In the local area, our association Citizens Against Motorsports Park (CAMP) sent out a letter to the Eagle Lake area earlier this week. This was not only to make sure everyone is aware of this project, the location, and the concerns, but to also ask for donations to help fund our goal to see due diligence is done. I had a resident reach out to say that they supported our fight but questioned as to why no members were put on the letter, that it seemed rather anonymous. While I agree that it lacks the personal touch of names, it was done to protect the privacy of some who have unfortunately experienced retribution with being vocal. We are leaving their reveals up to them. While we have done so willingly, we ourselves have pulled back from having our names out there as it's not just about us - and for security reasons. We haven't hid where we live in regards to this proposed project but some haven't been so subtle in checking out the home of the "fun haters".
I'd say it shouldn't be this way - that residents should be able to speak up and question their city council or controversial happenings in town without fearing unnecessary complaints or problems at their job. But this is 2020 and nothing is normal right now, so....anyway. On to traffic!
At the September 14th city council meeting there was a presentation by Scott Thompson, Traffic Engineer with MNDOT District 7. This presentation was to address safety concerns posed by the city about CR 17 and 56 along US 14 near Eagle Lake.
CR17 and Hwy 14 is the intersection that was studied for this project's EAW. CR56 is located by Casey's and is known to be a dangerous intersection at times as it's the only one near Eagle Lake that still allows both left and right turns across multiple lanes.
A few options were given for making a change at the intersection of 56/14. The least invasive one is painting a stop "bar" for right turning traffic to pull out a little further and have a better sight line to make their turn. Other options included closing the median and:
1. Placing signage to direct westbound HWY14 drivers coming out of Eagle Lake to use CR17 to CR12 and using the onramps to HWY14
2. Forcing westbound traffic already on CR56 to go east on HWY14 until CR55, take a right and then through Eagle Lake to proceed down CR17 (passing CR56) to CR12 and using the onramps to westbound Hwy14.
3. Forcing westbound traffic already on CR56 to go east on HWY14 and go all the way down to the intersection of CR17 and Hwy14 to use the J-turn.
Options 2 and 3 are shown in the photo.
Option 3 is where we spoke up and said "Please don't". We're very familiar with the left turn only (northbound) lane being used for u-turns, despite the "No U-turns" sign. We've had a number of close calls as some of those u-turns go into the outside lane as we're taking a legal right turn. These illegal left-turns were ignored in the EAW. Should this non-project related traffic be forced to this intersection to go westbound it doesn't take a study to know that a) increase in traffic and b) not everyone will be willing to go the extra distance to the actual J-turn.
For this demonstration CR56 was "Changes Needed", CR55 was "No changes needed" and CR17 was "Continue monitoring".
With a successful appeal to have an Environment Impact Statement done an accurate traffic study could show the impacts that could be expected with this development. Additionally, Hwy 14 traffic near Eagle Lake as a whole should have been addressed as with CR56/Hwy14 being a long known problem, a thorough examination on the current/future impacts of CR17/Hwy14 should be done.
As always, thank you to everyone for your support and please, even if you can't make a donation at this time, go to our GoFundMe and give our page a share or two. It would be greatly appreciated!!