BROOKINGS – Three Brookings intersections will get brand-new looks this summer, according to City Engineer Jackie Lanning.

Scheduled for makeovers are Fifth Street South and Medary Avenue, and Second Street South and Main Avenue, as well as 22nd Avenue South and 12th Street South, she said.

Fifth and Medary and Second and Main will have traffic signals replaced. Bowes Construction is the contractor on the projects.

Fifth and Medary first

Lanning said the work will start in June or July; she’s not sure when because they’re waiting to see when the poles will be delivered. She does know that Fifth and Medary will be first on the schedule “because that’s right between the high school and Medary School” and it’s “crucial” to make sure it’s done before school starts. If construction on Second and Main stretches into the fall, it won’t disrupt things as much. The deadline for both projects to be completed is Oct. 13.

“We are also installing new center turn lanes on Fifth Street South,” Lanning said. “Medary Avenue already has these turn lanes.”

Right now, Fifth has just one lane in each direction, so drivers going through the intersection may be caught behind ones waiting to turn left, making traffic stack up a bit. Having that extra lane to sort out drivers by direction “does help with traffic flow,” Lanning said.

Bike improvements

“One improvement that we’re installing that was in the Bicycle Master Plan is larger ramps for a Fifth Street South shared-used path,” she said. “It’ll be set up for an 8-foot future shared-use path on the south side of the intersection.”

To accommodate these improvements, the entire intersection will be widened.

Similar changes will take place on Second and Main, which is where Southside Park is located.

“We are adding east/west center turn lanes. We’re also adding, out of our Bike Master Plan – we called it an extended gutter pan,” Lanning said.

Instead of the typical 2-foot curb and gutter set-up, the street will have a 5-foot gutter pan, so it’ll look like a 5-foot bike path.

“Along with that 5-foot gutter pan is bike crossing buttons,” she said, “so the bicyclists would have their own signal push button ... so they don’t have to go up on the pedestrian ramp to push the button.

“We’re really excited about that, to try our new bike crossing plan and hopefully bicyclists can use it, give us some feedback if they like how that worked,” Lanning said.

Plans call for a center turn lane on Second Street South, which currently has just two lanes.

“That will help improve traffic flow,” Lanning said.

There will also be new ramps at all the corners for pedestrians, she added.

“To do this project, they’ll have to close Second Street South right at the intersection. ... Main Avenue will stay open, but we’ll set up detour signs,” Lanning said. “I don’t know a specific date either.”

22nd and 12th

The intersection of 22nd Avenue South and 12th Street South had a lot of preliminary paperwork done before the physical work will start.

“We will be widening 12th Street South to have a turn lane, and we’re doing curb and gutter and ramps at that one,” Lanning said.

“We had two traffic studies done to see if it would meet warrants for a traffic signal – which it does not meet at this time. We’re gonna install the center turn lanes and the ramps for a future signal at a later date, so everything’s laid out correctly; it just won’t have the signal. It’ll just be a stop sign,” Lanning said.

Clark Drew Construction will handle the work and has to meet an Oct. 21 deadline. Lanning expects the work to be done throughout the summer and early fall.

Concrete, asphalt work

One of the first projects the city will tackle is concrete maintenance, which includes a number of new curb ramps that will be brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and a new sidewalk along 22nd Avenue near 12th Street. One sidewalk to be improved will be the connection from Larkspur Ridge Road to Dakota Prairie Elementary. The project will include curb ramps near South Dakota State University, in conjunction with SDSU, “which is really exciting for us to have an ADA corridor north of Sixth Street,” Lanning said.

Also slated for this summer is the asphalt overlay project. Contractor Bowes Construction has until Oct. 21 to complete the project. This includes an alley assessment project.

The project includes:

• Alley paving from First Street South to Second Street South between Fifth Avenue South and Sixth Avenue South.

• David Cove for milling along the curb and gutter and paving with 2-inch asphalt overlay

• Onaka Trail, south of Eighth Street South, for digouts, milling along the curb and 2-inch asphalt overlay.

• Crystal Ridge Road between Indian Hills Road and Trail Ridge Road for digouts, milling along the curb and a 2-inch asphalt overlay.

• Bike trail: a 2-inch asphalt overlay on the bike trails along 22nd Avenue and along Eighth Street South near the airport. The project also includes additional paving near the bridge drainage structure that was constructed last year east of the 3M property.

• Brookings Regional Airport for asphalt repair and paving on the taxilanes in the hanger area.

Large chip seal area

The chip seal project is scheduled to be short: from the end of July to Aug. 15, Lanning said.

“The area this year for chip sealing ... is south of Eighth Street South and from Medary Avenue to the west,” Lanning said.

That area encompasses the residential streets in Indian Hills, Hunters Ridge and Timberline.

“We do plan on using the same method as last year. We’re using a smaller pea rock that we felt like it adhered better. It was a cleaner rock, not quite as dusty, and we didn’t use as much of it, as far as tonnage goes,” Lanning said. “We didn’t have as much excess that had to be swept up, which helps with the dust.”

Lanning has also scheduled an asphalt concrete freight on board project. The city will pick up asphalt from Bowes Construction, and city crews will use it for asphalt patching through the season.

There are a couple of other projects that are under design and Lanning said she’d release information as they were ready to be bid.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.