Crowd voices Bridge Avenue ideas

Citizens ask officials for creative solutions

Staff

Published Friday, January 9, 2009

With some creative problem solving, added turning lanes or maybe even a smaller boulevard, many of the problems on Bridge Avenue corridor can be resolved.

That was the overwhelming opinion voiced Thursday night in City Hall during a public informational meeting intended to discuss what the options are for development of Bridge Avenue. The crowd in attendance at the meeting was what Freeborn County Engineer Sue Miller called, “One of the greatest things I’ve seen for any public works project.”

She said in the almost 20 years she’s been in the county, she doesn’t think there had ever been that kind of turnout for any project she’s worked on.

City Hall was packed, with minimal standing room. There were at least 75 people in attendance. Additional chairs from another level of City Hall were brought up to the Council Chambers for people to use.

The large crowds came in response to a recent meeting with officials from both Freeborn County and the city of Albert Lea, during which the project resurfaced after a year or so hiatus. During that meeting, city and county leaders discussed the different design options for the road and whether to pursue funding opportunities on the state and federal level. No decisions have yet been made.

The road, which is also named Freeborn County Road 22, is a county highway that runs through the city limits. That means both the city and the county have a role in its renovations, no matter whether they choose to reconstruct a two-lane road — like the one that’s already in place — or to develop it into a three-lane or four-lane road.

Discussing some of the background of the project, Craig Vaughn with SRF Consulting Group explained that his consulting firm studied three different options, plus a no build option, for the road. It studied those options under several criteria.

Sue Miller

These criteria included providing adequate capacity, correcting roadway deficiencies, limiting overall and long-term construction costs, providing facilities that accommodate multi-modal transportation, promoting safety, limiting overall and long-term right of way costs and accommodating other infrastructure improvements and operations, he said.

The firm developed the roadway into four segments for review, including segments from Marshall Street to Richway Avenue, Richway Avenue to Hammer Road, Hammer Road to Hershey Street and Hershey Street to Interstate 90, Vaughn said.

The consultants looked at current and future traffic volumes, and based on the current traffic volumes alone, one of those four segments already failed the threshold for a two-lane road, he said. In the future, all but one will operate over the threshold for a three-lane alternative.

Based on that information, along with comparing the other criteria over the different options, Vaughn said his firm recommended choosing the four-lane divided road option. It’s the only design type that has to be done just once, that can handle traffic for a realistic life of the roadway and that requires right of way only once.

The estimate for these road construction is more than $20 million.

He said Albert Lea and Freeborn County are in a good situation to receive federal funding. There are many different funds to apply for, many of which have to be done within the next month.

That’s why the city and county staff are seeking direction from the public and ultimately the Albert Lea City Council and Freeborn County Board of Commissioners about whether to go after these funds.

After Vaughn finished his presentation, many people questioned some of the points the consultant discussed.

Warren Jensen, of Hale Drive, said he drives a car on Bridge Avenue every day of the year, and he’s familiar with the traffic on the road.

Through all of his observation and thought, he said, he has yet to understand why the project is being done.

“I fail to understand how the present condition of Bridge Avenue is a hardship on any person living in Albert Lea,” Jensen said.

“If anybody wants to see some real traffic problems, come with me,” he said. “I’ll take you to Minneapolis. I’ll show you what some traffic problems are. We don’t have them on Bridge Avenue as what I can see.”

With some minor tweaking — perhaps some more left turn lanes, more sophisticated signal systems, or the removal of boulevard to widen the road in a few places — any problems can be fixed, Jensen said. It requires “good old-fashioned common sense.”

He also expressed he think the city should stop spending money for studies to be done by outside consultants.

When put on the spot to find out his opinion, Commissioner Dan Belshan said, “I believe this is the wrong project on the wrong road at the wrong time.”

This brought cheers to the crowd. Belshan said he thinks the elected officials need to listen to the people with viable economic options in mind.

Former Albert Lea Mayor Bob Haukoos talked about the lack of growth in Albert Lea during the last many years and the declining school enrollment.

He said he believes a major expansion would destroy the north side of the community, resulting in lost tax base, and the loss of 32 homes, 10 business directly. Then there are 10 other business that would also be affected. He asked whether a larger road would take additional maintenance.

Stuart Olson, of Richway Drive, said for him the biggest bottleneck on Bridge Avenue has always been around Hawthorne Street going uptown.

Many others identified that intersection as a key problem as well.

Others talked of wise spending and warned the county and city to make sure the funding was obtained before they went after anything.

“Find the funding before you start buying,” said Bill Weiser of Bridge Avenue. “We all have to be on a budget, and this is not a budget. This is a shopping spree.”

Other questioned the current and future traffic counts for the road.

Miller said those counts are conducted by the state Department of Transportation. Another count is scheduled for this summer. That number has increased so much because Albert Lea and many other cities in the country are now communities where everyone has to drive themselves, whether it be teenagers or both spouses in the home.

Albert Lea City Engineer Steven Jahnke said he hopes people realize that Bridge Avenue and the infrastructure underneath of it are not going to last forever. Because of this, staff have to make sure that when they’re making decisions on how to replace it, they’re going to do so with what will be the most fiscally responsible option for 80 to 100 years down the line, he said. They don’t want to replace the road with a two-lane road again and then find out in 20 years that wasn’t the best option.

“Five years from now we’ll be just fine,” he said. “But it’s that 20, 30, 50 years down the road.”

The engineer said though people keep saying Bridge Avenue is fine the way it is, from his perspective, it is not.

Over a three-year period there were 164 car wrecks on this road.

“As an engineer, that’s not fine,” Jahnke said.

The public identified they would like a more detailed description of these wrecks — where they occurred, what age groups they occurred by and at what times of day they happened.

Haukoos pointed out that the severity of the crashes has been very low, with no fatalities, most of which happened because of inattentive drivers.

Miller reassured people that no decisions have been made about what should be done for the road. But “if we’re going to put it back, we need to put it back right,” she said.

She noted that she thinks the community has a lot going for itself and that people need to have a positive perspective about what the community can be.

“We don’t have enough money to do things twice,” Miller said. “We have to do it right the first time.”

Newly seated Albert Lea Mayor Mike Murtaugh thanked the large crowd for attending the meeting and said he wanted to reassure people that as a new council, there have not been any decisions made.

“If the direction has changed since the 2005 study, we need to know that,” Murtaugh said.

He encouraged people to contact their city councilors and commissioners with their opinions.

The meeting was televised live on the government access channel and will be replayed at future times.

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