Jerry Millsaps can’t see oncoming traffic on Mendenhall Loop Road, so he said he may simply give up trying to cross it if yet another roundabout on the road replaces the traffic light closest to his house.
Millsaps, who is visually impaired, said he frequently makes a 45-minute walk to the Mendenhall Valley post office, but crossing Mendenhall Loop Road at the two existing roundabouts along the way isn’t feasible. He said he’s hoping the new single-lane roundabout, planned where the road intersects with Mendenhall Boulevard and Valley Boulevard, will have a pedestrian crossing signal with both visual and audio cues for motorists and pedestrians — which are not in the current proposal.
“My suspicion at this point is I will take the bus from my side,” he said Wednesday evening at an open house at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library where state and other officials were answering questions about the project. “And that bus goes around (Back Loop Road), and comes back and would drop me off. I don’t see myself crossing once the roundabout is there.”
Millsaps said he wasn’t at the open house because of that issue; rather, it was because his wife had questions about whether the new roundabout as proposed would infringe on their property. A range of such questions dealing with specific features and placement of the roundabout — rather than objections to the concept of the roundabout itself — was largely the focus of a few dozen people attending the open house.
Rush-hour traffic backs up at a traffic light on Mendenhall Loop Road at the intersection of Valley Boulevard and Mendenhall Boulevard on Wednesday evening. The state department of transportation is planning to replace the traffic signal with a roundabout scheduled for completion in the fall of 2025. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
The roundabout is part of the Mendenhall Loop Road Capacity Improvements project, which includes the two existing roundabouts at Stephen Richards Memorial Drive and the access road to Floyd Dryden Middle School, according to the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. It notes “the corridor has a long history of elevated crash rates at several of the signalized intersections.”
A final design is scheduled for completion by summer of 2024, with construction taking place between April and September of 2025.
“This project will greatly improve traffic safety and operations in the Mendenhall Loop corridor, resolve maintenance issues, reduce costs, and improve pedestrian facilities to meet current Americans With Disabilities (ADA) standards,” an information sheet provided at the open house states.
But concerns about people who are visually impaired were also raised by Autumn Booths, a teacher for such students at the Juneau School District. She said the roundabout at the access road to Floyd Dryden Middle School has visual flashers at only one pedestrian crossing, which is a problem for a student there.
“I’m training them to use the roundabout because she lives a half mile from the school,” Booths said. “How do I safely get her from her house to the school when she has to cross the roundabout? And the side she would use is the side with no flashers. And she asked me ‘why does one side have flashers and one side doesn’t?’ I said ‘I don’t know.’ I would like to change that.”
Millsaps said he hasn’t been able to locate the activating device for the flashers at that intersection — and there would still be a concern if he could because the lack of an audio signal means he wouldn’t know when it was flashing.
Booths, during her discussion with project officials at the open house, said visual and audio pedestrian signals should exist for each side of the roundabouts, especially the new one since it remains to be designed and built.
“If we’re going to dig in the ground let’s do it just once,” she said.
Among the design features of the new roundabout Booths said she approves of are small sections of land she called “pork chops” in a median of each street at the intersection, meaning pedestrians can cross one lane at a time while watching for oncoming traffic in one direction.
Post-it notes with comments and suggestions from local residents are placed on a map showing the location of a proposed roundabout on Mendenhall Loop Road where it intersects with Valley Boulevard and Mendenhall Boulevard during an open house about the project Wednesday evening at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Discussing other aspects of the proposed roundabout at length with project officials at the open house was George Stevick, who lives nearby. Among the changes he said he would like to see to the proposed design are turn lanes for all four intersections to prevent through traffic from backing up and to resolve an issue with the behavior of drivers on Mendenhall Loop Road at the existing roundabouts.
“People are not yielding properly on the through streets,” he said. “I’ve noticed that on the last two roundabouts…like there’s no yield there for people to get out on the side streets.”
Right-of-way issues, since the footprint of the intersection will be widened with the roundabout as designed, were among the most frequent questions asked during the first hour of the open house, said Connor Brown, an environmental impact analyst. There were also concerns about drainage ditches backing up, which has been an issue at the other roundabouts on the road.
“At least one person is worried about creating traffic, about removing the red light forcing cars to stop and how that affects turning out,” he said.
The other two roundabouts on Mendenhall Loop Road were installed in 2020, but a lack of available construction funding put the roundabout at Mendenhall Loop Road and Valley Boulevard on hold. However, the project recently qualified for Highway Safety Improvement Program funding, allowing it to proceed, according to DOT’s handout sheet.
“Many of the prior steps, such as environmental documentation, preliminary design, and design study, are being reviewed, updated, and resubmitted,” the document notes. “The prior work is generally less than five years old and can be used to simplify and reduce the design work that must be completed as part of this project.”
More information about the roundabout project is available at dot.alaska.gov/sereg/projects/loop-road. Public comments can also be submitted at the website or emailed to JNULoopRoad@dowl.com.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
