Small Town News

Town discusses tri-intersection

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The Camp Verde Town Council is exploring options to redesign the often troublesome tri-intersection where Finnie Flat Road, Main Street and Montezuma Castle Highway meet.

The Arizona Department of Transportation paid for a study to be conducted of the area and the Finnie Flat Road business corridor by Jacobs Engineering Group, a California-based company with an office in Phoenix.

The group had also been looking at issues with State Route 260, but abandoned that part of the study after the Camp Verde Town Council decided to work with ADOT to get a roundabout built at State Route 260 and Industrial Drive.

Last week in a Friday, Nov. 2, meeting, Jacobs senior planner Vamshi Yellisety laid out a few options for the intersection before the Town Council.

"The entire thing is a little confusing at first for tourists," Yellisety said.

The nearby intersection of Turner and Main streets just adds to the confusion, Yellisety said.

The first option presented would be to remove the traffic light at that end of Main

Street and put in a two-lane roundabout at the Turner and Main Street intersection.

This plan also calls for traffic islands that would channel traffic freely through the intersection.

This option also requires a few access points to a handful of nearby businesses to be closed.

The Town of Camp Verde would also likely have to obtain a wider right-of-way in certain areas to implement this plan.

Option two involves turning the road spur that allows southbound traffic onto Main Street into a two-way road while closing off the road that currently allows northbound Main Street traffic onto Montezuma Castle Highway.

The traffic signal would be modified to allow traffic to turn onto Montezuma Castle Highway.

This option is probably the most cost-effective for the town, Yellisety said, since no roundabouts would have to be constructed.

"Those roundabouts are expensive," Councilwoman Robin Whatley said.

This option would also potentially allow for expanded parking for the nearby convenience and hardware stores, Yellisety said, while making it safer for students from Pace Academy who use the area as pedestrians.

Option two also minimizes the right-of-way the town would need to obtain, if it would need to obtain any at all.

Camp-Verde Public Works Director Ron Long said the town would look at the possibility of putting in some sidewalks.

The third option involves removing the traffic light and closing the road from Montezuma Castle Highway to where the traffic light stands.

A traffic circle would be built at the intersection of Turner and Main streets allowing access to Montezuma Castle Highway along the spur which would be widened to two lanes.

"We want to make sure that whatever we do will be no different than what we require from developers," Mayor Bob Burnside said, speaking of realigning access points to commercial property.

The town has more than $800,000 available for this project, expected sometime around 2015.

A meeting to gather public input on the proposed ideas was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, at Camp Verde Town Hall, 473 S. Main St., Room 106.



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