They want to cut down on accidents. Monday night (10/15), the Oskaloosa City Council approved traffic safety improvements that include changing A Avenue from Highway 432 to the eastern edge of town and Market Street from 16th Avenue to 2nd Avenue from four lane roads to three lane. That will happen when the Iowa DOT re-paves those roads—which the DOT isn’t scheduled to do for a few years. Oskaloosa City Manager Michael Schrock Jr. says the City will try to make that happen sooner.
“So the idea is we’ll take the Council’s action tonight, approach the DOT and say ‘Look, the Council supports the idea of converting from four (lanes) to three for safety reasons. But we’re predicating that on you completing the overlay of A Avenue’, which they’ve said to us will be within three to five years.”
A study of traffic crashes in Oskaloosa between 2012 and 2016 found several accidents took place on A Avenue, with the intersection of A and Market Street having the most accidents. The City Council also approved changing traffic signal timings as a way to reduce traffic delays.
