Fewer trucks to rumble through Cedar Rapids Medquarter district

CEDAR RAPIDS - Semi-trailer traffic on 10th Street SE through the city's still-new MedQuarter Regional Medical District will have the option to use Seventh and Eighth streets SE to travel between Interstate 380 and Eighth Avenue SE.

The City Council on Tuesday agreed to permit heavy truck traffic on Seventh and Eighth streets SE - it's not permitted on those streets now except between Interstate 380 and First Avenue East - as a way to divert some of it from 10th Street SE.

Matt Myers, the city's traffic engineering manager, told the City Council that the MedQuarter district asked what the city could do to move some heavy truck traffic off 10th Street SE. That street is both a heavily used arterial street and the corridor of the MedQuarter district that connects the city's two hospitals and medical offices in between them.

The MedQuarter's master plan envisions 10th Street SE becoming 'a different kind of road” than it is now, Myers said.

Myers and Phil Wasta, MedQuarter executive director, agreed that it was impossible to move all truck traffic off 10th Street SE because those making local deliveries need to use the street.

Myers said a traffic study estimated that 479 trucks use 10th Street SE each workday. He said about 40 percent of those, many of them grain trucks, are apt to use Seventh and Eighth streets SE when they are opened to truck traffic in the weeks ahead.

Both Seventh and Eighth streets SE also will become two-way streets between Fourth and Eighth avenues SE, but Myers said the change will be able to accommodate the trucks. The city might need to make some changes to make it easier for trucks to turn, he said.

Gordon Epping, director of support services at First Lutheran Church in the MedQuarter district and a member of the district's commission, told the City Council that trucks can back up traffic on 10th Street SE during the morning rush hour. Moving some of the trucks elsewhere will help, he said.

Council member Ann Poe asked Myers whether he had a way to communicate with grain truck drivers so they know they will have an option other than 10th Street SE. Myers said he can talk to the grain-processing companies and use signs.

Council member Justin Shields said most cities would like to have the problem of truck traffic because it means jobs and a healthy local economy. Iowa is an agricultural state, and Cedar Rapids is an agricultural processing center, he said.