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A construction project to modify the parking lot of the Ramstein Express, better known as the shoppette, began this week.
As part of the 86th Airlift Wing’s effort to improve installation excellence, the 786th Civil Engineer Squadron is heading up the project to improve the traffic flow and safety in this area.
“The shoppette has a traffic flow problem, and part of it is caused by the gas station and shoppette traffic both having to use the same exit,” said John Ahern, 786th CES deputy commander.
Currently, the parking lot only has one exit. Ahern said that as pedestrians and vehicles crisscross with the gas station patrons, the flow becomes congested, causing a safety issue.
The two-phase construction project aims to fix this problem and improve safety.
During the first phase, the 786th CES will make the current exit of the shoppette a right-turn-only exit. This will direct vehicles toward the roundabout near the U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s headquarters.
“The intention is to keep outbound traffic flowing,” Ahern said. “The traffic circle will allow them to turn around if they want to go left. The traffic that just wants to exit can do so and not back up into the congestion of pedestrians, cars and everything else in the parking lot.”
Additionally, they will put a barricade dividing the center of the road to prevent vehicles from turning left.
“It’s a pretty simple, straightforward change,” Ahern said. “We’ll put up the right-turn-only sign with a no-left-turn sign beneath it. The people that are used to turning left are the ones who will be most affected by a change in their patterns.”
Phase one of the project began this week.
Phase two will take care of the remainder of the improvement project. It will include an additional exit to separate gas-and-go traffic from the pedestrian and shopping traffic as well as widen the road in front of the shoppette.
“When people fill up with gas, they will be able to just exit the parking lot without having to compete with the traffic in the shoppette parking lot,” Ahern said.
Phase two doesn’t have a tentative start date as the contracts for widening the road and making the second exit have yet to be awarded.
“As anyone who has filled up with gas on Ramstein during a busy time knows, this has been an ongoing problem,” Ahern said. “As we’ve been working our lines of effort under the 86th AW strategic plan to improve our installation excellence, it became apparent that this was something we could do to make the installation work better by making it safer at the shoppette and gas station.”
According to Ahern, this project is one of several intended to improve traffic flow across Ramstein.
“Our goal for 2016 is to improve vehicle and pedestrian flow across Ramstein to increase safety today and prepare for future increases in volume,” Ahern said.
