During a workshop that preceded a May 17 Ellijay City Council meeting, councilmembers and Mayor Al Hoyle learned more about the variety of options that could be implemented to improve pedestrian safety downtown and prevent damage to the traffic roundabout.
At the workshop, Hoyle, Police Chief Ed Lacey, Fire Chief Sam West and councilmembers Sandy Ott, Tom Crawford, Katie Lancey, Al Fuller and Kevin Pritchett conferred with Madie Fischetti, a landscape architect and planner with WLA Studio, while reviewing overhead maps of downtown Ellijay. The Athens-based WLA architecture firm, previously known as the Jaeger Company, designed the downtown roundabout and will handle design for the current project.
“There are a lot of devices you can use that are engineering solutions that help people see pedestrians in crosswalks,” Fischetti told those in attendance.
The main areas being looked at from a standpoint of improving pedestrian safety are North Main Street and River Street. Options discussed ranged from less expensive, such as striped crosswalks and speed bumps, to more expensive, such as crosswalks with lights or button-activated signals.
“The expensive parts come when you start adding a signal that’s activated where somebody has to push a button. That’s when you’re getting into these $30,000-$50,000 items,” Fischetti said.
The most expensive option would be a HAWK signal, or pedestrian-activated crosswalk, she noted.
“You’re basically making an intersection for pedestrians. This is your heaviest pedestrian signalization option and with that comes the dollar amount. It’s basically like putting in a full traffic light. You’re probably talking about in the 100,000s of dollars, whereas a highly-visible striped crosswalk is going to be $2,500-$3,500,” Fischetti said.
Costs for an elevated crosswalk, which provides a safer crossing option for pedestrians and a way to slow cars with a speed bump, range from $7,500 to $25,000 depending on the types of features included.
“It’s kind of a dual thing. It slows people down and also gives the pedestrians some refuge,” said Fischetti. “The reason there’s a huge difference (in cost) is you can have just asphalt and concrete block, which is your $7,500 range, to $25,000, which is stamped concrete or something that looks nicer in the middle.”
“If you’re going to put in a crosswalk, you need some way to try to slow people down so they’re not flying through where that crosswalk is,” said Hoyle, referring to the elevated, or raised, crosswalks.
Crawford noted that statistics show going over raised crosswalks could cost emergency vehicles approximately 15 seconds in response time.
“I’ve seen that come up a lot of times in neighborhoods with HOAS. In this case it’s just one, but it’s (still) 15 seconds,” he added.
The downtown roundabout will likely receive some type of structural updates to prevent damage from trucks and other vehicles that run up onto its curbing, which is a regular occurrence.
“Anything on this inside strip is going to get run over,” noted Lacey while looking at a map of the downtown square.
Fischetti said one option would be installing tapered curbing, which would allow vehicles to roll up onto the curb, but not damage it.
“They can feel a little bump and come back down instead of rolling over the whole curb,” she added.
Any work on the square or roundabout area will have to go through the Georgia Department of Transportation, Fischetti noted.
The roundabout’s strategically-placed shrubbery could also receive an update as part of the forthcoming project. Part of the downtown square’s initial design, the hedges were put in to funnel pedestrians through crosswalks that extend from the square.
Hoyle said the shrubs were much smaller when the roundabout first went up. Crawford noted the height they are now presents visibility issues for those crossing and drivers going through the roundabout.
“The hedges do direct people to stay in the crosswalks, but little children stepping out there just scares the daylights out of me. Those hedges are tall enough to obscure the vision of a small child,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been starting to come around the square and, all of a sudden, a little kid darts out.”
Other ideas discussed at the workshop included lowering speed limits downtown and doing away with some parallel parking spaces on River Street, which would allow enough room to expand the sidewalk. Nothing went past the discussion stage, and no specifics for the project have been approved.
Fischetti said she will come up with a few solutions for the project areas, then bring them back to the council with cost estimates and renderings.