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(ZACH HUSEN | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) The current and recommended speeds (at left) which were the result of a speed study conducted on a portion of Elm Street. The Texas Department of Transportation contracted the study with the company Garver which recommended reductions in two speed zones. -
(THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Texas Department of Transportation Graham Area Engineer Zach Husen speaks Thursday, Dec. 12 with the Transportation Improvements Committee.
After analyzing a section of Hwy. 16, a contracted engineering firm made a recommendation to the city of Graham and Texas Department of Transportation to lower speed zones.
TxDOT Graham Area Engineer Zach Husen spoke Thursday, Dec. 12 with other members of the Transportation Improvements Committee regarding the study from the engineering firm Garver.
“We had our traffic engineering office in Wichita Falls looking at some of these issues, and they got overwhelmed and had some personnel issues, so they made the decision to outsource some of our traffic items to an engineering consulting firm,” he said. “One of the items that they outsource to this firm was looking at these issues that we posed to them on Elm Street... from Cherry Street basically to Walmart drive.”
Husen spoke to the committee members previously about TxDOT conducting speed studies of the same area with the results not providing the data to make modifications to the speed zones. He said this new study provided recommendations to modify two speed zones.
“(Traveling south) it’s 35 (mph) until you get to Aaron’s, that’s where it goes to 40 (mph). Then you get to Taco Bell, and that’s where it goes to 45 (mph) and then you get past Dos Leones close to the bridge, that’s where it goes to 50 (mph),” he said. “So what their analysis concluded, and what their recommendation is, is for that 40 (mph) zone to be eliminated, the 35 (mph) zone to continue all the way down to Taco Bell and then from Taco Bell to past Walmart, instead of it being 45 (mph), it’d be lowered to 40 (mph).”
The next steps to enact the changes are that TxDOT will take the analysis and data and produce a strip map showing the zones which will be presented to the Texas Transportation Commission.
“Those guys meet monthly, so it’s just a matter of getting it in front of them. So (it will take) two months on our end and then a couple weeks on their end,” Husen said.
Once that process is approved by the Texas Transportation Commission it will be sent to the city of Graham.
“We send that over to the city and ask that they pass an ordinance in support of that change and then we go out and change the signs,” Husen said. “Right now we don’t really have an action item that needs to happen until we have the results of that commission action to change that speed limit.”
Husen said the change mirrors some concerns raised about speeds on Elm Street in that area.
“Given the nature of the complaints that we’ve had and the collaboration that we’ve had with this group and others, those recommendations are in line with the sentiment that I’ve heard a lot of over the years,” he said.
