TEA, S.D. (KELO) —With the start of spring brings the start of construction season.
The start of April is coming with a big project between Sioux Falls and Tea.
Along 85th Street, near the Tea-Ellis Road, you will find the future home of another roundabout.
Traffic changes ahead for Cliff Ave. and I-229
“The city of Tea began working with the city of Sioux Falls about 3 or 4 years ago. And, this is a project where the city of Sioux Falls is meeting into the border of Tea, our city limits are connecting,” Tea City Administrator Justin Weiland said.
While April 1 marks the start of construction for the roundabout, this project started last year with the construction of an intersection at Sundowner Avenue and a temporary road that goes around where the roundabout is being built. It’s all in preparation for the new interchange off I-29.
“It’s just going to create better access, to 29 into Interstate 229. There’s a lot of development occurring on this northeast section of Tea, including the Orthopedic Institute that just opened the Baker Landing addition and other properties in that area. So it’s just going to create better connectivity into that, south side of Sioux Falls,” Weiland said.
There are thousands of cars that travel north and south on the Tea-Ellis Road each day, but the same can’t be said for going east and west.
“There’s very little traffic at this moment on 85th Street because it doesn’t go to anything yet. But as soon as that interchange opens, we anticipate that’ll change substantially,” said Ben Scholtz, Engineer of Record for City of Tea.
While some people may be thinking ‘Why another roundabout?’ Scholtz, who is one of the engineers for the project, says it was the best thing for the area.
“Implementing stop signs wasn’t probably the best solution because traffic will back up. Same thing with the traffic signal,” Scholtz said. “You have to work on your timings, but we don’t have another traffic signal within a mile or 2 or 3 of that spot. So getting those to correlate and talk to each other is a little more challenging because of the distance. So roundabout was the option.”
The roundabout is expected to be finished sometime in July.
