Signals due next year at Mt. Vernon Road/Hwy 13 intersection

By the time many rush-hour motorists on Highway 13 get to the intersection of Highway 13 and Mount Vernon Road, the driver's handbook rules of yielding the right of way often go out the window.

After a long wait to reach the four-way stop, vehicles sometimes surge forward two or three at a time, especially if one of them is a large truck that will take a while to clear the intersection.

That doesn't bother Linn County Engineer Steve Gannnon, who has seen  lines of northbound traffic stretching out to impressive lengths along Highway 13 south of the intersection. The congestion would be even worse on Highway 13, Gannon says, if everybody yielded by the book.

Help should finally arrive for the frustrated motorists next year, when a  $450,000 traffic signal project that the county has been seeking for several years will finally go forward. The signals were originally on the recently-released bid-letting list for the Iowa Department of Transportation in January, but has since been pushed back to the February letting.

In the worst-case scenario, Gannon says the signals should be installed by this time next year. That will cut back on the traffic backups, because traffic sensors in the pavement will adjust the cycles of the computerized signals to minimize delays.

The big challenge to getting the project completed – money – has largely been resolved, Gannon said. The Iowa Department of Transportation wasn't keen to pay the local share of the project, which is receiving about $370,000 in federal funds, because it doesn't see the project as a safety improvement. Collisions at signalized highway intersections can be much worse than at intersections with stop signs, because vehicles sometimes try to beat the light and large trucks can have difficulty stopping within the time they have after seeing the signal change to yellow.

The state decided to let the county use farm-to-market road funds to help get the project completed. That should lower the county's cost to build the project to a little over $40,000, Gannon said.