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[codyg1985]

^ Or you could take I-565 east from UAH and get off at Governors Drive (Exit 17B) and hop on the parkway there. That would probably have the same amount of traffic than University Drive, maybe a bit more, but it would be shorter.

[jdb1234]

Wrong place at the wrong time: Huntsville's most dangerous intersections of 2011:

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/05/in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wron.html#incart_hbx

[agentsteel53]

City traffic engineers and police are aware of the University Drive and Jordan Lane "hot spot" and "it gets a great deal of extra traffic calming attention," said Lt. Mark McMurray, supervisor of the Police Department's Special Services Division.

traffic calming?  you mean like chicanes, narrow lanes, and speed bumps?  why the hell would they put that sort of thing on a major arterial intersection?

that said, the accidents described don't sound particularly bad.  inconvenient fender benders, but not seriously injurious.

[codyg1985]

City traffic engineers and police are aware of the University Drive and Jordan Lane "hot spot" and "it gets a great deal of extra traffic calming attention," said Lt. Mark McMurray, supervisor of the Police Department's Special Services Division.

traffic calming?  you mean like chicanes, narrow lanes, and speed bumps?  why the hell would they put that sort of thing on a major arterial intersection?

that said, the accidents described don't sound particularly bad.  inconvenient fender benders, but not seriously injurious.

The City of Huntsville often puts VMS signs along University Drive just east of Jordan Lane showing nag messages like "Move over for emergency vehicles" or "Click it or Ticket." Recently the intersection signal phase timing was changed to have lagging/leading left turns along University Drive. Other than those things, I don't know what other traffic calming measures have been put in place.

[agentsteel53]

The City of Huntsville often puts VMS signs along University Drive just east of Jordan Lane showing nag messages like "Move over for emergency vehicles" or "Click it or Ticket." Recently the intersection signal phase timing was changed to have lagging/leading left turns along University Drive. Other than those things, I don't know what other traffic calming measures have been put in place.

that doesn't sound like "traffic calming" as much as flow optimization (the lead-lag) and just being a douche (encouraging the "move over law")

[codyg1985]

This is an ambitious schedule that I hope ALDOT can keep up, but I will believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, the County LIne Road interchange just keeps getting pushed back farther and farther.

I-565 could be 6 lanes from I-65 to Wall Triana Highway in 5 years

[formulanone]

Sorry for the thread dig, but I moved to the area recently, and wanted to weigh in.

Madison County signage is poor at best. The street name signs are difficult to read at higher speeds, and in some cases if there are spaces in the name of the street, they are left out so that the name runs together so that the road name can fit on the sign. Another thing about Madison County roads is that a lot of them change names a zillion times. You will be driving down the road and all of a sudden you are on a different road only to find out that the road name you are meant to follow actually at the last turn-off.  Generally, at least, Madison County does a good job of putting up warning signs for upcoming intersections.

I believe that both Huntsville City, the local ALDOT district, and Madison County do a poor job at signs that better direct out of town travelers.  You have to know street names and route names to get around in Madison County as there is no indication of what city or part of the city the road leads to. It probably would have been faster for you to use Moores Mill Road from Winchester Road to get to Huntsville (right before the construction to widen Winchester Road to five lanes), but no signs help you out there. . US 231 is better signed along the areas of the parkway that have been upgraded to freeway/service road configuration, but I agree that more, and larger, reassurance shields should be posted. Intersecting streets get signed with the appropriate shields. I think upcoming streets should be signed with signs similar to those that you may have seen on US 231/431 saying "Mastin Lake Road, Next Street".  This is done really well with BGS versions of these signson University Drive (US 72) between Memorial Pkwy and Research Park Blvd (AL 255). I agree there should be mileage signs along major roads coming into and going out of Huntsville showing the mileage to the next city as there are none to be seen, even on state roads, except for I-565 west and AL 53 north.

...in the past month, I can confirm that all of this is still exactly true. My thoughts exactly.

It's not so bad during the daytime, where a keen eye can sort of make out the words on street blades, or use landmarks and variations as guides, but at night, your hopes literally fade very quickly. If you use the flashing lights as a guide, you're okay, but a diamond cross-street sign (never mind an intersection with no additional signage) with no supplemental information below it is almost pointless.

