CENTREVILLE – St. Joseph County Road Commission is seeking public input to help it complete a safety plan.
Garrett Myland, assistant manager and engineer for the Centreville-based agency, said residents are encouraged to take an online survey and identify locations of road-safety concerns.
He said the survey is related to a $200,000 planning grant the road commission received. Administered by the Federal Highway Administration, the grant is in support of the “Safe Streets For All” program.
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“It’s a countywide plan that we’re developing and it includes the cities, villages, our roads and MDOT roads. What we’re trying to do is find out all the areas where there are potential safety concerns,” he said. “We’re doing that through three different ways: a public survey, which is what this is; a crash analysis; and a predictive analysis. We’ll take all that data and come up with a high-risk map to give us targets for what we’re going to look in the future at trying fix.”
Myland said the department has access to crash information from the sheriff’s department. However, resident input could help road commission officials pinpoint intersections and locations in the county where safety concerns are best identified by people who live in specific areas.
He said a stretch of roadway bordered by dangerously deep ditches but no guardrail is a good example.
“Or, if somebody witnesses an intersection where they see people flying through it all the time and they don’t stop at the stop signs, that’s public input we’d like to see because that’s a situation that doesn’t necessarily show up on crash reports,” Myland said.
He said the survey is short and also asks a few demographic questions. The real value of the survey, he said, is the availability of a county map and the ability to identify areas of concern.
“You can click on the map at any location in the county, type in the concern that you have … you can place little pins all over the county for any safety concerns that you have,” Myland said. “The majority of the information we get is after a crash has happened. So, somebody who lives on a corner, they see what happens on that corner all the time, and this is a good opportunity for them to give some input.”
Myland said a safety plan will be put together based on all information the road commission gathers. After that, it can focus on specific projects and use the plan to try to obtain more grants in the future.
If it’s a small fix, Myland said the agency could address the issue itself.
“With this being countywide, it’s one of those things that when all is said and done, if there’s something that shows up on MDOT roads, for example, it’s information we can share with MDOT and hopefully they could use that information to do something on their end,” Myland said.
The public-input survey is open through June 30. Links can be found on the road commission’s website, its Facebook page, and on city of Sturgis and city of Three Rivers websites.
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