The Iowa Department of Transportation recently held a public informational meeting in Jefferson about a proposed project that they believe will be of some benefit to everyone.

Jefferson City Administrator Scott Peterson reminds the public that the project is to reduce Highway 4 from four lanes to three lanes, including a center turn lane. He describes his reaction about the people that attended.

“And the public really, really turned out for this. If we didn’t hit 100 people at that it was very, very close. That really made quite an impression then certainly on the city officials, and then on the DOT, certainly about the level of interest that the community has in this proposed project.”

DOT District 1 Engineer Allison Smyth was at the Monday meeting and talked about how they got involved and eventually made the proposal to do a highway lane conversion project.

“We heard from the city that there were some speeding concerns and what could we do about speeding through town. And so that brought up the whole idea about traffic calming in the first place.”

Peterson states that the DOT wants three components before they pursue this type of project and that includes support from the city, from the DOT and the community. He emphasizes that if the DOT does not feel those three parts have been met, they will not consider moving forward. Peterson says the next steps are that the DOT will compile the comments that were submitted from the meeting and present that to the streets committee at a future meeting. The city council will have the ultimate decision to enter into an agreement with the DOT to move forward with construction.