The other thing that irks me is that street blades for minor roads might only contain one road name at an intersection; and by Murphy's Law, usually only the name of the path you were already travelling on.

I believe that AL 20 is hidden along I-565/US 72 Alt. It no longer follows Madison Blvd as it used to, and I think that the cities of Huntsville and Madison maintain that road now. Another interesting note is that Alt US 72 is also signed along AL 53/Jordan Ln southbound from US 72 south to I-565.

The only AL 20 shield I saw was on the Mooresville Road overpass for I-565, and it was a blue Corridor V shield, to boot.



Last weekend, I noticed they "chicaned" the six-way intersection of Old Railroad Bed, Wall-Triana, and Harvest Road. Southbound Old RR turns right to a stop sign at Wall-Triana, so you now stop for a four-way signalized intersection. The locals and family told me that the W-T usually has less traffic, and should have been the calmed lanes. But putting more traffic onto routes with less vehicular traffic makes more sense to me. But overall, it seems safer than when I first went though there in 2005 and 2011.

This is going to take some time, although they're a real change of pace from the flat, straight 4/6-lane slabs of South Florida.

[codyg1985]

Welcome to the area, formulaone!

It's not so bad during the daytime, where a keen eye can sort of make out the words on street blades, or use landmarks and variations as guides, but at night, your hopes literally fade very quickly. If you use the flashing lights as a guide, you're okay, but a diamond cross-street sign (never mind an intersection with no additional signage) with no supplemental information below it is almost pointless.

There is one location in the county where the cross-street sign has a supplemental plaque below it saying the street name, and that's for Joe Quick Road off of Butler Road in the northeast part of the county. I wished this would become a standard throughout the county. 

The only AL 20 shield I saw was on the Mooresville Road overpass for I-565, and it was a blue Corridor V shield, to boot.

There aren't any others that I know of east of I-65. There are some street blades along Madison Blvd that still refer to the road as Alabama Highway 20. Heck, even the frontage road north of I-565 is labeled Alabama Highway 20 at Greenbrier Road. Apparently, the city of Huntsville still thinks the road exists.

Last weekend, I noticed they "chicaned" the six-way intersection of Old Railroad Bed, Wall-Triana, and Harvest Road. Southbound Old RR turns right to a stop sign at Wall-Triana, so you now stop for a four-way signalized intersection. The locals and family told me that the W-T usually has less traffic, and should have been the calmed lanes. But putting more traffic onto routes with less vehicular traffic makes more sense to me. But overall, it seems safer than when I first went though there in 2005 and 2011.

The new intersection at Wall-Triana/Old RR Bed/Harvest is a lot safer. I wished they would have put turn lanes at all approaches to the traffic signal, though, to plan for the future when growth catches up with the intersection improvement. They may have also chosen Wall-Triana as one of the through roads due to it intersecting Harvest Road at a 90 degree angle. It would have been interesting if this would have been a roundabout, but I can imagine the confusion that would set in if one of those would have been put in. Plus, there wasn't a lot of room to put one without having to realign Harvest Road to the north.

One thing you may have been hearing since being here is the lack of road funding for major road projects around here. A lot of the projects have been delayed from five to ten years due to a lack of gasoline tax revenue, supposedly. The widening of I-565 west of Madison; interchanges along Memorial Pkwy at Byrd Springs Road, Lily Flagg Road, and Mastin Lake Road; and interchange at US 72 and Moores Mill Road and Shields Road are some of those projects that got delayed. However, the final ATRIP funding round could possibly restore the interchanges at Lily Flagg Road and Byrd Springs Road.

[codyg1985]

Low bids were received for the I-565/County Line Road interchange and Old Madison Pike widening between Thornton Research Park and Slaughter Road in the ALDOT bid openings on August 30th.

Reed Contracting Services was the apparent low bidder for the I-565/County Line Road interchange project at $ 9,407,646.52. Reed was also the apparent low bidder for the Old Madison Pike widening and bridge project at $ 5,157,394.47.

[formulanone]

Welcome to the area, formulaone!

Thanks!

