BROOKINGS — The city’s leaders got a peek at potential improvements in the community’s transportation network over the next 25 years at the May 26 meeting of the Brookings City Council.
Formally known as the Brookings Area Transportation Plan, it focuses on all sorts of traffic — from motorists to bicyclists to pedestrians — and how the road network can be improved to efficiently and safely handle it as the city continues to grow. It’s several years in the making at a cost of $225,056.88, of which the city’s share is 20%, or $45,011.38.
The presentation, which also included information on the Brookings Area Safety Plan, held the attention of councilors for the better part of an hour. No action was taken, but it’s expected to come before the council again for possible acceptance as early as June 9.
Councilor Holly Tilton Byrne sought further insights regarding the impact the plans could have on Brookings and the surrounding area.
“When we vote on that, we’re not necessarily saying that everything that is in this plan will be implemented, correct?” she inquired.
“That is correct. It would be a process over many, many years and when grants are available as well,” City Manager Paul Briseno explained. “It would include discussions when we bring the capital improvement plan to you as far as the budgeting process. … It doesn’t mean that everything is going to be implemented, and not everything is going to be implemented immediately. There’s still a lot of public discussions that would have to take place for any one of these projects.”
Tilton Byrne cited past experiences in her follow-up to Briseno’s comment.
“I think for those of us on council, we’re pretty familiar with other master plans that we operate under knowing that not everything that’s in those plans gets implemented,” she noted. “Sometimes we amend those plans. As time goes on, they really become kind of living documents that help guide our decision-making process. I just wanted to make that really clear for the public.”
If accepted later in June, the BATP would look at several potential solutions to improve traffic flow in Brookings, including putting several routes on “road diets” — in other words, narrowing them and reallocating space for pedestrians and bicycles. These would include sections of:
• Main Avenue South: From Eighth Street South to 20th Street South, narrowing it from five lanes to three lanes.
• Summit Pass: From 16th Avenue South to Western Avenue South, narrowed to two lanes.
• 15th Street South: From Medary Avenue South to 17th Avenue South, narrowed to two lanes.
• Medary Avenue: From Eighth Street to Sixth Street, reducing it from four lanes to three lanes.
“A lot of times across the nation, cities are constantly adding more and more lanes because people assume it’s safer (and) better (to get to) places quicker,” Briseno said. “Can you help us understand how narrowing the road actually makes it safer?”
HDR representative Thomas Cook took up the baton.
“When we think about it from a multimodal standpoint: Pedestrians, you’re looking at reducing a lane, so reducing the crossing distance a pedestrian has to cross to the other side, and it limits their exposure to a vehicle collision. It also gets them across the street faster,” he explained.
Cook added that, in general, with five lanes vehicles tend to spread out more, so narrowing can consolidate traffic flow a bit more and slow it down at the same time. It can also assist with things such as controlling left-turn conflicts, especially on roadways like Medary where it’s “an undivided four-lane; there’s no left-turn lane.”
Potential downtown changes are also part of the mix to, again, enhance safety for all road users. Narrowing could be among those changes, along with bike lanes, but nothing is set in stone at the moment. The focus was on these route segments:
• Main Avenue: From Third Street to Sixth Street.
• Third Avenue: From Third Street to Sixth Street.
• Fifth Avenue: From Third Street to Sixth Street.
In closing the discussion, Mayor Oepke “Ope” Niemeyer raised the issue of the intersection of Sixth Street and Western Avenue, and the possibility of putting a roundabout there.
Cook indicated that the plan includes the potential for a traffic signal or a reconfigured roundabout at what he called “probably the most high-profile location.”
Niemeyer agreed. “That corner is a consistent complaint item,” the mayor said. “I get that comment to me at least once a week.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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