2003 Year in Review

US 30 Back to the Drawing Board

Bill Shirk and Bob Bees at the U.S. 30 informational meeting.

IDOT is going back to the drawing board according to Morrison residents Bob Bees and Bill Shirk. They met with Program Development Engineer Ross Munk and Jeff Smith of IDOT to start a dialogue between Morrison and IDOT about the US 30 changes.

Bees wanted IDOT to know there were a “significant number of residents that were unhappy with the engineering changes” but they acknowledged receiving negative feedback already.

Safety was IDOT’s main concern when designing the project. Bees had summarized the accident reports for the last three years and found very few accidents in the residential areas where they want to make three lanes. IDOT was using older reports and were surprised by the results. Bees also explained, “even a small change in a small community can have a big impact”. Morrison is basically a bedroom community and Bees and Shirk felt the engineers are working very hard to accommodate the community. “They were very good to work with and we approached them from an engineering point of view.”

Another point they discussed was the concern surrounding the stop light at Garden Plain Road and another at Carroll Road. The Carroll Road light is not in the plans. Bees said he hoped to hear back from IDOT fairly soon, approximately next month.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
October 16, 2003