Detour to La Crosse a long and winding road

City engineers leave travel options open on Anamosa detour

By Kevin Woster, Journal staff | Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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OK, let’s say you’re at Anamosa and Maple, heading east toward La Crosse.

There’s good news and bad ahead: You can still get to La Crosse, just not on Anamosa. And you might see a good bit of North Rapid along the way.

A street-sewer-water-line project in the five blocks between La Crosse and Milwaukee on Anamosa is sending eastbound traffic on Anamosa south to, well, it’s not exactly clear where it is being sent.

That’s by design. There’s a detour sign pointing traffic south at Milwaukee. But that’s the last directional sign for travelers until they hit East North Street about a dozen blocks south.

There are ways to get east to La Crosse before that, including Van Buren. But some are complicated. And some might make you dizzy, before leading you back to Anamosa.

City traffic engineers didn’t want to create any more traffic vertigo than necessary. So they decided to leave the detour options open after the turn at Milwaukee, expecting most travelers to end up at East North, then drive back east to La Crosse.

City project manager Klare Schroeder said Monday that’s probably the easiest and safest route for drivers not well acquainted with the area. It keeps clusters of vehicles from arriving at La Crosse by way of Van Buren, which isn’t the safest route, Schroeder said.

 “Most of the traffic in there is more local. We felt the locals would know they could cross over at Van Buren,” he said. “We didn’t mark it as such.”

The Anamosa project, scheduled to be done by Nov. 1, is widening and repaving the street from La Crosse west to Milwaukee. It’s also putting in two water lines and a new sewer line, as well as modifying the storm sewer.

Crews are working on the first phase of the $2.5 million project, a one-block section from La Crosse west to Racine. They’ve blocked off Anamosa at La Crosse, leaving one lane of access to a parking lot serving Liberty Tax Service, Blockbuster Video and Subway on the northwest corner of the intersection.

Several motorists using that route Monday afternoon said it wasn’t difficult to get to the businesses. But some people coming from the north on La Crosse pulled into the access lane thinking they could drive on Anamosa.

They weren’t happy when they found out they couldn’t, Liberty Tax Service sidewalk sign waver George Stephenson said.

“They get mad and they peel out,” he said.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com