Fairfield council exploring switch to two-way traffic in downtown

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield City Council is exploring a plan to change downtown streets to two-way traffic, back to the way it was in the 1950s.

The council voted unanimously at its meeting Monday, Feb. 10 to instruct Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson to refine a proposal that would not only change the downtown to two-way traffic but would also make other changes to crosswalks, adding pedestrian curb bump-outs, establishing a bike lane, and altering some parking spaces from diagonal to parallel.

Carlson presented maps of the downtown with these proposed changes to the council Monday. She said some of the ideas for the changes came from recommendations of the Public Safety and Transportation Committee a year ago, as well as more recent meetings. For instance, when representatives of the Downtown Resource Center visited Fairfield for three days in November, one of their main pieces of advice was to consider reversing the one-way downtown streets like Ottumwa did to its downtown.

“It’s been recommended by about every outside consultant who has visited Fairfield in the last eight years,” Carlson said.

Carlson said it was possible to change Fairfield’s downtown from one-way to two-way streets just by restriping, with the exception of Burlington, which would need additional changes. However, the reason Carlson proposed more sweeping changes, such as pedestrian curb bump-outs and a bike lane, is that the city should decide on the direction of traffic flow before it makes any infrastructure improvements, and the city could use some improvements.

“The public safety committee looked at bike lanes on Burlington [Avenue], and their motion was that we should not restripe at that time, but to keep it in the back of our minds for when we overlay Burlington, because it will need resurfacing at some point,” Carlson said.

According to the proposal that Carlson presented to the council Monday, the bike lane would be 5 feet wide, corner pedestrian bump-outs would be added on Burlington Avenue where it intersects Main and Court streets, parking would be changed from diagonal to parallel on the north side of Burlington Avenue, and the intersection of Court and Burlington would be changed to a four-way stop.

The next step in the process will be to meet with engineers from French-Reneker-Associates and representatives of the Iowa Department of Transportation to iron out the fine details, such as how large to make the pedestrian crosswalk bump-outs, how it would affect the downtown traffic signals, etc.

“The DOT could say, ‘We love the idea’ or ‘We’ll meet somewhere in the middle,’” Carlson said.

Paul Gandy, chair of the Economic Development Committee that reviewed Carlson’s proposal the week before, said his committee has been discussing a switch to two-way traffic since August, even before the Downtown Resource Center recommended it.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com