City, consultant hold public event on Lincoln Street Corridor

BEATRICE – About 50 people attended an initial open house on a Lincoln Street project in Beatrice. The event Monday, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., was held at the Lincoln Elementary School gym.

J-E-O Consulting Group has been hired by the City of Beatrice to look at possible improvements along Lincoln Street corridor, between 5th and 22nd.
Lonnie Burklund is a traffic and technology department leader for J-E-O…and said Monday’s session was held to get initial feedback and suggestions from the public about what is one of the heaviest-traveled roads in the city.

"The daily traffic is well within capacity of the current two-lane street, but it's interesting there are a lot of driveways, a lot of sidewalk with differences and inconsistencies. Some of the sidewalk is up on the back of the curb, so it's not very pedestrian friendly. Some of it jogs several feet off of the curb. All along the corridor is kind of inconsistent with a typical section where things kind of jog in and out...parking, no parking....a few intersections that are skewed. There's the traffic signal right here at the school where folks are kind of talking about the concept of that, versus a round-about. A lot of little issues all along the corridor....things we're going to try to recommend and get cleaned up as the city programs improvements."

J-E-O has done preliminary topographic and survey work, field review and traffic analysis along the stretch. "We'll get in a mode where we start recommending what would three or four different alternatives look like...what are pros and cons of all those alternatives...what might work, what might not work. Our hope is to come back probably in a May timeline, hold another open house and show folks this is everything we looked at...what do you think of these ideas? We'll probably do some similar exercises...and hopefully that will kind of help everybody frame an opinion of maybe what's a best alternative."

Burklund says the plan is to wrap up the planning process with a report in June, along with cost estimates. He says included would be the potential for a plan to tackle the project in phases.

Monday, the consulting firm had images of the corridor along with an area where the public could write down suggestions. Beatrice City officials were also on hand to answer questions.