N. Canal widening project details emerge

As construction to widen North Canal Boulevard gets closer to beginning, Thibodaux residents and workers share excitement regarding some parts of the project and hesitancy on others.

Construction on the about $9 million project covered by the state with no cost to the city after road transfer credits covered the $800,000 bill Thibodaux would have had to foot is slated to begin in January 2015 and last roughly one year.

In an effort to add safety and efficiency to the roadway that has been booming with traffic, the project spans North Canal Boulevard between its intersections with La. Highway 1 and St. Patrick Street.

The big changes from the design of the current roadway include new mast arm traffic signals, the removal of a traffic signal in favor of an RCUT intersection by Walmart, the implementation of U-turn lanes and an improved intersection design at St. Patrick Street.

Heather Klingman, Senior Associate of the company that designed the new roadway Duplantis Design Group, said that the U-turns may be the most difficult change for drivers to get used to.

“It’s DOTD policy. They’ve done a ton of studies that show that this is the safest method to go,” she said. “That’s what DOTD has done on all highways, so really we’ll start seeing this. This isn’t isolated. This is something DOTD is implementing across the state.”

The U-turns will be placed in quarter-mile intervals between Rienzi Drive and Andolsek Park, where North Canal Boulevard currently features the so called “suicide lane” in the middle. On that portion of North Canal, the road will be divided with a median and the median entries will be U-turn only.

“Right now we have suicide lanes. You can basically access wherever. People can come in, clash, hit head on,” Klingman said. “I think we can all agree that what we don’t want in Thibodaux is Martin Luther King [Blvd. in Houma]. This is anti Martin Luther King. What we’re doing here is going to ensure that that doesn’t happen.”

In addition to U-turns reducing the number of crashes, Alison Catarella-Michel of Urban Systems – the organization commissioned by the city to analyze the plans for around $6,000 to $7,000 – said U-turns reduce the severity of crashes too. In fact, she said a similar U-turns implemented on U.S. Highway 90 near Lafayette has had fewer crashes and less severe crashes.

“Right now if your teenage driver goes through the yellow (line) and gets hit, they get T-boned. They could be killed. If they have to make this U-turn and they’re speeding around it, they’ll most likely only get sideswiped… This is important stuff. It’s not taken lightly. It’s done to save lives,” Catarella-Michel said.

Some of the U-turns will be large enough for 18-wheelers and fire trucks to use.

At last week’s town hall meeting to discuss the effects of the revamped roadway, members of the community had the opportunity to express their concerns.

Louis “Andy” Andolsek worries that the frustration caused from the U-turn system will cause the businesses along North Canal to suffer.

“I’ve seen it happen in other cities where people don’t go to restaurants because it’s too hard to drive a quarter mile and make the turn. It’s just not convenient. A lot businesses, I’m not sure they realize what’s going to happen. A couple of more crossovers [would help a lot] in my opinion. I just don’t want to see the city suffer,” Andolsek said.

Catarella-Michel responded by saying that extensive studies on patronage to retail businesses and gas stations show that quarter-mile U-turns actually result in more customers.

“People perceive it as a better and easier and safer road. They don’t mind going a little bit extra because they feel more comfortable,” she said.

Most of the other public concerns surrounded whether the removal of the traditional stop light and implementation of an RCUT-intersection at Melrose Drive and the intersection to Walmart would incite speeding as well as the lack of convenience for those in the nearby areas.

“Everything in traffic is about balancing safety and efficiency. So these design guidelines have been developed with that in mind. But one of the things that we’re not considering is convenience because it’s a long road and it’s a lot of people that live there, work there, there’s businesses that are there so we cannot favor one person over the other when it comes to convenience,” Catarella-Michel said. “It’s not necessarily going to be the most convenient thing for everyone, but it’s supposed to be safe and efficient for everyone.”

As for potential speeding, Klingman said there are no plans to reduce the speed limit, and Catarella-Michel spoke of the misconception that traffic signals reduce speed.

“Traffic signals are not speed control devises,” she said. “In fact, people tend to speed up when they see a yellow and that makes them go faster than they were before. People think of traffic lights when they’re red and they slow down to stop but that’s not the only part of the traffic signal operation. Studies show that that does not actually calm traffic down. There are other ways to monitor speeds.”

Thibodaux Mayor Tommy Eschete said it will be the city’s responsibility to make sure traffic isn’t flying on North Canal.

New mast arm traffic signals will be found at La. Highway 1, La. Highway 308, Rue Loudin, Rienzi and Glenwild drives.

“Two poles with a string between them with the lights hanging on them is old school. DOTD doesn’t do that anymore. Now it’s gonna be the nice metal poles with the arm going over. They do much better during hurricanes,” Klingman said.

There will be two left turn lanes onto Glenwild, too.

Finally, at the end of the project, a newly-designed intersection will be found at St. Patrick.

“I think everybody knows the dangers of passing by St. Patrick, so what we are going to try to do is make that a much safer intersection,” Klingman said, explaining that far too often cars going southbound on North Canal try to speed by cars turning on St. Patrick.

There will be a right turn lane on southbound North Canal to St. Patrick as well as an acceleration lane for vehicles going from St. Patrick to northbound North Canal.

“I know [the acceleration lane] looks a little funny and it takes a little getting to, but it works and its’ much safer,” Klingman said.

The project has been designed taking 20 years of estimated rate of growth for the area into consideration, and there will be bike lanes on the shoulders. There will be no need to re-establish truck routes, and new curbing will be put in place throughout the project.

During construction Eschete said North Canal will never completely close, and he expects Thibodaux Police to be on top of keeping traffic running as smoothly as possible.

“Once construction starts we’re going to have to identify where we have issues,” said the mayor. “It’s going to need increased control. It may even need manual traffic control at some intersections when we have issues like that. Of course what’s going to happen and how we’re going to respond to it, we don’t know that yet, but I can assure you we’ll probably have a whole lot of patrolmen getting out of their units producing traffic controls around the whole scope of the project.”