t disagree, but said the turn lanes would still help increase safety and improve traffic flow on H.
“If you have westbound traffic, someone’s turning north and several vehicles are stacked up behind them, that reduces the amount of time you have. So if you have a loaded truck and you pop over that hill and all of a sudden you have several vehicles stacked up in your driving lane … if we can get them out of there and get a clean way through there, that’s the goal of the turn lane.
“There’s a fair amount — so we have typical county road traffic has 17 percent truck volume on there. We have 28 percent trucks, that are turning north on K. So we have a large volume of the truck traffic and a lot of them are tanker trucks that are there. So if you stack up tanker trucks and you push that back, now that westbound traffic has an obstacle. So we’re trying to clean that out and avoid those backups,” he added.
The citizen replied by saying he understood, but that most of the accidents were caused by people not stopping.
“So people not stopping is an enforcement issue and we can’t design around that. And it’s not that they’re not stopping. They stop, they look left, they look right and then they pull out. So that look left time frame — it’s still driver error, which could be avoided. They need to look left again… So, the goal is when they look left, they have enough time there. All the accident reports read that they stopped, but they pulled out ahead of a vehicle,” said Duell.
Another resident suggested reducing the speed limit on the highway, but Krista said that would require a speed study and it was very difficult to get the speed limit reduced.
Those with questions about the project can contact Duell at 715-743-3680 or brian. duell@co.clark.wi.us, or Krista at 715-5773689 or tkrista@sehinc.com.
Editor Valorie Brecht contributed to this article.
