Le Mars considers highway redesign options for Business Highway 75, 3 designs selected awaiting a final decision

LE MARS, Iowa (KTIV) – Le Mars city leaders are considering a major redesign of Business Highway 75 and want public input before making a decision.

The city is weighing three design concepts for the highway corridor.

The first option would maintain four lanes, keeping the current four-lane configuration throughout the project limits.

Concept two is a three-lane conversion that would convert the entire length of the project to a three-lane roadway with a continuous center turn lane. The Iowa DOT says this technique has been shown to reduce crashes by about half.

The third concept is a hybrid configuration that would involve three lanes in the northern section, starting at Godfather’s, and four lanes in the southern section.

“The whole corridor was redone about 8 years ago. It’s been falling apart ever since, so now we’re going to look at just completely redoing it rather than just wasting money on repairs,” said Councilman Brian Bruns.

A report from DGR Engineering with findings from an open house about the project was presented to the council earlier this week. Follow this link to the council agenda, where the report starts on page 30.

The most common theme was a desire to maintain the highway as a four-lane corridor. Many community comments add that the corridor is too busy for lane reductions or bike lanes, especially with heavy truck traffic.

Safety was the second-highest priority. The public comments highlighted safer turning movements, improved pedestrian crossings, consistent speeds, and better traffic control as essential characteristics of the future roadway.

Bruns took to social media to hear more from community members on what they want to see. There are no additional public hearings.

“We are just gathering public input. They can comment on the Facebook post or call their council members directly. Let them know their thoughts about which way we should go with the corridor. It’s not what the council wants but what the public wants to do,” he said.

There are no additional public hearings.

The council will not pick a design option until the next council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 6, allowing the public time to provide any additional comments to council members.

City officials shared at a public meeting back in November that $800,000 has been spent on repairs to this roadway since 2020.

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