Benicia City Council has authorized application for Highway Safety Improvement Program grants that could correct what one resident has called “the most dangerous intersection in the city,” and improve another area where a pedestrian was killed last year.

Gretchen Burgess, speaking in April before the Benicia Unified School District Board of Trustees, gave that appellation to the intersection of Military West and West Seventh streets. Her son, Maximillian, told the trustees, “West Seventh Street is the worst street I have crossed in all my life.”

Should city staff succeed in obtaining the federal-aid grant from a funding source designed to reduce fatalities and injuries on public roads, the money would be used to create a protected left turn on the eastbound lane of Military West at its intersection with West Seventh Street.

The crosswalks would be striped to high-visibility, ladder-type crossings, Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth said.
The intersection is one used by students, particularly those who attend Mary Farmar Elementary School and Benicia High School, although some Benicia Middle School students use it, too.

Wadsworth said the mix of motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic makes the intersection “one of the busiest in the city of Benicia.”

“A few years ago, a middle school child was hit, and thankfully not killed in that intersection,” Burgess said when she spoke to the school trustees. “At that time, a $14,000 sign was put up at my request. Since then, my son and I have been crossing that intersection on almost a daily basis, and at least twice a week we have to dodge cars in order to cross that street.” Maximillian attends Mary Farmar Elementary School “It’s very dangerous,” she said.

Wadsworth said part of the situation comes from the way West Seventh Street is offset on each side of Military West.
In his report to the Council, he said that motorists turning left from eastbound Military West to northbound West Seventh Street try to cross the intersection ahead of westbound traffic on Military West.

“If there are pedestrians in the crosswalk on the north side of Military, then northbound drivers have created an unsafe condition.”

During the Tuesday night Council meeting, Wadsworth said the turn lane would be more effective than adding a controller that would delay a light change, a technique called a “lag.”

But money for the controller has been included in the city budget, he said.

“We could do the lag sooner,” he said when questioned by Councilmember Alan Schwartzman. “If we get the grant, we could do the whole project.”

Benicia already has a contract with Omni-Means to develop the city’s grant application, and Wadsworth said the turn lane and crosswalk painting would cost about $210,000.

If the city is awarded a grant, it would pay $189,000 of that tab. The balance of $21,000 would come from the city’s Safe Route to School account, which Wadsworth said has enough money in the Fiscal Year 2015-16 budget to cover the required local match.

The Council also approved seeking grant money from the same source to underwrite construction of a bulbout curb extension and crosswalk on East Fifth Street at Vecino Street, and the extension of the eastern sidewalk of East Fifth Street to Interstate-780.

That’s the area where Arlen Ingle, who was celebrating his 39th birthday with his twin brother and friends, was struck and killed by a motorist last year as he crossed the street, Wadsworth said Ingle’s widow, Melissa, has asked that pedestrian improvements be made at East Fifth and Vecino streets, and the Traffic, Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Committee has endorsed the project.

Cost of those improvements Improvements to the crossing and sidewalk at East Fifth Street at Vecino Street is expected to cost $270,000, of which $243,000 would come from the anticipated highway safety grant, Wadsworth wrote.

Money from Benicia’s Major Roads Traffic Calming account would pay for the balance.

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