5 ways Sioux Falls is attempting to move traffic better this year

Here’s something about traffic in Sioux Falls that might surprise you: Despite thousands of new residents in the past few years, traffic itself looks more like volumes from 2019.

“People are driving less,” said Heath Hoftiezer, the city’s principal traffic engineer. “It’s habits they form. Some of the work from home continued. People changed their habits. We’re not talking a big decrease in traffic, but we’re seeing it was a decrease.”

Still, certain roads and neighborhoods are ready for improvements. Here’s a look at what’s planned for the year ahead.

Fixed loops

Much of the city’s work on the traffic system this spring will involve fixing “loops,” which are wires in the ground that feed to the traffic signal and allow it to know when vehicles are present.

Winter is tough on them just like the roads, “and we’ve had more broken loops than we have had in a decade,” Hoftiezer said.

So if you’ve been sitting at lights wondering why they’re not changing when no cars are around — it’s probably a broken loop.

Timing the lights

In some cases — like West 12th Street — the city is able to time the lights, so if you’re going a steady speed, you’ll catch all green.

“We’re working on some things on Minnesota Avenue to open up the bandwidth for Minnesota Avenue traffic and see if we can do it without hurting side streets too much,” Hoftiezer said. “There’s more technology now.”

The city also is evaluating East 10th Street for similar flow adjustments after making infrastructure improvements needed to support it over the past couple of years.

“We’re looking forward to potentially doing major timing changes this year,” Hoftiezer said. “That’s one we’ve been laying the groundwork for for two years to get the infrastructure right. We can put in great timing plans, but if we don’t have good infrastructure to keep their time, it doesn’t really help.”

One area drivers should see more improvement: Western Avenue at Interstate 229 and from 49th to 57th streets, where work began last year.

“It’s kind of choppy there now, so that’s another spot where we’re doing the same thing and working with the Department of Transportation to get permitting to go under the interstate,” Hoftiezer said.

New signals

Once intersections reach enough demand, the city will install a traffic signal. This year, those are planned for 33rd Street and Veterans Parkway and at 41st Street and Linedrive Avenue.

Federal guidelines determine if an intersection can be signalized, and those are “based on mainly volumes and crashes,” Hoftiezer said.

The proximity to Ben Reifel Middle School and adjacent neighborhoods helps justify the signals here, and they should begin being installed in a few weeks.

Another signal is being put in at 60th Street North and Career Avenue.

And, a permanent signal is coming to 41st Street and Bahnson Avenue,  and “that’s something people have been asking about,” Hoftiezer said, replacing a four-way stop that has been up the past few months.

Monitoring from afar

The city’s traffic division watches vehicles in real time from its downtown office and can make adjustments through its computers as needed.

With major road construction work planned, “we’ll be watching 41st Street a lot along with 26th and 12th street ramps to see how traffic moves … where they’re backing up and where we need to make timing adjustments,” Hoftiezer said. “If we close a ramp that hasn’t been closed, traffic is going to drive a bit different, so we’ll need to make adjustments.”

The same goes for traffic affected by the closure at 85th Street and Cliff Avenue as well as downtown.

“We’ve been watching Eighth Street the last few weeks with the Sixth Street closure,” Hoftiezer said. “A lot of times, we’re trying to strategically place cameras before major projects so we have good vision on the traffic.”

Counting cars

The coming season also will bring hundreds of traffic counts to prepare for future improvements. Between the city and state, there are about 600 “tube counts” planned that count cars on roads. There also are about 120 counts planned among the city’s approximately 300 traffic signals.

“We have a three-year rotation on the traffic signals for recounting and recalibration and retiming,” Hoftiezer said. “And we have 50 to 60 other locations we expect will need traffic signals in the next decade, so we try to get those in the rotation too so we can track their volume and know when we will need to put signals in.”