A corridor study open house for the Highway 2 corridor study in Crookston was held tonight inside the Crookston City Hall Council Chambers. It was a great turnout from the community, as the open house allowed the public to hear from team members of the project consultant SRF, members from MnDot, and learn more about what the corridor study is, how it will be conducted, what the goals of the study are, and the timeline moving forward.
The study will be focusing on the one-way streets in downtown Crookston and specifically look to find a solution to the intersection of Broadway and Robert Street. The estimated cost to conduct the study is $200,000. SRF Associate and Project Manager Molly Stewart gave a brief presentation and explained why the open house was important to conduct. “The kickoff is important to let the public know what will be doing, give them information for the project website, and then that way they can follow along and be informed,” said Stewart. “We also can gain some information from the community moving forward by sharing this, and we hope to have their support throughout the process.”
Stewart also explained what she shared in her presentation. “The presentation just provided some background to the study and what our schedule is going to be moving forward,” said Stewart. “We also shared the way people can get involved and showed the different ways they can give feedback on our website.”
The timeline for the study has been broken down into three phases.
Phase 1 will take place this fall and will include breaking down safety issues and identifying corridor users and top priorities and concerns.
Phase two will occur over the winter and into the spring and identify roadway cross-section elements, intersection geometric and control needs, and evaluation and comparisons of concepts.
Phase three will then take place in the spring and summer of 2022 and will include MnDot’s recommendations for improvements and developing an implementation plan. Funding has been secured to start construction on the corridor in 2025.
City Administrator Amy Finch gave her insight into how the evening went and how she feels about the project moving forward. “There has been a lot of hard work to get to this point in the process,” said Finch. “It was a great turnout tonight, and it’s good to see the community is in support of this and cares about what we’re doing. There have been a lot of meetings with SRF and MnDot over the past few weeks. SRF has now provided multiple ways for the community to provide input moving forward, so it’s exciting to see the direction we’re headed.”
One concern raised from the community is finding a solution for truck drivers who come into downtown Crookston. There have been 139 accidents inside the corridor in the past ten years, and 9 of them have included a pedestrian. This is above the state average, and Stewart explained they would be analyzing the data to understand better what steps will need to be taken. “Part of the existing issues and finding solutions to them will be from analyzing different data sources,” said Stewart. “There are different ways to analyze travel patterns and where people are trying to get to, and the same can be said about truck traffic. Once we can understand that we can look at different alternatives and see if we can find solutions to the issue.”
The corridor study will be locally led by the City of Crookston. The final recommended solutions will serve as a long-term implementation moving forward for both the City of Crookston and MnDot. For more information on the study, or if you have any questions, contact information can be found on the project’s website https://www.dot.state.mn.us/d2/projects/studies/hwy2-crookston/. A recording of the presentation Stewart gave will be available soon for those who could not attend the open house. Surveys from this evening that were handed out during the open house will also be available on the project website.
A virtual house will be held in April of 2022 for the community to address final concerns before moving forward with final recommendations.
Slides that were shared during the open house can be found down below –
