Lawrence road closures on the way due to city program

LAWRENCE (KSNT) - The City of Lawrence will be installing revised traffic calming devices for the second and final round of the Old West Lawrence traffic calming pilot program.

Due to this project, the 600 block of Maine St., the 700 and 800 blocks of Michigan St. and the 800 block of Mississippi St. will be closed to traffic on an alternating basis from March 16 to 18. The construction schedule is subject to any major changes in weather.

The traffic calming devices that will be installed could include automated speed radar signs, curb extensions/neckdowns, chicanes, speed cushions, traffic circles or mini-roundabouts, raised pedestrian crosswalks, signage and more.

The Old West Lawrence neighborhood was selected as the first area for the new Neighborhood Traffic Management Pilot Program in the fall of 2021. The pilot program application emphasized their desire to reduce cut-through traffic, near-miss pedestrian and vehicle accidents, speeding and more. The first round of temporary traffic calming devices was installed in November of 2021 for the purpose of addressing the neighborhood's concerns. The city collected data on resulting traffic patterns, as well as feedback from the community following installation.

The data collected from the first round showed that traffic volume was reduced by 23% on the neighborhood's local streets, but there was an increase in volume on Main and Michigan streets. To address the equity of the impacts, the City will remove a few of the devices in order to allow traffic volume to redistribute away from the streets that witnessed an increase. The city will add new devices to address speed and volume concerns on Maine, Michigan and Mississippi streets.

To see the Neighborhood Traffic Management Pilot Program's website, go here. It has details on the feedback and data collected from the program. A map and a fact sheet about the traffic calming devices is also available on the website.

The city will open another Lawrence Listens survey to collect resident feedback on the calming devices used in this round of the pilot program in the coming weeks. The survey will be announced once it is available. After this final round, city staff will bring the final results and a potential recommendation for permanent traffic calming devices to the Lawrence City Commission.