Committee reviews 2025 PACER ratings and directs targeted traffic data collection near schools and Highway N

The Public Works, Properties, and Sustainability Committee heard an update on the village’s 2025 PACER street-condition ratings and agreed to begin targeted traffic-data collection at priority intersections, including Highway N near Cottage Grove School and major intersections along Cottage Grove Road.

Public Works staff (Speaker 5) said the PACER map from WisDOT shows many streets rated three-to-four (yellow), which align with the village’s 10-year capital improvement plan for pulverization and reconstruction. "You can see we have a lot of threes and fours," Speaker 5 said, noting that higher-rated streets (sevens to tens) are recently reconstructed and in solid condition.

Speaker 6, the committee’s traffic expert, explained how engineers use level-of-service (LOS) metrics for intersections and corridors: "It's a national level of service...it gives you levels of seconds of delay," and interventions are commonly considered once an intersection reaches LOS D or worse. The committee discussed how LOS and average annual daily traffic (AADT) figures relate to residents’ subjective experiences of delay.

A resident example shared by Speaker 3 underscored the difference between perception and averaged metrics: after timing a wait at Northlawn and Highway N, Speaker 3 reported the movement took "2 minutes and 15 seconds" for two cars ahead; staff noted single observations should be averaged over multiple runs to compute meaningful AADT and LOS figures.

Safety concerns factored into the prioritization discussion. Speaker 3 cited drivers "flying" to reach the interstate and referenced the Amazon development’s traffic study, which projects roughly a 20% increase in traffic in affected areas. Staff said such forecasts make targeted monitoring of intersections near the development and school zones important for planning.

Committee members recommended starting with pinpointed intersection counts rather than a resource-intensive village-wide study. Staff suggested they would begin with internal radar and counter data already collected at reported locations, consult crash data with the police department, and discuss engineering treatments (for example, right- or left-turn bays) based on where the longest delays occur.

Speaker 6 pointed to Monona’s residential traffic-management program as a possible model for neighborhood-initiated calming measures; staff said they would forward that example and the village’s bike/ped issue map to the committee for review. The committee also asked staff to present prioritized locations and proposed data-collection methods at a future meeting so that findings can inform the 2026 CIP prioritization.

Next steps: staff will forward Monona program materials and the bike/ped map to the committee, continue internal counter work, identify the highest-priority intersections for multi-day counts, and report back to the public works commission and village board for budget and project planning.