To the editor:

The City Council is proposing to reconfigure North 15th Street from the Village Inn intersection to the Kwik Star intersection ( 20th Avenue North to Second Avenue North). The North 15th Street corridor is a main traffic corridor for Fort Dodge and the second busiest road in our community.

The council wants to reduce this busy corridor from four lanes to three lanes. The three-lane road is actually a two-lane road with a middle left-turn lane. The council and city claim they want to do this to reduce the number of accidents on the North 15th Street corridor. Yet accident data from the Iowa Department of Transportation shows that the North 15th Street corridor has significantly less accidents ( 70 percent less accidents per half mile) than the three-lane corridors in Fort Dodge.

Many citizens have already signed a petition strongly opposing changing North 15th Street into a three-lane road. It is important for citizens to unite in opposition of this proposal to change North 15th Street.

We are writing to encourage Fort Dodge citizens to contact your City Council representatives and ask them to vote no. Also, consider attending the City Council workshop on this proposal on Monday to express your opinion. There are much better ways to spend our road dollars to fix our streets.

Richard Higgins

Tom Hemann

Fort Dodge