ABOVE: A look at Blue Earth Avenue in Fairmont heading east from Downtown Plaza. The city is looking to add some improvements to the street which could include removing traffic signals and replacing them with two-way stop signs or roundabouts.

FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council heard a presentation on the Blue Earth Avenue traffic study during its Monday night meeting. The study came as the city is planning to reconstruct Blue Earth Avenue from Park Street to State Street this summer and looking to incorporate some improvements on the heavily used street.

The Blue Earth Avenue project begins east of Downtown Plaza and runs east to Trunk Highway 15. Jennifer McCoy, a senior traffic engineer with Bolton & Menk, led the presentation of the study and provided some recommendations.

“We had five intersections that we looked at along the corridor. The existing condition today is a four lane, undivided roadway with parking on one side,” McCoy explained.

There are 40 on-street parking spaces from Park Street to State Street and the study showed that parking is used more on the weekends than the weekdays.

Speaking more to daily traffic on the road, McCoy said that west of Park Street there’s about 4,550 vehicles and traveling east traffic volume picks up until there’s about 7,400 vehicles on the road in a day.

She said they looked into what traffic would be like on that stretch 20 years from now and that Park Street carries less volume than Prairie Avenue with State Street carrying the most.

Some of the other things McCoy said they looked at include traffic signals and whether any turn lanes are needed. They also looked at history of crashes to see if there are any safety concerns.

“Looking at 2045, our highest daily volume on this roadway is just under 10,000 vehicles a day. A three-way roadway has been shown to handle up to 20,000 vehicles a day. This is showing that the volumes on Blue Earth (Avenue) are all within the range of what a three-way can handle,” McCoy said.

She said that all of the intersections in the study are currently at level of service A to B which means the intersection is operating well. She said most communities want to be functioning at level service D or better.

“This is showing that today your intersections are operating well. This is both in the A.M. peak and the P.M. peak,” McCoy said.

With a three-lane road, McCoy said data shows that the intersections would continue to operate at level service B or better.

Next, she talked to the council more about what the road would look like as a three-lane, as opposed to the current four-lane.

“Today the roadway is 56 feet wide curb to curb. This project doesn’t include reconstructing the entire roadway. Curbs weren’t planned to be moved, but as the new pavement is put on, the roadway can be re-stripped in a new way,” McCoy said.

She spoke about what could be done with the extra space and provided the council with some renderings that showed different options, including parking on both sides, parking on one side and a bike route on the other or no parking but buffered bike lanes.

Another thing that was touched on in the study was what some intersections would look like without traffic signals. Two options are two-way stop control at Prairie and Park or a mini roundabout like the one by Downtown Plaza.

“I think what this data is showing us is they work well at level of service A,” McCoy said.

She said that a roundabout would provide better queuing and flow for the side streets than the two-way stop.

As for costs, whether the city proceeds with signals, roundabouts or stop signs, McCoy said they are all relatively similar, but that the state would not provide assistance for unwarranted traffic signals to be rebuilt, but that it would provide assistance for roundabouts and side street stop signs.

McCoy said next steps include figuring out if the council wants to drop from four lanes to three lanes and which cross section is desired and then what the best traffic control option is for Park Street and Prairie Street.

Following McCoy’s presentation, the council had the opportunity to ask some preliminary questions.

Council Member Britney Kawecki pointed out that according to a MnDOT traffic count, overall traffic on Blue Earth Avenue has been declining. She asked whether past Park Street it would be needed to have three lanes with a turn lane.

“Having intersections at every block, it allows for the left turns at the intersection to keep traffic moving. That’s what the left turn lane does,” McCoy explained.

Kawecki asked if the parking spaces were eliminated whether it was possible to put in some storm water management. McCoy said it was possible but that those plans weren’t included in the budgeting for the project.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said he thought that getting rid of the parking on the south side of Blue earth Avenue would be an issue.

“I would say that eliminating all parking on Blue Earth Avenue is not something that I could support at this time,” Lubenow said.

In closing the conversation Kawecki said she wanted to see more public engagement. McCoy said she agreed and suggested that the council do something both in person and online to allow for more people to voice their thoughts.