Rumble strips on Marcola Road is part of a countywide effort to reduce fatal and severe-injury collisions in Lane County. A timeline of milestones in this effort is provided below to help explain the intent and evolution of the work. Thank you for working with us to improve safety in Lane County.
2014 and 2015: Lane County had more traffic fatalities than any county in Oregon. The majority of those fatalities were from collisions on rural roads (outside of cities, despite there being more people and traffic in cities). Most of the fatal collisions on rural roads were single-vehicles running off the road.
2015 and 2016: Lane County worked with Lane Council of Governments and Oregon Department of Transportation, with a wide range of stakeholder engagement and focus group discussions, evaluating crash data to better understand the safety problem and develop cost-effective solutions.
January 2017: The Board of Commissioners recognized traffic collisions as a public health issue and committed to reducing fatal and severe-injury collisions in Lane County by:
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Adopting a Transportation Safety Action Plan that took a systemic, risk-based approach to safety and identified engineering, education, and enforcement actions that would address the factors leading to fatal and sever-injury collisions; and
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Joining the National Strategy on Highway Safety: Toward Zero Deaths
Summer 2017: Lane County included the most cost-effective engineering solutions (rumble strips and safety edges) to the greatest safety risk (roadway departures) in regularly-scheduled pavement preservation projects (overlays).
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This resulted in centerline rumble strips on Suttle Road, Poodle Creek, and High Pass Road which were in need of new pavement. Shoulder rumble strips were not installed because the roads had less than four feet of shoulder width, which is the minimum width recommended for accommodating bicycles riding on the shoulder. Postcards were mailed to properties abutting the affected roads. There were a handful of calls prior to installation about potential noise impacts, but there were no noise complaints reported after installation.
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The Friends of Marcola Schools and Media Center (Friends) requested rumble strips on Marcola Road; however, rumble strips were only being incorporated into already-planned pavement preservation work and Marcola Road was not yet ready for new pavement. The Friends held three community meetings, rallying support for safety improvements, and testified before the Board of County Commissioners. Staff researched pavement conditions and literature about installing rumble strips without pavement overlays to determine the feasibility of a stand-alone rumble strip installation on Marcola Road.
Spring 2018: Lane County mailed postcards to approximately 163 addresses along Marcola Road, announcing the installation of centerline and shoulder rumble strips during the summer of 2018. Shoulder rumble strips were determined to be feasible because Marcola Road had at least five feet of shoulder width, exceeding the four-foot minimum.
Summer 2018: Centerline and shoulder rumbles were installed on Marcola Road between milepost 3.0 and 10.4. The shoulder rumbles were applied to the fog line to increase nighttime visibility and to preserve shoulder space for bicycles. This was Lane County’s first implementation of a stand-alone rumble installation (without pavement work) and of shoulder rumbles (because Marcola had the shoulder width that other roads lacked).
Fall 2018: Residents along Marcola Road contacted staff about noise levels negatively affecting their quality of life. Staff met with residents to better understand the concerns and invited public comment before the Lane County Transportation Advisory Committee. Staff provided area residents with sound measuring equipment and collected data along the corridor to isolate the problem areas.
Winter 2018 - 2019: Lane County staff identified four locations at curves on Marcola Road for remediation. These locations were determined based on concentrations of noise complaints and the frequency of vehicle tracking over the shoulder rumble strips. The mitigation plan is for spot removal of the shoulder rumbles at these four curves by filling in the grooves in the pavement. The fill material is a methyl methacrylate (MMA) that is a two-part epoxy that is known for its adhesion and durability and is typically applied to bridge joints. The MMA application for spot removal of rumble strips is a test case to avoid a more costly procedure of grinding and repaving the roadway.
Spring - Summer 2019: Staff will be installing the fill material by hand and testing the results at each curve in phases over several months.