In February, the traffic engineering consultants, Benshoof and Associates, Inc., now Wenck Associates, presented the council with a new option for highway expansion.

The new option, Option A, would create a County Road 18 bypass with a lighted intersection at Smiley Road. The bypass would connect to County Road 18 on the west side of the elementary school. The proposal has a three-quarter access at the intersection of Highway 371 and Nisswa Ave. and no access at the current intersection at Main Street. Since February, more evaluations and adjustments have been made to the proposal. Those additions were presented by Traffic Engineer Jim Benshoof at the March 16 committee meeting.

In response to concerns of safety at the school, three alternatives for bypass alignments have been identified. The first has the bypass connection traveling along School Street. The second has alignment between School Street and Pine Haven Road. The third has alignment west of Pine Trail Homes.

Each option was evaluated for potential impacts on the school, as well as impacts on existing and future developments and relative right-of-way and property acquisition costs.

Based on their evaluations, Benshoof said that Option A, with any of the three bypass alignments, will effectively achieve MnDOT¹s objective of improving highway safety. Because it reduces the number of conflict points, areas where a vehicle¹s movement may conflict with another vehicle on the same roadway, from 96 to 42 points the highway would be safer.

³Accidents occur where conflict points exist,² he said. ³Option A does accomplish the objective of improved safety.² Following the presentation by Jim Benshoof, discussion was mostly focused on maintaining access to Main Street and possible effects to businesses.

According to the proposal, there will be a traffic signal about 200 feet off the highway to manage traffic turning downtown and traffic continuing on the bypass. The signals on both the bypass and the highway would be interconnected to prevent congestion.

³With all those...controls, we¹re confident that this (intersection) would function effectively,² Benshoof said. Even with those assurances, questions were asked about whether additional accesses from the highway or turn lanes at the intersection to Main Street would be beneficial.

The land needed for the project may require the relocation of some businesses, specifically The Dairy Queen, The Triangle Store and Dick Parks Gas Co. Relocation would be possible because there would be property available for development, said Benshoof.

On March 17 Benshoof and traffic engineer Aravind Gottemukkula, Mayor Harold Kraus, Planning and Zoning Administrator Loren Wickham and Crow Wing County Highway Engineer Duane Blanck met with MnDOT to discuss Option A.

MnDOT prefers their proposals, said Wickham, but are willing to create an updated layout similar to Option A. The new layout will reflect recommendations made by the engineers and the committee¹s comments and concerns from the March meeting.

The next committee meeting will be scheduled after completion of MnDOT¹s updated layout.