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Politics & Government

Sussex May Put Speed Tables on Pewaukee Road

This type of speed bump would be used to slow down traffic to address safety concerns near Ivy Avenue.

Because of concerns about speed, heavy traffic and a precarious intersection at Ivy Avenue and Pewaukee Road, residents in that area may soon become the first in the village to get speed tables installed to slow down traffic.

Eric Nitschke, director of public works for Sussex, said speed tables might be needed in that area in order to slow down traffic and provide more safety on the roads and those crossing Pewaukee on the Bugline Trail.

“The real issue in this area is speed and what we engineers have at our disposal are speed tables,” he said. “We may want to look at this in this area.” 

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Nitschke suggested to the Sussex Public Works Committee Tuesday consider putting in speed tables in the area after residents living near the intersection have raised safety concerns and have asked for stop signs.

Speed tables are used to slow down traffic by putting bumps in the road. Other communities, such as New Berlin, are utilizing the speed controllers and have seen success, Nitschke said.

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Vehicles entering the Bowling Green apartments are traveling at high speeds as Pewaukee acts as the entrance into the complex. Nitschke said the Ivy and Pewaukee intersection also creates more concerns because it’s not a true 90-degree intersection.

The perfect solution would be to rebuild the intersection, he said, however, it would be very expensive to do and would most likely require property acquisitions. The speed tables would cost roughly $20,000, he said.

“This (intersection) is one of those things that make traffic engineers pull their hair out,” he said. “They didn’t design it. They just made it.”

Sussex has discussed using them in other areas of the village, but using them on Pewaukee hasn’t come up before.

“I think it’s a good place to start with a speed table to see how they work before we go anywhere else,” Trustee Tim Dietrich said.

Village administrators will bring forward more information on the speed tables at a future meeting. They will then collect public input with the possibility of having the control installed in 2012.

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