By Age-Friendly Carbondale
This week’s focus on State Route 133 in Carbondale highlights the heavily trafficked and signalized intersection at Village Road. There are side paths on both the east and west sides of Highway 133, with a crosswalk located on the south side. However, the sidewalk along Village Road is situated on the north side. Residents living on the south side often walk in the road, facing oncoming traffic making sharp right turns onto Village Road from the highway, or they walk on the grass to reach the crosswalk.
Carbondale’s Park & Ride is located on the southwest side of the intersection. During peak hours, buses arrive and depart every few minutes from both the north and south, making right and left turns. Automobile traffic from all four directions turn left, right or proceed straight ahead. There is significant bicycle and pedestrian traffic associated with the buses, the Park & Ride and the Rio Grande Trail, which intersects the Park & Ride before crossing Highway 133.
The recent extension of the west side bike-pedestrian trail to Cowen Drive has no crosswalk or signal. Thus, Village Road is no longer a fully signalized four-way intersection. This set of conditions creates many opportunities for conflict between motorized vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians and makes Village Road one of the busiest and sometimes most confusing intersections in Carbondale.
Respondents to our 2023 survey offered many anecdotes about their experiences at this intersection. For example, “I was crossing east to west. I waited for a green light. I looked both ways. A driver in a pickup truck on his phone tried to beat a yellow light and speeded up on red.” And, “A bus driver driving the circulator barely missed hitting me when he was making a right onto 133 and I was already in the crosswalk going west-east with a green light.”
Pedestrians and cyclist safety could be improved by:
- A raised north/south crosswalk on Village Road to discourage cars heading west on Village Road from queuing up in a way that impedes pedestrians.
- Advanced stop-lines or bike boxes for cyclists approaching from Village Road.
- Brightly marking crosswalks to create a distinctive square, as pictured on page 45 of our complete report (www.bit.ly/133-Report).
- Extending east/west crossing times for pedestrians, including a “head start” for pedestrians before automobile signals go green.
- Addition of two marked crosswalks: one on the west side of 133, another on the north side of Village Road.
- Traffic calming infrastructure to slow northbound cars on 133 turning right onto Village Road.
- Warning signs/lights to slow motorized traffic approaching along 133.
- Separate pedestrian and cyclist lanes where the Rio Grande Trail crosses 133.