Local Traffic Only?

Going to stir the pot here a little.

Recently, the Mayor of Ammon posted on Facebook about concerns from drivers using Eagle Drive as a pass-through to businesses and such along Hitt Road.

I confess to using this route all the time.

I also confess I plan to continue using this route.

It's a narrow street, with lots of on-street parking. As I've come through, it's clear that the norm is for drivers coming in opposite directions to take turns passing parked vehicles, because there's not enough room on the street for three vehicles abreast. For the most part, as I've used this route, people are generally courteous. I don't see speeders; there's no room to speed. Neighbors likely see something different. As I see in my own neighborhood. But more on that later.

But the city has put up a "local traffic only" sign and want people to obey.

That's going to be a hard sell.

I should start off by saying I understand the neighborhood's anxiety; as we have similar anxieties in our own neighborhood. More on that later.

The "Local Traffic Only" sign is new, per Google Maps:

Note this particular photo was taken in August 2021. The mayor's photo shows the "Local Traffic Only" sign on the same signpost, put up sometime after that.

For those of you unfamiliar with the area, here it is on Google Maps:

The route in red is the one in question. The signpost is approximately at the intersection of the red line and the "Texas Roadhouse" label.

A lot of people, myself included, take this route both north and south to avoid the absolute mess that is Hitt Road, the major thoroughfare to the left of the red route. It feeds five major shopping areas, including the Grad Teton Mall, a complex home to Target, another home to restaurants and a multiplex, another with a major grocery store and one more with lots ot retail and restaurants.

It's a major traffic headache which is the principal reason people like me use the bat route to get to and fro. Just getting through the traffic light at Hitt and 17th can take upwards of five minutes on a good day. The bat route takes a lot less time.

Here's what makes this interesting:

I'm going to say the city has encouraged this bat route by putting stoplights at Sunnyside and Eagle and at 17th and Curlew. Those are the intersections at either end of the red route,

If the city were to move these stoplights to Midway (the blue line on the map), which is designed for the traffic, Eagle/Sawtooth/Curlew would see less through traffic.

I say less and not local traffic only, because the city and the school district has created another bottleheck in the neighborhood, illustrated here by another series of lines:

I call this the Hillcrest Mess.

It was a poor decision to not put Owen Street through from Ammon to Hitt, instead of dead-ending Owen and Derrald at the high school. Sure, the schools (Hillcrest High School to the south, Sandcreek Middle School to the north) don't want to deal with through traffic, just like the folks on Eagle. But making that a bottleneck just increases traffic on surrounding streets.

And I don't know if Derrald winding down to the south is an official city street or if this is just Google having a jolly -- but my gut tells me it's the latter. And no one in their right mind would take that route, as the high school parking lot is a traffic headache and again, there's no traffic light at Sunnyside.

Thus, there's no cross traffic possible from Miday to Hitt, on what could have been a handy minor arterial.

I feel for the neighbors aroudn the high school, particularly those on Carolyn Avenue, who deal with inordinate amounts of traffic particularly from people stopping to collect students from both schools.

But again, the city could and should have made better choices in the area to alleviate future traffic headaches.

The situation in my neighborhood, just to the north of the first, is better -- but it's stacking up to have some of the same kinds of problems as Eagle Drive.

Again, the red line represents the current "bat route" through our neighborhood from 17th Street on the south to First Street on the north.

There's less commercial activity in the neighborhood currently, through some of the vacant land on the west is zoned commercial.

We see all sorts of shenanigans on this route, particularly with people passing -- over a double yellow line -- those who are going the posted speed limit, which is the same in the Eagle Drive neighborhood. They can do that because the streets in our neighborhood are newer and wider. Which is a mixed blessing, viz:

Nice wide road, nice for speeders. The city is aware of the problem (the Mayor himself lives in the neighborhood) and has had the county (with which the city gets law enforcement through) to occasionally monitor speed and ticket overzealous drivers. This works as long as the speed monitoring signs are up and as long as the deputies are visible, but disappears the moment the visible enforcement is gone.

Earlier this year, we had a pedestrian hit -- a city worker, in fact, fixing potholes -- near a crosswalk used often by elementary school students. The driver was momentarily distracted by a cell phone and struck a parked car and the worker.

This is a problem in every neighborhood, I'm sure. Just pointing it out because it's a fact.

Note the blue lines in that second map. The straight shot going north-south is the future planned completion of Curlew drive, with a traffic light at each end. Sound familiar? The other is the future planned completion of John Adams, which already has one traffic light installed at its future intersection with Hitt Road. The city is planning a four-way stop at John Adams and Tiebreaker (the point where the two lines cross) in the future, but I can see a traffic light going in there before too long, and that would be welcome.

Similar setups, but thank heaven the roads in our neighborhood are designed for the traffic, so people will go faster. I hope they behave themselves.

Just pointing out that decisions made now have to look as far into the future as possible.

Hitt Road only makes things worse, as it's technically the border between Idaho Falls and Ammon. I hear there are plans to put median barriers on Hitt between Sunnyside and 17th, limiting areas where people can cross or turn left to alleviate traffic problems. That's only going to push more traffic onto local side streets. A fix in one area often makes other nearby areas worse.

There are a lot of competing voices in this situation. Just listening to one set of voices isn't going to fix the problem.