ACHD's Road Wizard Sunday, November 17, 2019

ACHD retained the sidewalk on the west side of Cloverdale Road with the widening, resulting in significant project cost savings. The existing sidewalk on the south half of the corridor (McMillan to Hickory, both sides) was also kept. Improvements included adding buffered bike lanes north of Hickory, which meant the cross-section width was slightly wider by a few feet. The result was a west curb line that remained constant, but a three-to-four-foot shift for northbound traffic, since the east curb line is a bit further east where the widening occurred.

The speed limit on Ustick Road east of Eagle Road is 40 mph, and 35 mph on McMillan Road east of Eagle Road. There are several schools along McMillan in this area and two school speed zones. Ustick Road east of Eagle Road is more commercial in nature, though there is a school zone at the east end of the mile corridor for Ustick Elementary. Speeds on McMillan Road tend to be a bit lower than those on Ustick Road, and the speed limit difference is a result of those corridor-specific characteristics. ACHD performs studies and adjusts speed limits both up and down when justified.

Trees are being removed along Meridian Road from Ustick Road to Cherry Lane. This is generally the first step when a project starts, and such is the case here. This is a widening project that is expected to be completed in the fall of 2020.

My crystal ball tells me that the sign is capitalized for no particular reason. Ideally it should be lowercase to be consistent with other ordinal number streets. In terms of ACHD's priorities, this will probably not be addressed soon, but it will be corrected the next time new signs are needed.