Reducing the congestion getting in and out of Northside Garage is something that has been studied by Texas A&M Transportation Services for the last couple of years.
Executive director Peter Lange says this summer, some gates out of Northside garage on Ross and Ireland are being raised at 5 p.m. instead of 6. That change will become permanent this fall if pedestrian and bus traffic is not impeded.
Click below for comments from Peter Lange, visiting with WTAW’s Bill Oliver.
News release from Texas A&M Transportation Services:
It is not newsworthy to report the conditions surrounding Northside Garage cause traffic backups at peak times. There is not a single solution to resolve the issue. We are writing to give you an update about discussions, actions and some changes that have been and will be occurring that will hopefully work together to improve traffic flow in and around Northside Garage:
1. Effective immediately and through the rest of the summer: the gates on Ireland Street near Ross Street and along Ross Street to the east, between Ireland and Bizzell Streets are being raised at 5:00 pm (instead of 6:00 pm) to provide another exit path at the end of the work day. The reduced campus traffic in the summer allows this new gate access pattern. We will preliminarily attempt to keep the new gate time in the fall as long as bus and pedestrian traffic are not impeded. We will watch it closely and keep you posted.
2. We had an engineering firm evaluate the garage and they recommended closing the University Drive access point to improve pedestrian and vehicular safety and vehicular exit times. Focus group feedback told us customers were hesitant to accept this recommendation so we conducted a traffic time study in the spring with the drive lane open and will conduct another in the fall with the drive lane closed. Results of the study will be used to inform our decision about closing the University Drive access.
3. The University Drive Improvement Project is progressing to the east and plans in the next phase are to:
a. Install a median that will prevent left turns into and out of Northside Garage at University Drive. At a minimum, this change alone will reduce the University Drive access to right hand turns in and out only;
b. Extend the left turn cue from University Drive to Ireland Street and improve the signal timing for vehicles in these lanes of traffic.
4. In conjunction with the University Drive Improvement Project the university is investigating altering Asbury Street at University Drive to allow two lanes for left turns, one thru right lane, and one right turn only lane. This will give more cuing capacity on Asbury to relieve traffic back up in the garage.
