CARBONDALE, Ill. (WJPF) Carbondale now has a traffic roundabout.
City leaders opened the roundabout to the public Thursday morning, about 40 days ahead of schedule.
90% of the project was paid for by the federal Highway Safety Improvement Program. The roundabout was constructed by Samron Midwest Contracting.
The new roundabout intersection at Chautauqua and McLafferty Roads in Carbondale opened on Thursday.
90 percent of the funding for the for the $1.5 million project came from the Highway Safety Improvement Program. It s designed to be safer and allow for better traffic flow.
The Madison Police Department was given the go-ahead by city commissioners to apply for a grant that asks for $7,050 in federal money to help pay for the enforcement of speed zones in the city.
The South Dakota Department of Public Safety is accepting applications for grants from the federal Highway Safety Improvement Program. The city police department has proposed matching $7,050 in federal money with a local match of $1,762.
Operated by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) provides federal aid for efforts to significantly reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads, including roads not owned by the states and roads on tribal land. The HSIP requires data-driven efforts to improve highway safety on all public roads, and the federal program also focuses on performance.
These projects aim to “increase safety and traffic flow,” including the widening of Route 24 from Mulberry Knoll Road to Route 1, McLeod said. That project is expected to be completed in 2022.
Resident Scott McClintock has lived off Mulberry Knoll Road at least part-time for about 30 years, and he said it sometimes takes him 10 minutes to pull onto Route 24 from his neighborhood because of the traffic.
McClintock agreed that these ongoing construction projects will likely improve safety, but his biggest concern is the number of houses popping up in the area.
“It’s not what it used to be,” he said. It’s becoming like Philadelphia with all the traffic.”