BEMIDJI-The Minnesota Department of Transportation continued its effort to collect public opinion Friday to determine the best way to improve State Highway 197.
The stretch in question is a corridor from Bemidji Avenue to just west of U.S. Highway 71. On a daily basis, the corridor sees up to 16,000 vehicles and by 2030, the number could jump up to 20,500.
To ensure safety as the community grows, MnDOT is planning a reconstruction project within the next five to eight years. As part of the project, aging water systems, gutters and sidewalks will likely receive upgrades.
The most critical upgrades for safety, though, are related to access points. According to MnDOT data, the corridor had 180 collisions between 2011 and 2015, and there are 64 access points where drivers can turn onto or off of the road.
Friday's meeting was the latest of its kind for the project, involving elected officials, business owners along the corridor and other civic organizers. TJ Melcher, MnDOT District 2 director of public engagement, said it was an opportunity to learn about the four proposals MnDOT has drafted so far.
ADVERTISEMENT
"They broke off into groups today and went over the four alternatives. Moving ahead, we're going to try to narrow them down," Melcher said. "One of the alternates is to add roundabouts along the corridor. Another one would consolidate accesses, so if there was a business with two or three accesses, we would reduce those."
Other possibilities, Melcher said, include improving signals along the corridor, as well as adding a reduced conflict intersection, or RCI. The latter are intersections which remove the motorist's ability to cross multiple lanes when turning into traffic from an access. With an RCI, drivers can only turn right, and are unable to turn left by crossing multiple lanes. Instead, motorists have to come to a median and conduct a U-turn.
According to KLJ Traffic Engineer Joe DeVore, the project will likely be a mix of the different options MnDOT proposed, rather than a single set of improvements.
"I like to compare it with Brainerd. I see 197 being a lot like (State) Highway 210, since it goes through an urban area with five lanes," DeVore said. "Like that corridor, we still want to keep a lot of those accesses for businesses in Bemidji. That will be an important part of this project. It may be a situation where you can't turn left, but we still want people to have an ability to get into all of those businesses."
Melcher said another meeting is set for May and a final version of MnDOT's proposal will be presented in July.
