60th Avenue East Roundabout Petition

The discussion of roundabouts on London Road intersections has been prevalent all across the city. MnDOT’s $17 million London Road preservation plan, which was presented to the public in October, has several intersections proposed for possible roundabout building. 60^th Avenue East is one of those, and according to the residents of the area the potential roundabout build is not ideal. A group of about a dozen residents have started a petition and Facebook group to gather support to oppose the roundabout build. They are called, “Preserve the Gateway,” the group has about 100 members and counting.

“It’s a bad fit for this particular site. We’re trying to collaborate with MnDOT and the city in order to get a safe and inviting pedestrian access to the lake across London Road, and we don’t think that a roundabout does that very well. It will be really outsized and large, like twice the footprint of the current intersection. They’ll have to tear down a house that’s home to two different households,” says Ann Klefstad, a member of the “Preserve the Gateway” group.

“Preserve the Gateway” met with MnDOT on January 26th to share their apprehensions about a roundabout in their neighborhood. Klefstad shared what some potential alternatives could be.

“So we want to do a citizen’s campaign to increase speed enforcement… talk to both city police and state highway patrol, because this is a state highway to increase speed enforcement along this route. We want to put mobile signs, the signs that tell you how fast you’re driving. We want to put those going in both directions in the intersection. Those things actually bring speeds down, it reduces speeds 5 to 7 miles an hour. We also want to put better signage warning to cars ahead of time that there is a crosswalk ahead,” continues Klefstad.

According to Klefstad, there have been zero injury accidents at the site in years.

“Roundabouts are usually proposed for intersections that are dangerous to cars, dangerous to vehicles, and this one is just not a problem. So they’re kind of applying the wrong solution to a non-existent problem,” Klefstad says of the 60^th Avenue East intersection.

According to Klefstad, “Preserve the Gateway,” has already met in a small group setting with MnDOT and they plan to meet again in the upcoming week, and MnDOT is open to the idea of collaboration.

We reached out to MnDOT for their comments and they stated that,

 “We have met with the group and are continuing to listen. We have heard some misinformation being spread which is unfortunate, however we are looking forward to continuing the conversation.”

We’ll keep you updated as this story progresses.

Preserve the Gateway FB Group Link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/preservethegateway