County committee, Three Lakes residents discuss Hwy. A

The Oneida County highway department is considering potential steps, including increased signage and a possible speed limit reduction, in response to concerns regarding maintenance of County Highway A in Three Lakes.

The county public works committee directed highway commissioner Alex Hegeman to consider the changes following a discussion Thursday morning with a group of Three Lakes residents who have expressed concern about the condition of Hwy. A, especially in the winter months. 

The discussion took place during a joint meeting of the county public works, solid waste and planning development committees in the county board room of the courthouse. 

Highway committee chairman Ted Cushing allowed those who wished to speak three minutes to convey their remarks.

The first to speak to the committee was Kelly Keating, a Three Lakes resident who’s spearheaded the effort to bring the Hwy. A maintenence concerns to Oneida County’s attention. That effort included a petition submitted to the highway department signed by 161 people.

“Our concerns are obviously the winter,” she said. “There are several fatal accidents and accidents in general on this road.”

“It is a highly populated road” with high school students, teachers, school buses “that are on that highway,” she continued.

“It’s just a dangerous situation. There aren’t enough speed limit signs on there, enough arrows showing there’s a turn coming up. So, our concerns are the side of the road, the washouts with the gravel.”

Keating said there have been instances when people have called the highway department to have Hwy. A treated with more sand or salt, “they’re told ‘No, we’ll be out later.’”

“There’s always a ton of slush on the highway,” she said, adding that Hwy. A is an “emergency road as well” with Oneida County’s Med 8 ambulance and the Three Lakes Fire Department along the county road. 

Keating then addressed the structure of Hwy. A

“We’re just curious ... how wide is that road supposed to be legally?” Keating asked. “Especially since Pitlik and Wick did it? I think they also had concerns as well with the width of the road.” 

She then brought up a two-vehicle crash her mother and stepfather survived at the intersection of Hwy. A and Sampson Road on Feb. 21, 2023. 

The occupants of the other vehicle, Donna Ferguson, 69, and Wilson Ferguson, 63, of Three Lakes, were pronounced dead at the scene. 

“It was just horrible because ... the plow trucks come through after accident scenes when it should be prior,” Keating said. “A lot of the time, accidents aren’t reported. I’m not saying people aren’t driving crazy. We all know that. It’s just getting worse with people speeding and all that stuff. We’re just looking more at safety concerns. For everybody.”

Keating’s mother, Donna, told the committee the Feb. 21 crash she was involved in was “a tragic accident” and she and her husband will be handicapped for the rest of their lives as a result “but we’re alive.”

“Two people didn’t make it,” she said. “They were very well known in Three Lakes. They were my friends. It just hurts and if we can prevent any deaths from happening on that highway — and I have seen a lot — I have people on my tail, I don’t care. I’m gonna drive slow. If they could even lower the speed limit. Why does it have to be 55? Can’t we ... someone, the state ... lower it for the safety of the people? And maybe make it a little wider because it’s just that white line and then gravel and there’s a lip. You get on that lip, you’re going in the ditch.”

“I don’t want anybody else to die,” she insisted, her voice starting to tremble. 

Taking exception

Mary-Elizabeth Vent of Rhinelander said she decided to attend the meeting to make a statement on behalf of her husband Brian, who is a delivery driver for a heating and air conditioning equipment distributor. 

“He’s been driving County Highway A two to three times a week for the past three years,” she said. “He saw the article in The Northwoods River News on Dec. 15.”

The article Vent referenced, which appeared in the River News and The Lakeland Times on Dec. 15, was about the discussion the committee had regarding Kelly Keating’s Hwy. A petition at its Dec. 7 meeting. 

“Well, it all boils down to people don’t want to slow down for driving in the wintertime,” committee member Bob Almekinder said during the Dec. 7 meeting.  “You see that everywhere nowadays.”

Committee member Mike Timmons, who also serves as Woodruff’s town chairman, said the town’s road crew was called out the day before when barely an inch of snow fell. 

“When the sun came out on the little bit that was there, there were ... tragedies all over,” he said, somewhat sarcastically. “It was the FedEx drivers that were complaining the loudest.”

“Well, FedEx and UPS drivers, they don’t know what the speed limit is,” Almekinder said on Dec. 7. 

Vent took exception to those comments and last week, she let Cushing and the rest of the committee know. 