One thing you may have been hearing since being here is the lack of road funding for major road projects around here. A lot of the projects have been delayed from five to ten years due to a lack of gasoline tax revenue, supposedly. The widening of I-565 west of Madison; interchanges along Memorial Pkwy at Byrd Springs Road, Lily Flagg Road, and Mastin Lake Road; and interchange at US 72 and Moores Mill Road and Shields Road are some of those projects that got delayed. However, the final ATRIP funding round could possibly restore the interchanges at Lily Flagg Road and Byrd Springs Road.

I'll be naturally doing my part to buy gas; although with far less traffic lights than South Florida, my fuel economy's raised a couple points.

[codyg1985]

I emailed staff from the city of Huntsville about more Flashing Yellow Arrow traffic lights, and here is their response:

Yes, the City does plan to implement the Flashing Yellow Arrow at several locations in the coming months at locations where it can be utilized and where the control cabinet is scheduled for upgrade.

I further asked "Which intersections can it be utilized? It would seem like the flashing yellow arrow (FYA) signals would work well along major arterials such as University and Governors where there are lead/lag protected-only left turns." Here was the response to that:

Yes they would, however ALDOT has said they are not going to implement them on State ROW.

So it looks like ALDOT isn't too keen on implementing FYA traffic signals now, or at all.

[codyg1985]

I forgot to mention this in the thread before, but the city of Huntsville has passed a 1% sales tax increase to raise $125 million over five years. ALDOT will also provide $125 million over five years to fund the following projects:

2014 Projects:
- An extra westbound lane on U.S. 72 East from Shields Road to Maysville Road, along with turn lane and median improvements, $9 million (This is meant as a "short-term" fix for an interchange at Moores Mill Road and Shields Road. That does not appear on the five year plan still, even though it was going to be an APD project. Asking ALDOT about this went nowhere.)
 
- A new road on Chapman Mountain connecting Epworth Drive with Maysville Road, $5 million. (This will allow ALDOT to eliminate the at-grade intersection at Epworth Drive at US 72 at the top of Chapman Mountain, effectively extending the limited-access portion to the signal with Moores Mill Road).

2015 Projects:
- New Memorial Parkway (US 231) overpasses at Byrd Spring and Lily Flagg roads, including service roads and a reconstructed Martin Road interchange, $64.5 million.

2016 Projects:
- Six-lane University Drive/U.S. 72 West from Providence Main Street to the Limestone County line, $30 million. (I still think just widening this road is a waste of time without introducing proper access management. If ALDOT can pull it off on US 280 in Jefferson and Shelby Counties, they can do it here, too.)

2017 Projects:
- New Memorial Parkway (US 231/431) overpass at Mastin Lake Road and improvements to the main lanes from Sparkman Drive to north of Mastin Lake, $53 million
- The next leg of the Northern Bypass (AL 255) from Pulaski Pike to the Parkway, $20 million
- Upgrades to Cecil Ashburn Drive around the Carl T. Jones Drive intersection in Jones Valley and the U.S. 431 intersection in Hampton Cove, $15 million
- Intersection upgrades, a synchronized traffic light system and possibly extra lanes on Memorial Parkway (US 231) between Weatherly and Hobbs roads, $15 million.

I am skeptical if ALDOT can even hold up to their end of the bargain, saying before that these projects would be delayed by at least 10 years and that they only had about $100 million per year to spend on new roads for the entire state.

[formulanone]

2016: The year that shopping in Huntsville/Madison ground to a halt. Well, there's always Capshaw.

US 72 definitely needs less driveway access in that section (between Wall-Triana and Jeff Road), especially around the Hughes Road section.

Never figured out why some of the lights on Memorial weren't grade-separated in order.

[codyg1985]

There is a possibility that a toll bridge will be built across the Tennessee River just northwest of the existing railroad bridge and US 31/AL 20/Alt US 72 bridges to relieve traffic and provide another route into Decatur from Athens and Huntsville. The catch is that the plan also calls for tolling existing AL 20/Alt US 72 between US 31 and I-565, but it would be converted into a six-lane freeway with frontage roads. Traffic bound for the existing bridges (which will remain free) would use the frontage roads to avoid the toll, but according to the schematic on the attached article, the frontage roads appear to be two-lane, two-way frontage roads, so it would make things  more difficult for those wanting to avoid the toll.

