Village of Spencer requests DoT change lane configuration near 98/13 intersection

By Valorie Brecht With Highway 13 having recently been redone, it has brought up some changes with how the roadway is laid out. At the Aug. 12 village board meeting, village administrator/clerk-treasurer Chris Helgestad discussed possible changes to the marking of the intersection between Highway 98/Highway C and Highway 13.

“So I’ve actually had some conversation with the engineer for that project and one of the DOT (Department of Transportation) members was on site to look at it, and everyone’s aware that there’s some issues there. It’s obviously not marked very well, and there aren’t really any signs south of the intersection to indicate.

“So you’ve got two lanes heading north, but as soon as the west side lane passes through the intersection, it becomes a left turn only lane. And so you basically have to merge from that lane to the right within that short block between the lights and Main Street. So what we’ve asked the DOT to do is to consider making that approach to the intersection from the south a left turn only lane, right turn only lane and a straight lane. And then the straight lane would merge to the east side lane as soon as you got through the intersection.

“There’s even some talk that they will potentially stripe that lane inside the intersection. So as you go through the intersection, you just follow that stripe right into the next lane. They have said that there’s some intersections now in the state that DOT is striping right through the intersection, so there’s no confusion.”

He said also there had been some discussion of putting up signage indicating “no right turn on red” for those approaching the intersection from the east that were going to be turning north onto Highway 13.

“Because if you have two lanes coming, and they need to merge into one, and somebody turns right on the red there, you could have three cars that are potentially trying to merge into one lane,” he said.

The project engineers planned to take that recommendation back to the DOT.

The reason the stretch of Highway 13 north of the intersection has been changed to one lane going north instead of two has to do with pedestrian safety. When Highway 13 north of the lights was in the design phase, the DOT came to the village

Please see Lane configuration, page 9

A temporary sign indicates a left turn only lane immediately north of the Highway 13/98 intersection in Spencer. Currently, motorists have less than a block to merge into the right lane. The Village of Spencer has requested changing the approach to the intersection from the south to only one lane going straight, so motorists are prepared before the intersection.

VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO

from p. 1

and suggested changing from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a turn only lane in between. That center lane accommodates left turns down any side street from either direction, not just the first one north of the lights.

When the DOT made that suggestion, “it’s possible the DOT was responding to our plans for a Safer Routes to School program, but I wasn’t part of that process at the time,” said Helgestad.

“The goal was to make it safer for kids to cross the highway when walking to and from school. In the old configuration, kids had to cross four lanes of traffic, often in situations where they couldn’t see past the first lane to know it was safe to cross. Only one lane in each direction, with the center turn lane, reduces the amount of blind spots kids have to worry about.

“The issue with the Highway 13 and Highway 98/Highway C intersection is a bit of an oversight on DOT’s part. They just didn’t completely envision what that intersection was going to look like after the change,” Helgestad added.

The DOT had originally suggested making it one lane in each direction, with a center turn lane, going south of the lights to the village limits as well. Then the intersection would have naturally matched up on both sides. But the village didn’t think that was necessary, as the railroad tracks on the west side of Highway 13 make a center turn lane non-functional in that direction. Without kids crossing Highway 13 in this area, there was no hazard to mitigate, and the village thought it better to keep that area two lanes in each direction.

“I think our suggestion to the DOT, to mirror the north side and the south side (of the Highway 98/13 intersection) with left turn, right turn, and center straight lanes will work well. Unfortunately, it just takes time to work through the approval process. The DOT engineers on site helping to communicate our recommendation to DOT upper management don’t have the authority to make these kinds of changes without oversight and approval,” said Helgestad.

He planned to keep the board aware of any progress on the issue.