Work will continue on a project involving the northbound Hwy. 113 interchange at Gibson Road.

Acting without comment, the Woodland City Council approved putting together plans and specifications for the work that will cost around $2.4 million and will realign the off-ramp by removing the free right turn ramp and aligning off-ramp to conform with the new traffic signal that became active the past couple of months.

The entire project is designed to eventually accommodate a relocated Fire Station No. 3, which will be moving from 1550 Springlake Court to the northwest side of Bourn Avenue and Gibson Road.

The latest project is being funded through the city’s Capital Budget and will most likely cost more than the $2.4 million allocated because of inflation.

In addition to the off-ramp realignment, a new pedestrian crosswalk will be added on the east leg of the intersection and the existing traffic signal and lighting system will be modified for the changes at the intersection, according to a staff report prepared by the city’s principal civil engineer Ed Wisniewski.

Other project improvements include widening over the existing drainage ditch between Hwy. 113 and Harry Lorenzo Avenue to construct a new curb and gutter, a 10-foot-wide planter strip, a 10-foot-wide multi-use pathway, and a 15-foot-wide landscape buffer behind the new sidewalk.

New pedestrian-scale streetlights along Gibson Road are also included with the design.

“The proposed project will provide operational benefits for all travel modes on the northbound Hwy. 113 off-ramp at Gibson Road and provide improved pedestrian connectivity along the south side of Gibson Road,” Wisniewski reported. “In addition, the proposed project will improve the level of service, eliminate projected back-ups onto northbound Hwy. 113, and reduce vehicle hours of delay, total stops and fuel consumption and emissions.”

According to Wisniewski, the work originally started in March 2023, when city staff worked out that traffic projections for the project design year (2042) result in northbound right-turn wait times of over 200 seconds per vehicle which creates a queue of vehicles that will block the northbound left-turn movements, increasing delay for that movement to approximately 200 seconds per vehicle.

This could ultimately lead to vehicles queuing onto the Hwy. 113.

By building the project, both the northbound right-turn and left-turn delay times are reduced to approximately 33 seconds, Wisniewski noted.

City records also indicate, he added, that between 2019-2022, there were seven vehicle-vehicle collisions from northbound Hwy. 113 to the eastbound East Gibson yield controlled off-ramp. All collisions recorded are associated with the merge at the end of the ramp and are correctable by construction of the project.

The schedule for construction of this project was delayed to Spring/Summer of 2025 to avoid conflicting traffic control operations associated with the recently completed traffic signal at the intersection of Gibson Road and Harry Lorenzo Avenue/Bourn Drive.

Staff anticipate the construction contract award will be presented to Council for approval in December. Once the construction contract is awarded, the critical path for construction will be to approve construction submittals so the long-lead traffic signal equipment can be ordered. Construction is anticipated to take approximately six months, with project completion estimated in the Fall of 2025.

All the work relates to the relocation of Fire Station No. 3 to the old Willow Spring School site the city acquired in 2018.

A city staff report explained that before purchasing the property, the city hired City Gate Associates to evaluate current and future station locations to determine how to most effectively and efficiently serve the community.

“Using this data, the city analyzed relocating Fire Station 3 as an alternative to constructing a new, fourth station in Spring Lake,” the report emphasized. “The analysis suggested that the city could largely meet its adopted response time needs in the short term by relocating Fire Station 3 to the E. Gibson Road and Bourn Drive location while placing a future fourth station to the north would be a more cost-effective manner to deploy stations to serve the community consistent with planned general plan growth.”

The construction of the fire station will be funded from a variety of sources a portion of which has been included in the city’s development impact fee program and in the Spring Lake Infrastructure Fee program, according to the report.

The general fund has allocated $1 million from reserves toward the projects, not including the site purchase, and the development impact fee fund has accumulated over $3 million in available funding for the project as of Dec. 31, 2023. Additionally, the Spring Lake Infrastructure Fee program has $1.1 million available for the project.

While complete project costs are unknown, preliminary research of recently finished and comparably sized stations built within the region suggests the new station will cost somewhere between $8 million to $10 million.

That means additional funding sources will be needed to complete the project.

During a Tuesday, Feb. 6 council meeting, Fire Chief Eric Zane noted that the relocation would reduce response times for the Spring Lake community.

“The proposed station… would strategically address the need to improve response time in the southeast as well as the non-sprinklered neighborhoods along Matmor Road,” Zane’s report noted. “Additionally, given the property’s proximity to Hwy 113 on-ramps, travel times to other portions of the community, including the industrial area to the north, would not be substantially compromised — particularly when factoring the differential in volume of calls to these areas.”