Mason City council seeks to rebuild Highway 122 with five roundabouts

(ABC 6 News) – The Mason City council is looking at several improvement projects along the Highway 122 corridor.

At last week’s meeting, the Council accepted the Iowa Highway 122 Corridor Feasibility Study and selected from three alternatives for improvements between Lark Avenue and Winnebago Way on the west side of Mason City.

The first plan would cost between 300-thousand and 8 million dollars and would add turn lanes and replace traffic signals.

The second plan would involve a full reconstruction of six major signaled intersections in that corridor and closing some access lanes adding new traffic signals and narrowing the median. That would cost about 50 million dollars.

“Just depends on how the funding is this would certainly be a multi-year project as big as it is at this point there’s no money funded by the city or the dot it just was in the infancy steps of this,” Mason City City Engineer Mark Rahm.

The last plan would be a full reconstruction with roundabouts and also cost around 50 million dollars.

“The roundabouts were at 5 intersections – Eisenhower, Village green, Taft, Grover, and Winnebago Way,” said President and CEO of WHKS & Co Fouad Daoud.

Council members unanimously preferred the third plan.

The next step is to accept the Iowa Dot study and pursue federal funding for the project.

For additional information on the project, click here.