At the April 15 Hastings City Council meeting, Dakota County Transportation Project Manager Bryce LeBrun reviewed the CSAH 42 Pedestrian corridor study and presented four alternative options that would promote pedestrian safety. LeBrun began by giving some background on this project.
“This effort was originally part of the 2021-2022 counties pedestrian crossing safety assessment. In that effort, that was something that we worked with the traffic department to basically find representative sites across Dakota County with all our different roadway types… two lane, three lane, four lane, rural, urban, suburban, all different contexts, to basically try to get consistent pedestrian crossing safety, infrastructure treatments, and then also applications for those. We tried to find representative locations all the way across the county with some geographic equity and tried to get one in at least every municipality.”
An open house was held on January 23, 2024, for the purpose of gathering input from residents to locate difficult crossings and determine general usage patterns. The open house feedback and data collections emphasized the need for speed reduction, trail connectivity and shorter pedestrian crossings. The alternative options included bump outs, medians, trail/sidewalk extensions/elimination/widening, trail/sidewalk crossing location enhancement/reduction, on-street bike facilities and round-a-about. The city would be responsible for 15% of the costs of the study. Following his presentation, LeBrun answered questions from the council.
Councilmember DawnMarie Vihrachoff complimented LeBrun on the “incredibly helpful presentation” and asked after looking at all the alternatives with each one eliminating the bypass lane, was that decision based on public feedback or accident records or other reports?
LeBrun explained that in some locations bypass lanes were turned into left turn lanes. “It's kind of nuanced, but I guess it's both,” he stated. “The bypass lane isn't really something that is a common practice in urbanized area like this, in order to curb and more things going on than a rural area, so that was the initial assumption. Then we checked it at each location, whether it needed a left turn lane with those intersection counts. It wasn't really a public feedback thing. It was just the public feedback part of it was more we heard from folks that the issue was occurring. So luckily, through this area, we didn't have a ton of really, bad crash issues necessarily displayed. But that's not really something that we wait around for anymore. There are certain things that we see that we know are issues that could cause that type of crash that we're trying to get ahead.”
Councilmember Lisa Leifeld asked if work has begun on the Dakota County expansion of the lower Spring Lake Park Trail up to the trail that connects Lake Clayton and the connecting bike trail from the lower Spring Lake. LeBrun said construction has begun and the work should be done by fall. Leifeld raised concerns about the section near Lock and is happy to hear that the safety issues of crossing at this spot are being considered.
Councilmember Jen Fox attended the first public hearing and said it was well attended and then asked going forward that the city keep this in mind for future budgeting. LeBrun said although it’s early in the planning process, there could be alternative funding options for through grants.
As a resident who lives in this area, Councilmember Dave Pemble said “I've heard a lot from constituents, that whatever happens there, they don't want to see any speed increase or any ability to make it easier to get to downtown. I think that the discussion, and I was at the open house you had before, I've had more than a handful of people call me since that and say, ‘Hey, make sure that we hold the speed down.’ I'm on the board at Lakeside, and we are very concerned about the right turn, left turn access there into our entrance area. So, keep us abreast and let us know how this is going to proceed. Thank you.”
Mayor Mary Fasbender stated she appreciated the four alternative site plans and offers her concerns. “We have a lot on our plate futuristically. So, I'd be asking, I guess for what's the safest and the most impactful with not as much change, because we know how people love change, but cost effective too. And futuristically can we, down the road, add the Pleasant Street roundabout, I know that's what you're looking into the future, but I appreciate consideration and just the financial part of it.”
LeBrun agreed and assured the council these plans are fluid at this stage and said, “And, again, looking at the alternatives as a whole doesn't necessarily mean everything you see on the page has to happen all at once… Like I said, we're not looking to completely reconstruct the roadway, right? We are trying to find that sweet spot where, you know, we think we can make it work. There's still time even after we come up with a preferred layout to potentially split things up. I was very careful to say project or projects. So, this 2028 is an opportunity, right, to potentially implement some or all of these things. And yeah, there's a lot of different levers we can pull to those ends.”
After presenting the four options, LeBrun predicted that final plans and bidding to be in the fall/winter of 2024 for that trail segment off highway, potential 2025 construction and a tentative overlay for 2028 for this corridor. He announced there will be a second round of public engagement set for May 6 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the YMCA.
