Directions sought for Main Street

While New Prague’s Main Street project, scheduled for the year 2020, is still in the planning stages, representatives of the City of New Prague, the city’s engineering firm Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH) Inc. and Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) held an open house the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 17. Held at the Emergency Services Building (New Prague Fire Department and North Memorial Ambulance) the open house was for residents and business owners.

Sixteen people were at the meeting, which was the first of two that day, with the second held from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Also known as the Downtown Highway 19 Project, the work will on Highway 19/13 (Main Street) will go from Highway 21 on the west to Seventh Avenue SE on the east. It will include reconstruction of underground utilities (sanitary sewer, water main, and storm sewer) as well as reconstruction of the roadway, curb and gutter, sidewalks, landscaping and street lighting.

The group was told that a traffic control options at First Avenue NE/SE and Columbus Avenue re being discussed. One option is to keep the current traffic signals at First Avenue and install them at Columbus Avenue. The other is to go with mini-roundabouts at both intersections.

Chris Cavett of SEH Inc., explained the town of St. James recently had miniroundabouts installed. It was noted that a safety benefit is that car crashes are less severe. The center area would only be raised slightly allowing semi-trucks and buses to go over it. It was asked what type of feedback St. James has received about the mini-roundabout. It was explained there hasn’t been much as it had just opened to traffic.

Public Works Director Glen Sticha said Shakopee’s Vierling Avenue has a...

To see more on this story pick up the October 19, 2017 print edition of The New Prague Times.