MNDOT has been testing the possibility of cutting Main Avenue from five to three lanes from Fourth to Eighth Street. Residents’ opinions are being collected through an online survey. (Photo/Tammy Finney)

Testing an alternative for Main Avenue

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

The highway cones and barriers come off of Main Avenue next week. Have you shared your opinion with MNDOT and the city?

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been weighing design options that might become part of the major project planned for Highways 10 and 75 in the summer of 2026. That’s what brought out the temporary reconfiguration of the heavily traveled blocks from Fourth to Eighth Streets in the middle of last month … with orange traffic cones and white deliminator posts narrowing the roadway’s five lanes to three, adding bump-outs at intersections and turning much of the north- and southernmost driving lanes into parallel parking spots.

The proposed alignment mirrors the three-lane configuration that Fargo has already completed on Main west of the Red River bridge. This demonstration is intended, says Moorhead traffic engineer Jonathan Atkins, to answer the question “what if?” – that is, what if the same configuration now installed on the Fargo side is carried through the busiest street in downtown Moorhead? Could it handle the traffic?

Automobiles aren’t the sole subjects of the possible redesign. MNDOT District 4 traffic engineer Trudy Kordosky says, “There’s been a shift. In the past, MNDOT was more focused on vehicle traffic. Now that’s expanded to include all users, including pedestrians and bicyclists. Not all people have vehicles, you know.” The same shift can be seen, she says, in projects in other redesigns; she cites downtown Alexandria as one example.

Atkins notes that questions abound. How do bikeways and sidewalks and medians affect snow removal? And – especially in Moorhead – what about the trains that tie up traffic many times every day?

Moorhead residents and their neighbors have had plenty to say about the demonstration project over the past four weeks. While the official survey for sharing opinions is on the MNDOT website, people traversing the zone have shared their thoughts quite freely on Facebook and other social media.

Some opinions are positive. Posting on the Moorhead=Fantastic page and another page set up by this writer, several people, including one who lives near downtown, applaud the greater walkability and safety of pedestrians waiting on the corner bump-outs.

A supporter of the project writes, “I’m personally in favor of it. We have three main through-ways running east/west through the heart of our city and our downtown has been reduced to an intersection in front of the Historic DQ. Trying to reduce through-traffic on one or two of them makes sense, particularly if we want to encourage more people to shop along those roads vs just passing through.”

But the majority of opinions shared online have been highly negative. One writer reports waiting through three stoplight cycles to make a left turn onto Main. Others speak of backed-up traffic waiting to make left turns onto Main – one tells of waiting through three stoplight cycles to turn left from Fifth Street.

Several target the on-street parallel parking that replaces much of the outermost lanes. “All the businesses along that section have parking lots!” a writer emphasizes. “They don’t need or want on-street parking.”

Another observes the parking lanes actually hamper the utility of those lots. “It’s really hard now to get out of any of the parking lots along Main to get back into traffic, especially if you’re pulling across traffic. Traffic that would typically be in two lanes is now compressed to one, making it really treacherous to sneak out between gaps and get onto the road.”

Writes a woman who lives in Fargo and works in Moorhead, “I’m not a fan and don’t see how it would be an improvement. It backs up traffic and funnels it down to one lane right before the bridge. And coming from Fargo are speeders who gain momentum after going through the Wheel of Death round-about and then try to beat you to the one lane at the end of the bridge. I vote no.”

Several have posted suggestions to use First Avenue North as a high-traffic alternative while adjusting the Main volume downward with fewer lanes and more walkable and bikable pathways. That alternative is unlikely, since Main Avenue is actually part of Highway 10. The soon-to-end demonstration project (and another last year that planted “pedestrian islands” in the middle of Eighth Street, which is part of Highway 75) are both experiments linked to the upcoming redesign of the two U.S. highways. That’s a major project, currently estimated at just under $15 million; it will be mostly funded by MNDOT and the federal government.

According to Atkins, the Metropolitan Council of Governments’ most recent traffic count on Main Avenue in 2020-21 found it carries an average of 15,450 cars a day – down from 18,555 in 2015. The recent study was conducted before work began on Center Avenue. Only two area carry more The intersection of Eighth Street and I-94 from 24th to 30th Avenues South logged 28,000 vehicles per day, and the area around the 34th Street intersection on Highway 10 East handles 18,000 per day.

“We’re getting a lot of feedback from the public on their thoughts on the demonstration project,” Atkins reports. “That’s why we do projects like this one. We’re listening! Once something has been constructed, it’s very hard to go back and undo it.

“The purpose of the Main Avenue demonstration is to see whether or not it works. We don’t want to put something in place and then find it breaks travel patterns around the city.”

Kordosky says that a decision, based in large part on comments, will be announced over the winter. “We’re trying to begin the actual design process in the spring,” she says.

To complete the online survey sharing your own opinion with MNDOT, go to https://www.dot.state.mn.us/d4/projects/moorhead/demo.html.