St. Clair officials addressing M-29 road diet concerns on south end of city

Two years after a road diet reconfigured lanes on much of the main drag through St. Clair, city officials are once again weighing options on the south end after residents came forward with safety concerns.

Currently, M-29 is three lanes with one in each direction and one left-hand turn lane along Riverside Avenue through downtown. At the bridge over the Pine River, it’s four lanes before the lane count briefly returns to three near where the state highway curves south.Search Assets

That’s where officials said they’ve heard issues about traffic speeding closely past property lines, cars using the center lane to pass, and more.

Now, Mayor Bill Cedar said they’re hoping to get an official from the Michigan Department of Transportation to speak at an upcoming City Council meeting and get into what options the city has, if needed, to explore changing M-29’s lane configuration south of downtown.

“I don’t know if we’re leaning any specific way yet,” Cedar said Tuesday. “… What can you do, what can’t you do? Because they have all these engineers, traffic things (at MDOT) that they have to make sure it meets their requirements. So, I think most of us are keeping our mind open. But we do know that down there, where those people live, there does need to be some kind of striping (issue addressed).”

Previously, M-29 was four lanes with two lanes in each direction through St. Clair, transitioning to the longer two-lane highway north and south of town.

To slow down traffic via a lane-reduction, or “road diet,” the highway was restriped in 2019. It also included installing bike lanes downtown.

In addition to on the bridge, it also remains four lanes around the railroad tracks.

Last week, residents who live on M-29, which is Oakland Avenue in St. Clair, addressed council members about their concerns.

“The people on the east side of the road from Palmer to about the curve right before Jet’s, not even as far as Jet’s, but right down in there, you’ll see that … the road is really close to their property, their mailboxes,” Cedar said this week, referring to the quarter-mile stretch from Palmer Road north to where Riverside transitions into Oakland near Jet’s Pizza.

“The striping, I couldn’t even see where it goes,” he said. “It needs to be moved down away from their yards. If they can do that … I think that’ll solve the problem. But I’m not a traffic engineer.”

What are the concerns?

Resident Gordon Potter told council members last week he and some neighbors have been asking something be done about the road for a couple of years. They brought a petition with 25 signatures to the city in August 2020, he said.

Whatever they decide to do lane-wise, he said, “I think the key to all this is to provide a buffer of at least two feet from the curb on the east side.”

Retrieving mail or mowing the lawn can be an issue close at their properties’ edge, Potter said, adding, “There’s a real potential for rear-end collisions with mail trucks stopped in that lane.”

He also said some mailboxes have been hit and damaged, and because of how the lanes are presently, trucks frequently run over a manhole cover on Oakland that’s noisy and shakes nearby homes.

It’s also a challenge to get around for pedestrians.

“If you’re walking through that area, you better be prepared to jump on someone’s lawn,” Potter said. “… Don’t think it’s very safe. I’ve seen people almost get hit out there.”

Police Chief Tim Raker had agreed on part of the safety issue. He’s been among the officials who’ve participated in recent talks on options.

“For the residents who live down there, if you don’t have a backdoor on your mailbox, it’s dangerous getting mail out of your mailbox,” he said.

Resident Gretchen Cosner said she wondered why their section, a residential area nearby an industrial one, ever got a turn lane.

“It’s not necessary for it to be continuous from the railroad tracks down,” she said. “I just wanted to reiterate the noise that the manhole cover makes when trucks (hit it),” she added. “It actually vibrates everything.”

What are the options?

City Superintendent Warren Rothe said after talking with residents, there's been an ongoing discussion with state and local officials over the last several months in an effort to get traffic away from residents’ curbs.

That includes with representatives of the railroad, and nearby businesses.

There are three options, Rothe said, based on those discussions. First, the superintendent said they could leave things as is.

Second, they could contain the road diet with a raised median directly north and south of the railroad tracks, where he said there was a concern about traffic backing up from the bridge. That option would also include a modified driveway at Biewer Lumber to be right turn in and right turn out only, as well as a six-foot curb for non-motorized traffic.

The third option, Rothe said, was to put the area of roadway plaguing residents back to the way it was before — to four lanes.

Multiple council officials had questions about the second option and why a raised island was needed. Raker admitted it wasn’t clear why medians were needed and said, “MDOT can probably come explain that to you.”

MDOT spokeswoman Jocelyn Hall said Linda Burchell, manager of the Bay Region's Huron Transportation Service Center, is meeting with local officials on options prior to the next council meeting, though she didn't confirm her participation in a meeting itself.

She also confirmed the three options that could be up for discussion.

"From a technical standpoint, we do not complete a road diet without a signed letter of support from the local municipality. The same would be required to revert back to an original lane configuration," Hall said in an email Tuesday. "Beyond having a full commitment from the city, we don’t require anything additional because we already reviewed and weighed the different alternatives presented."

Council next meets at 7 p.m. next Monday and meets regularly the first and third Monday of each month. Agendas are posted at www.cityofstclair.com.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.