Council, Staff Looks into Accident Prevention at Busy Albertville Intersection

After a on County Road 19 intersections, the Albertville City Council directed city engineer Adam Nafstad to look into possible ideas for accident prevention.

"It's not a new issue," Nafstad said at Monday's meeting. The issue first came up with the county in 2007. "Pretty much all incidents are due to a failure to yield."

The possible solution was new to MnDOT in 2007 when the issue first came up but is now common practice and considered standard. The heads in the signal would need to be changed out to have a green arrow, a flashing yellow arrow, a solid yellow arrow and then a red arrow.

Such arrows can be seen on the new County Road 81 intersections in nearby Rogers.

"Success is largely due to the perception of the motorist," Nafstad said, "but the intersection would be more of a protected signal, where it is currently a protected permissive signal."

Estimated signal replacement costs are more than $30,000 per intersection.

"I'd suggest taking care of one intersection at a time," Nafstad said as he went over the accident statistics.

The intersection of Wright County Highway 37 and County Highway 19 (LaBeaux Avenue) account for more than 50 percent of the crashes since 2006 with more than 50 accidents. Nafstad suggested  this intersection be the first to make the change.

"50 percent of the crashes are happening here? Then let's look into it. Let's figure out where we can get the money," Council member Larry Sorenson said.

Nafstad will continue to look into and work on this project and update the council on a timeline and other costs.