Intersection faces turn for better

RATHDRUM – The city of Rathdrum is planning to simplify a tangled five-way intersection – considered the town’s most dangerous – at the southern entrance to the city.

City officials are nearing a decision on the method to realign Wright Street with Highway 41, reducing it to a four-leg intersection and giving drivers a better view when turning onto the busy highway.

“It’s very clear that it’s an unsafe intersection,” said city engineer Larry Comer. “The geometry is awkward and unsafe and needs to be addressed.”

On Tuesday, the Rathdrum City Council discussed three options, including straightening Wright Street, constructing a roundabout and installing a traffic signal at the intersection.

The city held an open house earlier this spring to give residents a chance to comment. The public favored realigning Wright Street to make it perpendicular to Highway 41 and putting in a traffic signal in the future, city staff told the Council Tuesday.

The option, though, reroutes Fourth Street, cutting off its access to Highway 41 – which council members said worried them.

“We can’t make that whole corner of town inaccessible,” Councilman Vic Holmes said. “I have real concerns about saying build any one of these options.”

Comer told the Council he would bring back reworked plans for Fourth Street at the Council’s June meeting.

Rathdrum secured a $600,000 state grant last year to target the intersection, which has the town’s highest rate of accidents. The city is expected to contribute an additional 7 percent of the project’s cost, said Comer, of Welch Comer & Associates in Coeur d’Alene.

The final design for the project likely won’t be finished until next year, said Public Works Director Chet Anderson. The city hopes to begin construction in 2008, he said.