Traffic study looks at improving safety on Thain Road

Lewiston city counselors got their first look at a study of traffic problems on the Thain Road corridor Monday and potential fixes aimed at improving safety, vehicle movement and commerce.

Proposed changes include traffic signal updates, blocking some side streets and driveways, the addition of medians at several locations, pedestrian crossing beacons and public transit pullouts so people can more safely access buses.

Kittelson and Associates of Spokane authored the study for the Lewis-Clark Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization. The city council will consider adopting the plan as a guiding document so it can inform capital improvement decisions in the coming years. Counselors are scheduled to vote on the plan as soon as Oct. 28 but Public Works Director Dustin Johnson told councilors at a work session Monday that there is no rush and the vote can be rescheduled.

“There is no urgency on this,” he said.

With an average vehicle count that exceeds more than 19,000 cars and trucks per day, the corridor that starts at the top of Thain Grade and proceeds south to Alder Avenue is one of the city’s busiest arteries. It is lined with businesses and intersects with side streets accessing residential areas. Several of the intersections include streets that enter both diagonally and at right angles and the route is viewed as being unfriendly for pedestrians.

Motorists often have a hard time making left turns onto the road from side streets and from the parking lots of businesses. There were 235 traffic accidents there, 37% with injuries, between 2018 and 2022.

The most sweeping of the proposed changes would happen at one of the corridor’s most problematic intersections — the interchange of Thain Road, 10th Street and Warner Avenue on the east side of Thain. The plan calls for a center median on the section of 10th Street between Warner and Thain. It would connect to another median on Warner Avenue. The T-shaped lane divider would restrict left turns from 10th Street onto Warner and from Warner onto 10th.

Wende Wilber, senior principal planner at Kittelson and Associates, said it’s one of the trickiest intersections on the corridor.

“We tried roundabouts, we tried everything. We tried what we call a dog bone roundabout, to try to capture both intersections, and it just didn’t work,” she said. “So the simplest treatment is a median to start to redistribute the traffic. And this improvement does rely on the redistribution of traffic to other intersections along Thain road.”

The plan also proposes blocking some side streets from reaching Thain. For example, it contemplates stopping Vista Avenue on the west side of Thain.

“It has the second highest crash rate on the corridor — 55% of those crashes are turning or sideswipe collisions, and it’s related to the number of driveways,” Wilber said.

The plan also proposes blocking Ninth Street from meeting Thain on the west side of their intersection, blocking Linden on the west or east and west sides of Thain, and both sides of 11th Street where it meets Thain.

The plan would reduce the number of driveways at various businesses.

“We are recommending some new driveway standards. And the reason we would recommend some new driveway standards is you don’t want two driveways too close together, because then you have conflicts, you don’t want them too close to intersections,” Wilber said.

Most of the changes are designed to be budget friendly. But the plan does include at least the possibility of roundabouts.

“Some of the projects are more expensive. Some of them are pretty simple, you could start implementing them tomorrow,” she said.

Councilor Jim Kleeburg sits on the metropolitan planning organization and said Thain built up before it was part of Lewiston and suffers from a legacy of little to no planning.

“This has been a long time coming,” he said. “It’s time to start taking little bites.”

Lewiston looks to identify lead pipes

Starting today, Lewiston residents will start receiving letters from the city informing them of a campaign to identify lead pipes and connections on private property. It is linked to a 2021 executive order from President Joe Biden aimed at improving public health and addressing lead in drinking water.

Johnson said the city believes there are few lead pipe service lines or connectors in Lewiston but the executive order requires they be inventoried. Service lines generally run from a home or business to the place where it connects to the city water delivery system.

The city is launching its Lead Free Lewiston campaign and website at bit.ly/3BCg5aL.

“We’re asking the public for their help to help identify these private lateral service lines,” Johnson said. “As of today, (the make up of) essentially 84% of these privately owned lateral service lines are unknown.”

The website includes a video that gives tips for identifying lead, copper and galvanized steel pipes.

Lewiston water manager Bryan Lacey said city staff can provide mitigation tips for people with lead pipes.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.