Title
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PEDESTRIAN CROSSWALK SIGNAL ON MACARTHUR ROAD APPROXIMATELY 650 FEET WEST OF OLIVER. DISTRICT 5.
Presented by: David Spears, Assistant County Manager of Public Works, Facilities Maintenance, Project Services and County Engineer.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Take such action as the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) deems appropriate.
Body
Spirit Aerosystems has contacted the County to explore options to enhance pedestrian safety on MacArthur between Oliver and K-15. Over the course of about nine months, several strategies were discussed. They included vacation of MacArthur where Spirit owns both sides of the road, installation of a signalized crosswalk, and construction of an overhead walkway.
Public Works prefers vacation of MacArthur Road through the Spirit plant because it would provide the highest level of pedestrian safety and protects the intra-plant cart traffic that already crosses MacArthur at several locations. The International Association of Machinists has contacted the County and Spirit to voice opposition to the vacation and closure of MacArthur.
Overhead walkways are generally not successful unless pedestrians can clearly see that they cannot physically cross over at street level or they are built to cross from an upper floor level on one building to an upper floor level on another building. Examples of successful overhead crossings exist over the interstate system or between buildings downtown. In areas like the Spirit plant where the goal is to cross from one ground level parking area to another ground level parking area, pedestrians will generally not take several flights of stairs up to a crossing and then back down when they perceive that they can likely make it through traffic on ground level. Overhead walkways are expensive and would need to include ADA access. This would consist of long (perhaps spiraling) ramps or elevators. Public Works does not recommend an overhead walkway at...
Click here for full text