Local Officials Resolve to Make Culver’s Intersection Safer

Thad Ash, Door County highway commissioner, said this intersection is one of the most dangerous in the county. With backing from the Highway Safety Commission, he’s pressing the county for funding to make improvements.

Motorists quickly learn they’re in for a wait if they’re trying to head north on Highway 42/57 from Gordon Road/County BB at the Culver’s restaurant intersection. Those who feel they can’t wait take risks when patience runs out. As a result, the intersection is fraught with near misses, horn blowing and so far this year, four accidents.

“Sit out there one day, and see how many times the hair on the back of your neck stands up,” said Thad Ash, Door County highway commissioner. 

Ash was speaking during last week’s Door County Highway Safety Commission meeting. The commission meets quarterly and brings together representatives from the county, city and state. The Gordon Road intersection in Sevastopol was the topic that took up the majority of last week’s discussion. 

Even though the intersection isn’t within the City of Sturgeon Bay, city engineer Chad Shefchik said he fields a couple of calls a week from people who believe the intersection is dangerous and want a solution.

“That is one of our most dangerous intersections in our county,” Ash said. “I would sleep better knowing I tried to fix it.”

After a lengthy discussion, the commission unanimously approved creating a resolution to state its position on the intersection being of very high concern and to ask the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) to work with Ash on locally funded options to restrict northbound, left-turn movements from County BB/Gordon Road to the highway.  

A Roundabout Solution 

The resolution also asked WisDOT for a long-term solution for a roundabout at the intersection. That suggestion came from Chief Deputy Pat McCarty of the Sturgeon Bay Sheriff’s Office.

A proposed child care center, currently moving through a rezoning process, is being planned for Gordon Road just west of the Culver’s development. Commercial and residential development are also slated to begin next year along the highway less than a mile north of the intersection.

“Development along that corridor is only going to continue, and our traffic volumes are only going to grow,” McCarty said, and roundabouts “have been proven for accident reduction and traffic flow.”

WisDOT’s Mason Simmons – who was filling in at the Highway Safety Commission meeting for the state’s usual Door County representative, Randy Asman – said a decision on a roundabout is made at a higher level than his office.

“It’s not fully up to me that I can pull out of a pot of money for a $2 million roundabout,” he said. “No one from my office can make that call.”

The state doesn’t have a petition process for specific traffic-control measures, but the county can still ask for a roundabout, Simmons said.  

“Any recommendation would only be considered after we have funding,” he said. “But you can make that now.”

The need for education was also stressed. Eighty-seven percent of Door County crashes are caused by motorists who live on the peninsula. That percentage is even higher for the Gordon Road and Highway 42/57 intersection, said Randy Wiesinger, a liaison/consultant for WisDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Safety Law Enforcement.

“We can’t engineer our way out of this,” Wiesinger said. (See the related sidebar story about education efforts.)

Crash Stats at Gordon Road and Highway 42/57

There have been four crashes at the intersection this year, according to McCarty. Three of those have occurred since the last time the commission met May 5.

Door County Board supervisor Hugh Zettel, who represents the east side of Sevastopol, attended the meeting with data he collected provided by McCarty. There have been 22 accidents and one fatality at the intersection since 2015. Almost half the accidents (10) were caused by motorists attempting to turn left from Gordon Road onto the highway to head north. The second-highest number (six) were motorists traveling north trying to turn left (west) onto Gordon Road and being rear-ended.

Zettel suggested a short-term solution of posting reflective delineators at the intersection to prevent traffic from heading north on the highway from Gordon Road until the intersection can be reengineered.

WisDOT’s Take on the Likelihood of Improvements

Simmons said WisDOT is paying attention to the intersection, but it has funding right now for a high-crash area in southern Door County at County H and Stone Road – not the Gordon Road intersection.

Simmons said communities in counties across the state are competing for limited state funding for highway improvements that now cost 30% more than they did in the past. 

“I understand we want to do something at Gordon Road, but when we look at the data, County H and Stone Road was your highest crash site,” he said. “It’s hard to hit everything at one time.”

The county’s Ash said improvements are necessary in Southern Door, and with the high speeds motorists travel there, crashes are more injurious and deadly. He’s supportive of the project, while still looking at ways to improve the Gordon Road intersection. 

Next year, WisDOT will resurface Highway 42/57 past that intersection regardless of what the county may do. The pavement is deteriorating, Simmons said, and reconstruction for a different type of intersection could be five to six years down the road.That mill and overlay project will extend from the Egg Harbor Road roundabout north to the Mill Supper Club where Highways 42 and 57 split. 

Simmons said the state does acknowledge the crash pattern at Gordon Road and wants to maintain full access there because of the Culver’s restaurant and gas station.

“We’re working through the channels to try and get it done,” he said.

Simmons pushed back against the suggestion, made a couple of times, that the state waits for fatalities before it acts.

“There are other factors at play,” he said. “We’re not saying you need two people to die to move forward. But we do look at trends, and that’s how we get funds allocated to get these projects in place.”

Next Steps

With no project currently on WisDOT’s schedule, Ash took the new resolution from the Highway Safety Committee to his oversight Highway and Facilities Committee meeting Aug. 10, which was held after the deadline for this issue of the Peninsula Pulse.

Ash’s solution is for the county to make the intersection right-turn-only when cars are heading east on Gordon Road, which would direct them to go south for a short distance to the roundabout at Egg Harbor Road, then head back north. The county would need to move the island so that eastbound Gordon Road motorists would be pointing south, Ash said. 

Funding for the improvements at the intersection are not budgeted, and Ash said any requests would need to go before the full Door County Board of Supervisors for approval.