NW 14th Street remains a truck route, section west of construction not reopening

Two items brought to the Abilene City Commission by Commissioner John Kollhoff failed to pass at the June 24 meeting. One item was to reopen 14th Street between Vine and Washington streets. This section was closed at the end of April because of how close it was to the construction happening on 14th. The other item was to remove NW 14th Street from the city’s ordinance designating routes for semi-trucks and heavy vehicles.

Trucking route

The commission decided to keep NW 14th Street from Vine Street to Buckeye Avenue as a trucking route. Kollhoff’s desire is for truck traffic traveling east or west in the west part of the city to take NW Seventh Street or NW Eighth Street.

Several people who work in the trucking industry or live along Seventh Street made comments to the commission. Each one was against removing the section as a truck route.

Kelly Wilson with Highland Trucking Company said truckers from out of town will still use GPS systems which will take them onto 14th Street if it is the best route. He also pointed out that the Buckeye Avenue and Seventh Street intersection is not built for truck traffic. Trucks have to drive into the outside lane to turn from Buckeye onto Seventh Street or vice versa.

Wilson and others also believe more children travel along and across Seventh Street than 14th Street due to sports and activities at the Central Kansas Free Fair grounds, the baseball fields, the Abilene Community Center and residents walking along Seventh Street.

Kale Strunk, fire chief, said removing 14th as a truck route will increase the chances of vehicle accidents at the Seventh Street/Buckeye Avenue intersection.

“Especially coming south on Buckeye from the north and turning west onto Seventh Street, they are going to have to be turning from the inside lane,” Strunk said. “Whenever you do that, you increase the chances of what we call an underride, where a car will actually drive underneath a semi-trailer. The semi-trailer will run over the car if they don’t go completely underneath it.”

Russ Johnson, who manages the ADM feed mill location outside of Abilene, said trucks turning left off of Buckeye Avenue to go west on Seventh Street or right from Seventh onto Buckeye to travel south is not safe because they have to drive into the opposing lane.

“If you want to remove 14th (as a truck route), y’all better just buy up a bunch of land and widen Seventh and Eighth (streets),” Johnson said. “I don’t think that’s feasible, but it’s the only way to be safe.”

After agreeing that removing the 14th Street section as a truck route is a bad idea, Evan Wilson with Doug Bradley Trucking said the decision would curtail business in Abilene.

“We get some nice things going, then we tend to curtail business and slow it down,” Wilson said. “Abilene’s had a little bit of a habit of that. I would like to say it that way, let’s not slow down business. Let’s keep as much business coming in as we can.”

Brandon Rein, mayor, said a reason for keeping the section as a truck route is because 14th is currently being rebuilt with truck traffic in mind. Another reason is that 14th Street west of Vine Street is a county truck route. When trucks reach Vine Street coming from the west, they will either have to make a u-turn, travel down Vine Street (which is not made for truck traffic) to Seventh Street or break the city’s trucking route ordinance and continue on 14th.

Kollhoff response to Rein was drivers hopefully will learn and never make the same mistake twice. His response was met with laughter from some of those attending.

After discussion, Kollhoff motioned to table the item for further study. No one seconded the motion. Rein motioned to reject the revision to the truck route ordinance that removes the 14th Street section. The commission voted 5-0 to reject the revised ordinance.

Closed for safety

The commission voted 4-1 to keep the section of NW 14th Street between Vine Street and Washington Street closed. Currently construction on NW 14th Street is being done on the section between the Abilene Middle School exit to Cedar Street.

Kollhoff wanted to reopen the section for only local traffic because of the inconvenience to residents.

“I don’t see any reason why we are just closing that stretch of highway which adds a lot of travel time to our constituents,” Kollhoff said.

Jacque Berkley-Webb, who lives west of the construction along NW 14th Street, said the closure forces her and other residents west of the construction to travel several more miles to get to locations east and north of the construction.

The closure of the Vine and Washington section is in the city’s contract with the contractor. The agenda document compiled by city staff said the section is closed to meet traffic control guidelines set by a manual published by the Federal Highway Administration titled “Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices.” Since the section is a county road, Janelle Dockendorf, Dickinson County administrator, said city staff approached the county about the project and road closures before the project began, and the county is willing to keep the section closed for the contractors since it is “standard practice.”

“If I was to recommend based on the item,” said City Manager Ron Marsh to the commission. “I would recommend you vote to keep it closed to put it to bed so that it doesn’t come up at this level which it shouldn’t have been at to begin with.”

Trevor Witt, city commissioner, said breaking the contract and going back on their word will cause other contractors to react by increasing their prices for future construction projects for the city.

Ray Miller, former construction worker, said the section should stay closed for the safety of the workers and to allow them to finish the project in a timely manner.

“People don’t pay attention,” Miller said. “Many times I’ve had to jump back when doing my job to make sure that I don’t get hit. Those guys want to go home to their families. Don’t make it to where it’s unsafe for them guys, and they end up having to be visited in a hospital.”

“I think that makes sense certainly when they were going (working on 14th Street) through Vine Street,” Kollhoff said in response to Ray Miller, “but now that they are 200 yards away, I don’t think it makes the same amount of sense.”

Kollhoff made the first motion to reopen NW 14th Street between Vine Street and Washington Street immediately. The motion failed. Witt motioned to keep the section closed as listed in the contract with the contractor. The commission voted 4-1 with Kollhoff voting no.

The Abilene City Commission next will meet at 4 p.m. July 8 in the Abilene Public Library.