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Main Street Keokuk Concerned About Lack of Traffic Signals

Keokuk, IA – One organization is expressing concerns about the Keokuk City Council's decision to eliminate more traffic signals on Main Street.

Executive Director Joyce Glasscock says Main Street Keokuk has received plenty of phone calls since the council voted to eliminate the signals at 8th & Main and at 9th & Main. She says the downtown business owners have been split both for and against the decision.

The Keokuk City Council has eliminated the traffic signals at 3rd & Main, 11th & Main, and 12th & Main during the last year. A previous attempt to eliminate the 8th & Main and 9th & Main intersections was shot down several months ago.

Glasscock says Main Street Keokuk is worried that eliminating more traffic signals will move the city away from the goals laid out in its vision plan for 2012. "23 points in the vision plan address the downtown," says Glasscock, "and it all goes to the point that the downtown is a different, unique, special place."

Glasscock says the best case scenario would be for the council to reverse its decision regarding the 8th and 9th street intersections. She says members of Main Street Keokuk will attend next week's council workshop to encourage members of the public to let the city know their thoughts.

Public Works Director Gerald Moughler says it costs about $260,000 to replace the traffic signals at one intersection. The Iowa Department of Transportation will help the city pay for replacing about a half dozen.

Moughler says, within the next five years, all of the traffic signals along Main Street will need a larger sized light. That means Keokuk will have to pay for any intersection not approved by the Iowa DOT.