With the approval of an agreement between the City of Knoxville and the Iowa Department of Transportation, work will begin in earnest on the reconstruction and reconfiguration of Lincoln Street next year.
The “road diet” plan wasn’t well received by some in Knoxville when it was up for debate; but with the decision made, City Manager Aaron Adams believes the community will eventually come to accept the changes and see the potential benefit in terms of traffic in town.
He tells KNIA/KRLS News this decision was made after consultation with experts, who say this setup will be safer…and with the new traffic signals accompanying the project, more modern.
“We rely on traffic engineers and traffic studies; they tell us this will be a safer configuration,” Adams says. “Some of the benefits are already coming to the city; we were awarded $900,000 dollars in DOT funding to help us with our signals, a project that needs to be done.
“Our signals cannot stay with what we have; they’re antiquated, they fail, they’re difficult to replace because of their age.”
Adams says because of its acceptance of the IDOT plan, the city was able to leverage the funds it needs to get these improvements, to the benefit of local taxpayers.
