STANLEY Drivers will get a wake-up call if they hit rumble stripes that will be installed this year on a section of N.D. Highway 23 from New Town to Plaza and also from the intersection of N.D. Highways 23 and 8 to U.S. Highway 2 at Stanley.
Scott Zainhofsky, planning and programming engineer for the North Dakota Department of Transportation in Bismarck, said the work was bid in July. The work should be implemented this construction season.
The rumble stripes will notify drivers when they are leaving their lane. "They go right on the center line and sides," Zainhofsky said.
Adding rumble stripes to the center line and edge of the highways was one of the suggestions the Transportation Department officials made to Mountrail County commissioners to make the roads safer in these areas.
Last August, the council commissioners asked the Transportation Department to reduce the speed from 65 mph to 55 mph on Highway 23 from Parshall to New Town, and from the junction of Highway 23 and N.D. Highway 8 to Stanley, as well as other safety measures because of the heavy truck traffic and recent fatalities. These areas are in the heavy oil-traffic areas.
Transportation Department studied the areas last year and recommended, in a letter sent to commissioners early this year, several changes to be made, which would be programmed and constructed as soon as practical.
Zainhofsky said the study showed that speed changes were not recommended. "I understand the desire to lower speed limits," Zainhofsky said. But he said the traveling public doesn't obey lowered speed limits.
In the letter to Mountrail commissioners, Francis Ziegler, Transportation Department director, explained to commissioners these are areas where the national and state standard call for speed limits to be set according to prevailing traffic speeds.
In the specific areas noted by commissioners, the prevailing speed was found in the Transportation Department study to be slightly greater than the existing 65 mph speed limit, Ziegler said in the letter.
Zainhofsky said the rumble stripes are done to alleviate lane departures in both directions.
He said the work to install rumble stripes doesn't take long once the contract is awarded. He said he fully anticipates the work will be done this year.
Zainhofsky said the study also recommended right-turn lanes at Highways 23 and 8 and N.D. 23 and N.D. 37. The Highways 23 and 37 intersection is just north of Parshall and N.D. 23 and 8 intersection is several miles east of New Town.
"That won't happen until next year," he said.
The Transportation Department also recommended increasing the radius of the northeast quadrant of the Plaza intersection N.D. 23 and 64th Avenue Northwest intersection) to improve the turning conditions for large trucks.
The intersection projects are scheduled to be bid in May 2010, Transportation Department officials said.
As for four-laning these roads, Zainhofsky said, "The traffic there does not justify four laning."
"They were really looking for widening shoulders and lowering the speed limit," Zainhofsky said. Commissioners asked to have the shoulders widened on Highway 8.
But in reference to widening the shoulders on Highway 8, Zainhofsky said widening the shoulders doesn't help with head-on crashes and it's very expensive to do.
"The rumble stripes on the edge line and center line help both head-on and run-off road crashes and (we) can install them for a fraction of the cost," Zainhofsky said.