We had a fantastic night last night at BINGO, Holy Buckets, what a great crowd. Steve, Zach and myself on behalf, of KDOM, want to say, thanks for putting up with us. We never said we were good with crowds, that’s why we’re in Radio, we just get to talk to the masses without actually seeing anyone!! It was a super fun night and we loved being sponsors, and we hope everyone went home a little bit happier. It was also a big night for the Windham City Council, fortunately, Councilwoman Jenny Quaid has agreed to step in for the news today and give us an update on what happened. Thanks Jenny, for being here. First off, I’m curious as to what the attendance was and who was there.
ANSWER: Councilwoman Jenny Quade:
Yes, we had a representative Marge Fogelman. She was busy with a caucus meeting and couldn’t come to a little later, but she arrived a little after 8pm. Senator Bill Weber was there right away and for the whole meeting and made some good comments during the meeting. The Department of Transportation had five representatives there. They ranged from an Assistant Engineer to the Safety Engineer to the District Traffic Engineer to their Public Coordinator just a full range of people that they brought in. They also brought in one of the Lieutenants from State Patrol to come in and talk a little bit as well and I counted about nine community members at one point that were present for the meeting to listen and we had a lot of City Department Heads present to just to listen and observe with what was going on and being said with the DOT.
Highway 60/71 and the Stoplights are such a major issue right now, and I know you and the rest of the council are struggling as the rest of the city are with the timeline and understanding the whys. The statistics are available in the council packets (available on the City Website), but can you explain their statistics?
ANSWER: Councilwoman Jenny Quade:
Saying that there was like 17% reduction in injury crashes from pre-conversion to post- conversion. Okay, well, it’s 7 and 6, you know, it’s only one crash difference, but that makes it a 17% reduction, so, yes, statistically, it looks like less injury accidents, but when you look in the study further, that pre-conversion time frame, there were 12 crashes total and then in the post-conversion, there were 24 crashes total, so actually there was double the amount of crashes after the restriping, but you know, they’re defining that 58% of those 12 crashes pre-conversion involved injury, where only 25% of the 24 crashes post-conversion involved injury, so they’re saying, I mean you we had more crashes, but there were less injuries after the restriping.
The discussion was intense at times, and I believe MnDOT might understand where the frustrations are coming from. So where do we sit right now with the North End issue?
ANSWER: Councilwoman Jenny Quade:
Well, I think we gained a little ground with the Department of Transportation agreeing to partner with us on the speed sign north and southbound, going in and out of Windom- on the south side, it will remain to be seen what kind of expensive that’s going to be to the city, but they are willing to partner with us with installing that, so I think that’s a win and then also, they’re partnering with us and both applying for grant funding to install a roundabout if funding and everything you know works out, it still would be 2027 or 2028 before that roundabout could happen. So, we’re still looking at a little ways out for that round about to happen. If that funding comes through, you know, we’re making progress and they’re still not wanting to move forward with the four-lane, or return to the four-lane because they said they would like to try out first the reduction and speed with the speed signs and then hopefully that roundabout, because truly the roundabout will reduce speed, and then also in doing the roundabout, it may change the access coming in and out for people at Kwik Trip, so maybe we can make that a more smother transition, so I do see that there’s some possibility, but like I said, that’s still a couple of years out, so we got to rely on these speed signs we got to rely on, our local patrol and State Patrol, for monitoring, and just reminding citizens to slow down and be careful, be cautious.
Thanks Jenny for stopping in, Jenny will be back for tomorrow’s news to talk about the stoplight issue and on Friday, we will touch on the potential of Berms being built.
Whole Headline Newscast if you would like to rehear: