County plans upgrades, citizens request lower speeds
By Robert Cloud
Two people asked Waupaca County to lower speed limits and cut fewer tree along County Trunk E and Constance Road on Waupaca’s northeast side.
Kari Esbensen and Dr. Russ Butkiewicz spoke to the Waupaca County Highway Committee when it met Thursday, March 30.
Esbensen said she was concerned about “excessive cutting of heritage trees beyond the legal right of way.”
She said she spoke with a state Department of Transportation safety engineer who said that state and local jurisdictions must follow the eminent domain laws that govern removing vegetation that is outside road’s right of way.
”It typically involves temporary or permanent highway easements that specify the work to be completed by the highway department and there is a signed document and compensation to the landowner for the work being done and its impact on private property,” Esbensen said.
“I’ve been a family doctor in Waupaca for over 30 years,” Butkiewicz said. “I’ve been on the receiving end of the victims of roadway trauma.”
Butkiewicz said he has seen increased traffic on Constance Road, especially joggers, walkers and cyclists.
Noting that the speed limit is 55 mph on County Trunk K as it enters Waupaca and becomes Ware Street, “I can see the potential for a car-pedestrian accident. Those are usually quite devastating,” Butkiewicz said. “I recall an incident out on King Road where I knew the driver and she struck a gentleman who was trying to get his mail and she killed him.”
The accident was devastating for the victim, the driver and their families.
“And we worry the same for both Constance Road and Highway E and County K,” Butkiewicz said.
He asked the county to consider speed reductions on the roads in the area, adding that he has asked the town of Waupaca to reduce the speed limit on Constance Road.
Esbensen said she did not have issues with clearing the vegetation in the road right of way, but is concerned with excessive clearing beyond the right of way.
She cited research that indicated that open fields and more distant trees “have a propensity for drivers to increase speeds rather than to slow down.”
She said a 2019 study found that “the probability of exceeding speed limits was highest in road sections next to an open field.”
Supervisor Joe McClone asked County Highway Commissioner Casey Beyersdorf to look into safety issues related to tree cutting.
When asked if the Wisconsin DOT had addressed this issue, Beyersdorf said, “Not so much the tree cutting, we’re more with the safety improvements, the chevrons, the curves, the rumble strips.”
County E improvements
The county is scheduled to begin work on a nearly seven-mile section of County E, from Constance Road in Waupaca, north to Fulton Street in Ogdensburg.
Waupaca County was awarded a 90/10 cost-share state DOT grant through the federal High Risk Rural Roads Program (HRRRP).
Beyersdorf told the Waupaca County Post the grant was in response to 65 recorded crashes between 2017 and 2021 in the area.
Safety improvements include centerline rumble strips, grooved epoxy edge lines, additional warning signs and clearing the roadway clear zone of obstructions, according to Beyersdorf.
The HRRRP project does not include any work on the roadway itself, but Waupaca County will first complete a paving project on County E in the summer of 2023.
“As the age of the pavement isn’t in the newest condition for grinding in rumble strips, Waupaca County decided it would probably be best to overlay the roadway with asphalt prior to the rumble strips being placed,” Beyersdorf said.
During the highway committee meeting, Beyersdorf said the sign foreman had sent out letters to landowners and talked to them about what trees the county planned to remove.
“We don’t just go out and take stuff well beyond the road right of way without consent,” Beyersdorf said. “In fact, that would be an illegal move.”
Beyersdorf noted that while the base of a tree may be beyond the right of way, its limbs may hang into the right of way.