Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/03/2005

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Councilmember Olson stated as she sees it, this is a public safety issue for the citizens that live in the Mallard Pond area. She suggested the possibility of using a remote control gate that could be operated only by City officials and the residents of Mallard Ponds. Councilmember Cook stated they still have to look at the secondary issue of Mallard Ponds having a second way out for the residents. The only solution he can see is to open the gate and close 142nd Avenue. The Barium Street entrance is already a huge problem and it needs to be closed. Councilmember Strommen stated she agrees with the policy of two accesses to each deve!opment, which is a public safety standard. This shows the need for the policy of a public street going through townhome developments. This is a unique area surrounded by fairly major roads, and outlined in the memo from Bolten and Menk is that the City needs to think through the transportation vision for this area. She stated the City needs to sit down with the County and State about this area. She does not want to lose sight of the suggestion of the remote control from Councilmember Olson, but the Council needs to be sure they are thinking big enough. Councilmember Elvig noted a lot of this discussion was held at the Public Works meeting. It seems that there are a couple of things that make sense. The opening of the Argon Street gate seems to make sense if they are going to close Barium Street off. There is a major drop there now, and perhaps a major speed bump would be a deterrent to traffic. Also, the closure of 142nd Avenue could help both of these communities and some of their access and cut-through problems. His suggestion would be to start doing some sort of a traffic count as these actions are completed one at a time to determine where the traffic is going. He suggested they put roadblocks down on 142nd Avenue and see what happens to the traffic. Mayor Gamec stated he went to this area and watched the traffic situation. After watching this it surprised him hoTM much traffic there is and the way it jogs through to avoid the traffic. Closing off the access to Highway 47 will not solve that; the traffic will filter even more into a subdivision with inferior streets as far as City standards. Councilmember Strommen stated that is her point of having a bigger vision. Part of the problem is they do not have the capacity on Highway 47 or Dysprosium Street to handle the traffic going south. Mayor Gamec stated he would like to see the gate removed, but he thinks it would bring more problems to the whole area. Councilmember Jeffrey commented he agrees with the regional road area, but he cannot see funneling the traffic thi'ough Mallard Ponds until they realize what that is. Mayor Gamec noted the general consensus seems to be to look at this whole area. Councilmember Elvig indicated there is a timing issue, as there is a closure coming. He suggested Engineering Staff set forth a sequence of studies to take traffic counts and watch traffic PSO City Council/February 8, 2005 Page 10 of 30