My wife and I-well, primarily my wife-are brand new downtown property owners, having just purchased a building which has been abandoned for several years. It is her goal to restore it into a business, adding vitality, paying taxes and creating jobs. We greatly appreciate the Dispatch's recent opinion piece, and agree that the city should reconsider the decision of the previous city council to keep South Sixth Street at five lanes through downtown. The main proponent of five lanes on the council lost decisively in the last election. The five-lane, highway-like design kills the charm and desirability of our historic downtown. South Sixth is undesirable in its current state, it is dotted with rundown homes and businesses, and the current five-lane design is a big part of why. Business suffers as the foot traffic that it so badly needs cannot use the major route to downtown. Keeping it wide means wasting city and state tax dollars, all the while ensuring continued blight and failure. The traffic counts on South Sixth Street do not justify five lanes through downtown, and a well planned three-lane design will accommodate truck traffic just fine. This is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of MnDOT, our own city planning department, and that of many successful small cities with downtowns not burdened by multi lane highways. There is so much to gain by reducing to three lanes in the heart of our downtown. My family will invest a large amount of time and money into making our downtown a better place. I hope that our city government will support us and other business owners by making South Sixth an asset to our city.
Ed Shaw
Brainerd
