(Spencer)– There was some additional news following Thursday evening’s Highway 71 meeting in Arnolds Park. Dakin Schultz, a transportation planner with the D.O.T’s region three office in Sioux City, confirmed to KUOO news plans are in the works to construct a round-about at the North Y in Spencer…
“We’ve got a project scheduled I believe it’s for, tentatively scheduled for 2027, for the round-about at the North Y. There will be a public meeting coming up soon, I think it’s later this year on that, but the city has put in the backage road, I think it’s called second avenue, maybe, for the Kwik Star. We’ve been working with them on cleaning up the accesses along ’71, but that intersection has proven to continue giving us fits as far as accidents and the high speeds, the volume of traffic that’s moving through it, so we think the round-about is a solution for that. It slows everybody down, it moves a lot of traffic.”
Schultz says round-abouts have a proven record of efficiency when it comes to safely moving traffic…
“We’ve got a single lane that we just introduced in Orange City in August and it has worked magnificently. We are going to put one in in Cherokee county in Marcus on 3 and 143 intersection, we’re looking at 2026 for that one as well, so. When we evaluate these we also look at the type of traffic that’s moving through it. I’m not talking about that weekend summer traffic, but we’re also looking at the wind blades that come through, the farm equipment, so that when we do the design of this we are evaluating those extra large loads that have a tendency to move their way through northwest Iowa.”
Schultz says talks between the D.O.T, the city of Spencer and Clay county are ongoing when it comes to the North Y.
