Surprise, AZ News blog

The Surprise city engineer is assuring residents that the city is closely monitoring problems at a county island intersection where two fatalities have occurred in the past 10 months, and is moving ahead with efforts to install a streetlight there.   

What Bob Maki is referring to is 163rd Avenue and Jomax Road, a rural residential area about 10 miles northwest of Surprise.

In March, a 6-month-old girl from Surprise died at this intersection, and three of her family members were badly injured after a pickup truck rear-ended the family’s car.

 Last week, a 59-year-old motorcyclist was killed there after being struck by a northbound truck making a left-hand turn onto Jomax.

Despite the fatalities this year, Maki said, “The crash experience has been relatively good there.”

According to Surprise Police Department figures, Maki said, there have been only two fatalities and three other accidents at that intersection since 2004. Maki said there was one reported accident involving an injury in September, and two accidents with no injuries in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

There were no reported accidents or fatalities in 2004, he said.

Although Jomax is a county road, the intersection in question is not under the jurisdiction of the Maricopa County Department of Transportation, said spokesman Roger Ball.

“Point is, there seems to be a sense that we’re not paying attention to this location,” Maki said. “We’ve been monitoring crashes, and we acknowledge these are terrible tragedies.”

An effort to get a traffic signal at the intersection is in the works, but it will take another six months before the plan for a signal is designed, Maki said.

Before a streetlight is added, the city will need to widen 163rd Avenue, which may take about two months, he said.

Maki foresees this as a “major expenditure, but we are prepared to make that investment,” he said.

“It’s not just a matter of putting some poles into the ground and stringing some lights,” Maki said.

In the meantime, city workers will continue to monitor the traffic flow of the intersection, and once traffic volume is up to “warranting level for a signal, then we’ll go ahead and hire a contractor to install it,” he said.

Maki said the last count done by the city was in February, and it still did not reach the required level.

According to national guidelines, the traffic level warranting a signal on a rural road is 420 cars per hour, averaged over eight hours, on 163rd Avenue, and 140 cars per hour during the same eight hours on Jomax.

“We try to reach those national guidelines,” Maki said.

Maki called both fatalities at 163rd and Jomax tragedies, but he said, “I don’t know how much a traffic signal would have helped. Traffic signals are not safety devices.”

He agreed, however, that there should be additional patrols in that area. Maki said his department has talked to the Surprise Police Department about putting a speed trailer at the intersection to monitor speeders.

He has also suggested additional speed-limit signs on 163rd, he said.

 

Dr. Maki makes no sense to me, lives are being lost, whats his problem.

Bob V