Dickinson works on traffic flow: Left turns at Museum Drive intersection suspended
It could be a long and slow summer for drivers traveling down Highway 22 through the Museum Drive intersection, Dickinson city officials said Monday at the Dickinson City Commission meeting at City Hall.
- Soehren
- Jackson
It could be a long and slow summer for drivers traveling down Highway 22 through the Museum Drive intersection, Dickinson city officials said Monday at the Dickinson City Commission meeting at City Hall.
“If you’ve been on Highway 22, they have started road construction and we are already seeing the backups that are being caused, and we are not even really to the heart of the disruption yet,” City Engineer Shawn Soehren said.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation will replace the intersection road and traffic signals for each quadrant in four phases, including left-turn signals for each segment, Soehren said. Traffic will be reduced to two lanes on both roads with no room for left turns, he added.
“There will be disruptions to traffic flow, and there will be inconveniences to the public,” Commission Vice President Gene Jackson said.
Construction should last six to eight weeks, the city engineer said. If left turns are allowed it will cause more delays at the busy intersection, which takes on traffic from Interstate 94, he added.
Travelers should try to avoid Highway 22 as much as possible, Soehren said. Jackson suggested that residents use other routes, such as State Avenue and 10th Avenue East.
“It’s been needed for a long time,” Soehren said. “It’s going to be much better travel once it’s done. We just got to get through this part of it in order to get to that end result.”
In other news, the commission unanimously passed an ordinance stating buildings must be at least 100 feet from an oil or natural gas well head, but the Dickinson Fire Department wanted the ordinance to include saltwater disposal sites.
“The fire department is always going to err on the side of safety,” DFD Fire Prevention Specialist Deb Barros said. “It’s not as great a risk — I will admit that — as an oil well.”
The Dickinson fire code doesn’t include saltwater disposal sites, Borras said. The DFD is concerned with above-ground tanks, which could ignite through static electricity sparks and lightning.
Saltwater injection sites are classified as service wells under the Dickinson City Code. The ordinance only covers oil and gas wells. The commission would have to change the definitions to include saltwater disposal sites, City Attorney Matthew Kolling said.
“We just don’t want to miss the boat on a piece of this because, although it has been on regulation for the past 50 years, we’re going to see more intensity of saltwater as we move forward with oil production,” Commissioner Klayton Oltmanns.
Residential, educational, industrial occupancy and places of assembly must be at least 300 feet away from a well head, according to the ordinance.
The commission has rescheduled its July 2 meeting to July 10. It has its meetings on the first and third Monday of the month, but a quorum will not be present for the first Monday, Kolling said.
Tags: dickinson city commission, news, dickinson, traffic
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