North Iowa Reporter

Clear Lake is getting some state assistance as the city looks to get started on some needed traffic safety improvements along 27th Avenue.

“In December we were notified by the DOT (Department of Transportation) that our application was being fully funded,” City Administrator Scott Flory said at the March 20 council meeting. “So, we're here tonight to ask for your approval of the funding agreement between the DOT and the city for this.”

The project involves the intersection of 27th Avenue South and 8th Street. The city submitted a grant application for a traffic safety study at the intersection through the traffic engineering assistance program in December 2021. That request was funded, and the study was done in the first half of 2022.

Last summer, city officials reviewed the recommendations that came out of that study, Flory said. “The one we selected as what we had applied for with these flashing beacons, intersection warning signs and plaques and those kinds of things that at that intersection,” he said.

With a solution in mind, the city applied to the Traffic Safety Improvement Program Fund in August, seeking $15,090 for the plan. The funding was approved in full and will subsidize the cost of two sets of rumble strips, pavement markings, pavement markings stop bars, solar powered, sign replacement and posts for new signs. All of that work will be done by the public works department, though some of the electric wiring having to be bid out for outside work, Flory explained.

Due to the high degree of government involvement and the slow speed with which funding is decided and delivered, once the council approves the funding agreement with the DOT, city leaders can start planning for this project to occur in their next fiscal year, with work to be done in 2024. The council likely will not order any supplies or send out bids for some time yet, as they are also required to have all their spending occur within their next fiscal year.

The traffic safety project will affect the two intersections on 27th Avenue and is part of a larger project in the community and state to improve traffic safety for pedestrians and drivers to decrease collisions and injuries. There are no other recommendations for the area so far, although one council member brought up the question of changing speed limits in the area.

The intersection with 8th Street did not have a high number of accidents, only a handful over the past few years, but all of them resulted from drivers running the stop signs, so some were very severe. The new flashers and signs should increase the awareness of drivers and prevent such accidents in the future.