09-13-1999 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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• -1- • Juae 22.1999 ju;i 2 3 1599 r Cr.'Of iOOWV Mr. Greg Gappa City of Oroao P.O. Box 66 Crystal Bay, MN 55323 Dear Greg: I am following up on your conversation with Dick Ogle regarding the parking and safety situation on the stretch of County Road 19/Shadywood Road, just north of the Narrows Bridge in Orono. I am writing on behalf of a group of Orono neighbors that live in the immediate area. There is currently a very significant safety risk on County Road 19, in the area indicated on the attached map. Unless something is done, we believe its just a matter of time before a very serious accident will happen in this area. As background, many years ago when the last major work was done on County Road 19, one of the residents in our area, General Rawlings, worked with the city and/or county to widen the road on both sides of County Road 19 on the northern side of the Narrows. The objective was to provide a deceleration lane so cars turning into the driveways on either side of 19 could get out of traffic, pull over safely, slow down and exit safely without disrupting traffic flow on 19. This was necessary because the approach to 19 is a hill and you can see cars for less than 100 yards from the entrance to the driveways. The deceleration lanes work well since they give people plenty of time to pull over and slow down without disrupting traffic flow on County Road 19. Early on, parking on 19 was not a problem, but over the past few years parking has become a problem in the deceleration lanes on both sides of the road. There are frequendy cars parked along both sides of 19 and sometimes overnight or all weekend. When cars are parked along County Road 19 we are not able to safely get over and slow down to make a turn. Cars are forced to either stop on 19 before turning or slow down primanly on County Road 19 before turning. In either case, generally the cars behind pull across the center lane to get around the car turning, leaving less than 100 yards of clear visibility before the Narrows bridge. Cars coming north on County Road 19 are generally accelerating comirig over the Narrows Bridge because they know the speed lirrit goes up to 40 on the north side of the t . idge. This creates a situadon where cars are speeding up coming over the bridge going towards cars that arc speeding up to pass cars turning off County Road 19. Cars are accelerating towards each other with limited visibility in essendally the same lane! A__