This is related, but a separate project, from the proposal to build an interchange just west of I-565 to provide access to the proposed Sweetwater development, which will include a Bass Pro Shops.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/news/article_a37d360a-bc75-11e3-b26e-001a4bcf6878.html

[Tom958]

http://www.decaturdaily.com/news/article_a37d360a-bc75-11e3-b26e-001a4bcf6878.html

From the comments, I see the idea has widespread local support. 

link to plan (pdf)

I'll be very surprised if this plan comes to fruition, mainly because $500m is a lot of money for such a small total volume of traffic.

[Avalanchez71]

I say keep it all like it is now.  Folks moved into the area knowing full well of the current infrastructure.

[codyg1985]

I attended the public meeting for the Jeff Road widening project last night (you may see me in the video below), but a lot of people at the meeting were opposed to widening the road to five lanes in each direction. They want to maintain the small town feel of Monrovia. They cited streets such as Old Madison Pike and Hughes Road in Madison that are examples of what they want. Well if they want clogged roads at peak hours and perhaps at other hours, then that's what they will get if they just widen to three lanes. I suspect that the majority of people that live there (most of which moved there within the past decade) support it being widened to five lanes, but most of the people at the meeting have been in Monrovia for a lot longer.

http://whnt.com/2014/05/22/residents-weigh-in-on-jeff-road-expansion-project/

[Avalanchez71]

Those that vote get to decide.  It is just like the primary back May 6th.  Only less than 8% of the registered voters turned out.  So my vote is amplified by the lack of turn out.

[New to Seattle]

I forgot to mention this in the thread before, but If ALDOT can pull it off on US 280 in Jefferson and Shelby Counties, they can do it here, too.)

For the uninitiated, what did they do on US-280? I found this surprisingly candid set of presentation slides that seems to be from ALDOT, but it's not clear to me exactly what they did or what aspects you're referring to.

[Tom958]

That ALDOT presentation was epic! 

[codyg1985]

I forgot to mention this in the thread before, but If ALDOT can pull it off on US 280 in Jefferson and Shelby Counties, they can do it here, too.)

For the uninitiated, what did they do on US-280? I found this surprisingly candid set of presentation slides that seems to be from ALDOT, but it's not clear to me exactly what they did or what aspects you're referring to.

That was indeed an epic presentation! I think that mostly focused on the implementation of the SCATS system along the corridor and not what I was referring to, which was the implementation of Michigan Lefts and the elimination of phases at some of the signals (i.e. side streets can't go straight across and must turn right or left). Here is a page that shows what was done at each intersection. Towards the end of the presentation that you linked, they did talk about that project.

[BamaZeus]

lol @ "Jokers with cellphones"

[Charles2]

I forgot to mention this in the thread before, but If ALDOT can pull it off on US 280 in Jefferson and Shelby Counties, they can do it here, too.)

For the uninitiated, what did they do on US-280? I found this surprisingly candid set of presentation slides that seems to be from ALDOT, but it's not clear to me exactly what they did or what aspects you're referring to.

That was indeed an epic presentation! I think that mostly focused on the implementation of the SCATS system along the corridor and not what I was referring to, which was the implementation of Michigan Lefts and the elimination of phases at some of the signals (i.e. side streets can't go straight across and must turn right or left). Here is a page that shows what was done at each intersection. Towards the end of the presentation that you linked, they did talk about that project.

In other words, Highway 280 redux?

[freebrickproductions]

Here's an abandoned piece of Constellation Drive I found recently that's left over from when Huntsville re-did this area and re-aligned the road.

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr
I've never seen a cats-eye reflector like this before:

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr
One of the weird cats-eyes next to a 3M cats-eye:

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned Stretch of Constellation Drive by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

There's also this abandoned concrete base near-by. I think it was used for a street lamp at one time.

Abandoned street lamp base? by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

These signs are near it as well. They mark where St. Clair Avenue used to cross the creek before the substation on the other side of the creek was expanded and the road was taken out.

Abandoned sign by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned sign by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

Abandoned sign by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

[freebrickproductions]

Huntsville's repaved Jessamine Lane, Corely Drive, and W. Tupelo Drive.