April 25, 2019 – Dodge Co., WI – Although alternate routes are posted to steer clear of construction of a new roundabout at Highway 33 and County Highway P the Dodge County Sheriff said they’ve been handing out an unbelievable amount of citations for people driving around barricades and through the construction site.
“We’re busy issuing citations,” said Sheriff Dale Schmidt. “We’ve had a lot of traffic stops in the last week and a half.”
Construction to build a $1.5 million roundabout began Monday, April 15 at the intersection of Highway 33 and County P in neighboring Dodge County. The Department of Transportation (DOT) said it was needed to improve safety. The money to pay for the project is from the Highway Safety Improvement Program.
“The intersection is closed,” said Schmidt. “You can’t drive through it, period. You can’t drive through it at all …. and people are driving right through it.”
“It’s not a long stretch of road it’s just the intersection. When our signs in front say ‘Road Closed’ you can’t just go around it,” he said.
The citation for Failure to Obey Traffic Signs is $175.30 and three points on your drivers license. “The second violation within a year is $213,” said Schmidt.
The road is expected to open July 3.
Schmidt said something definitely needed to be done to improve safety at that intersection.
“We had a lot of crashes there before they put the four-way stop up,” he said. “They put the four-way stop up as a temporary measure knowing they were going to eventually put the roundabout in. The four-way stop definitely worked and I think that will continue once the roundabout is done.”
I cannot believe that a single roundabout would cost $1.5 MILLION to build. Is this an error in reporting or do they truly think a mound of dirt with a road around it costs that much to build?
The figure is correct.
Yes, leaving four Stop Signs up would have saved about 1.4 mill. Or put up stop and go lights for a little more. Unbelievable why they need to spend our money in such a wasteful way.
If over 100 people got tickets in (1) week, then the signage is NOT clear. This is very disappointing on how the Dodge County Sheriff Department is handling this. The signs are NOT clear, they read Road Closed, local traffic only. What does local Traffic mean?? Also, there is no Detour sign, just 2 orange horses on the road going North, it is NOT clear that was the detour route, it looked like that road was closed too. Rather than handing out mass tickets, perhaps the Sheriff department could see this as an opportunity to improve the signage.
The orange barriers should be a nice tip that you’re not supposed to go there. ROAD CLOSED means the road IS closed. LOCAL traffic only means local….do you live on that road? Heading to work on that road? No…then you aren’t allowed on it. It is definitely not a signage problem… Every single time I leave my house those barriers have been moved or run over, and I see semis and/or cars speeding down the side roads (which semis are not allowed on and 99.9% of these car drivers do not live or work on) and/or driving RIGHT to the intersection then turning around when they realize that WOW! Road closed really does mean the road is closed! Imagine that! 🤦