Any parent who's ever gotten stuck in traffic as the kids bicker and bray in the back seat should be able to sympathize with "Cardigan Jim" Kuzma — but his difficulties can be 30 times worse.
Kuzma is a school bus driver for the Monona Grove School District whose route takes him from Cottage Grove School to Glacial Drumlin School, largely via North Main Street and Cottage Grove Road. (He is also, incidentally, the second school bus driver to be featured in this column in as many weeks. Who knew they were such loyal readers?)
It is the intersection of these two roads, also known as Highways N and BB, respectively, that spurred Kuzma to contact SOS.
In the morning, "90 percent of the traffic (on northbound N) goes left or straight," said Kuzma, who wears cardigans, has an affinity for Fred Rogers and uses Cardigan Jim as his Internet handle.
And yet the intersection is configured so that only 50 percent of the lanes — meaning one — go left or straight. The other is right turn only.
The result is a two- to three-block, early-morning back-up that leaves Kuzma cooling his heels while his approximately 30 young charges fidget behind him in anticipation of scholarly glee.
Kuzma said it doesn't take more than a few minutes to make his left turn, but he is on a tight schedule and besides, "It's something that could be easily taken care of."
Alas, Cardigan Jim, when it comes to government, tax dollars, traffic patterns, engineering, public rights-of-way and representative democracy, rare is a problem that is "easily taken care of."
Kuzma said he had been calling the Pam Dunphy, assistant commissioner of the Dane County Highway Department, weekly for more than two months.
As he sees it, all that's needed at the intersection is new sign and some paint: Turn the left lane into a left-only lane and reserve the right lane for right-turners and straight-aheaders.
Kuzma said that Dunphy has called him back, but her answers have been imprecise.
"Officials are looking into it" is about as definite as she's gotten, he said.
Dunphy told SOS that it was only a week or two ago that money for a major overhaul of the intersection was approved, and as to the problems at the intersection, "we were looking at it for Jim."
The plan is to convert the intersection into a roundabout next summer, said Michael Maloney, Cottage Grove's consulting village engineer.
The county and the village will split the project's $900,000 cost.
Maloney said village officials have been aware of the problem at the intersection for some time, in addition to realizing it would need to be upgraded to accommodate the village's anticipated growth.
Officials considered putting in a stoplight, he said, before deciding on the more cost-effective roundabout. In the meantime, it's not clear the pavement on N is wide enough to create a dedicated left-turn lane, he said.
Plus, the right lane does not line up with the northbound lane on the other side of BB, meaning drivers going through the intersection would have to be alerted in some way to veer slightly to the left if they wanted to remain on solid pavement.
In short, nothing will be done at the intersection until the roundabout is built next year, Maloney said.
Kuzma questions just how carefully officials considered his solution. He doubts, for instance, that someone would drive off the road just because N is not perfectly aligned on the north and south sides of BB.
Moreover, he's frustrated that it took two and a half months to get an answer.
"It just seems like they didn't reply. It's like a deaf ear," he said. "If we were two and half months late getting our taxes in, we'd hear about it."
Send us an SOS! Is something wrong in your neighborhood, your city or Wisconsin? Send an SOS: crickert@madison.com, 608-252-6198, or P.O. Box 8058, Madison, WI 53708.
