Plymouth To Reconfigure Vicksburg Lane

The city of Plymouth hopes to improve driver safety by reducing the number of lanes on Vicksburg Lane.

The Plymouth City Council gave the go-ahead this week to pare down the number of lanes on the roadway.

According to Chris LaBounty, deputy public works director for the city of Plymouth, the roadway was constructed before nearby land was fully developed. 

Now that full development has occurred, the city has began to study traffic patterns on the roadway, LaBounty said. 

The city of Plymouth hopes to improve driver safety by reducing the number of lanes on Vickburg Lane from four down to three.

“Excessive Speeding”

A study found that 85 percent of drivers exceed the speed limits on the roadway by 5 to 7 miles per hour.

Likewise, five of the 11 intersections between Old Rockford Road to the south and Chankahda Trail to the north exceed the statewide average for crashes. 

“So with that, we’ve identified that we do have a safety concern related to crashes, we have excessive speeding, but that the roadway itself is able to accommodate the traffic volumes that are there today,” LaBounty said.

Currently, the road has four lanes. That is, the north-south throughfare has two northbound lanes and two southbound lanes.

Before this winter, Plymouth plans to restripe the roadway, retaining one northbound and one southbound lane. The two lanes will share a center turn lane. 

City engineers also plan to reduce the speed limit to 45 miles-per-hour throughout the corridor.

Currently, parts of the roadway have a 50 mile-per-hour speed limit, LaBounty said.

By reducing the number of lanes, the city expects to reduce the number of crashes by about 18 percent, according to LaBounty.

All members of the the Plymouth City Council that were present approved the proposal.

Plymouth City Council Member Alise McGregor was absent. She represents Plymouth’s Ward 1, where the project will be occurring. 

Plymouth