“It appeared from the article ... some of the comments, that the people signing the petition weren’t being taken seriously,” she said. 

Vent said her husband, on his delivery route, drove on Hwy. A the day after the fatal crash in February.

“The road was still snow-covered and icy and it appeared there were no visible signs of sand or salt,” she said.

She went on to nore that her husband mentioned other county roads seem to be treated better and he’s heard that “from other contractors” who drive on Hwy. A. 

“I just wanted to be here to support the people who have the petition,” Vent said. 

Cushing asked Oneida County supervisor and Three Lakes resident Collette Sorgel if she wanted to say anything on the subject. 

“I have heard from a lot of people in Three Lakes,” she said. “I live right on Hwy. A. I tend to got out in the morning and it’s right after the plow comes so I don’t see those conditions during the day that they’re talking about that are the slushy ones. Some days, it is that way on the way back home. I agree there are people that drive too fast but most people, when it’s snowing, go slow but I am asking that we do whatever we can to make sure the roads are maintained, they’re safe, that we can see the white lines (fog lines) on the end so we don’t go off on the gravel.”

County operations

Following the public comments, Cushing brought the discussion back to the committee. 

As he did during the committee’s Dec. 7 meeting, Hegeman reviewed the route of the lone Oneida County patrol truck, or plow truck, based at the county facility in Three Lakes on State Highway 32, a snowplowing route he said is the county’s third longest.

As a resident of Three Lakes himself, Hegeman said there have been occasions when he’s “been stuck” behind the patrol truck at as early as 4 a.m. as he’s headed to work in Rhinelander and the road is plowed and treated. 

As he went over the different routes of county highway patrol trucks, he said he’s looking at ways to shorten the longer routes, such as the Hwy. A route. 

As for the speed limit, Hegeman said the committee has the ability to reduce the speed by 10 miles per hour. 

“Anything more than that would require a speed study,” he said. 

Signage, particularly arrow signs letting motorists know a curve is ahead. is something Hegeman said “we can look at.”

“It’s something I guess I haven’t paid attention to see what signs are out there,” he said. “I know there are signs out there but that’s definitely something we can look at.”

Regarding the shoulders on Oneida County highways, committee member Billy Fried asked if they were maintained regularly “so that they’re level with the pavement?”

“We spend more time on Hwy. A than any other road,” Hegeman said. “It’s unfortunate that traffic can’t seem to stay on the pavement.”

He said there will be days when county road crews will “pull up shoulders and get everything nice and smoothed out level” only to have, “the same areas are blown back out because traffic runs off the road in the same area.”

“That is something I’m working with our superintendent on, trying to come up with a more permanent solution,” Hegeman said. “Whether it’s trying to pave an extra one or two feet on some inside corners or whatever we have to do there. Obviously, it’s gonna be quite awhile before that road is redone again. It’s only five, six years old.”

Portions of the highway were widened in 2017 from 22 feet to 24 feet and in 2018 from Panfish Lane to the beginning of sidewalk in Three Lakes to 26 feet, Hegeman noted.

“A lot of our roads are still at 22 feet,” he continued. “As we go through and we’re re-doing roads, we’re trying to widen them when we can to 24 feet, 26 feet in some areas. It just kind of depends on the right-of-way where the ditch lines are, what kind of traffic the road sees. So it’s kind of on a case-by-case basis but that is something we consider on every road we re-do.”

As an example, Hegeman said, based on a 2018 price at the time for asphalt the county got for the last section of Hwy. A, it would cost approximately $100,000 in asphalt to add a foot to each side of the nine miles of Hwy. A. 

“It’s does come with a cost but it’s something we look at when we can,” he said. 

Later in the meeting, widening portions of various county roads was part of a long-range plan for 2024 approved by the committee. 

Traffic count, Hegeman told the committee, tends to determine if a county road gets treated with salt or a sand/salt mixture. 

Crash count

After the meeting Hegeman told the Times he’s asked for crash data from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office but as of Thursday, Dec. 28, hadn’t received any information.

He said he did check the Community Maps website, run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that includes state accident reports going back several years.

Since 2010, there have been 51 accidents on Hwy. A, 23 of them with snow or ice on the road at the time of the accident, he reported, citing the website.

During that 13-year period, he said data on the website showed one fatal crash and that was the crash at the intersection of Hwy. A and Sampson Road in Three Lakes on Feb. 21, 2023. 

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].