After Months of a Detour – Main Road in St. Cloud is Finally Open

It has finally happened!  After months of a detour and inconvenience, a main road in St. Cloud has finally opened up to normal traffic.

Cooper Avenue in St. Cloud needed repairs, widening, and sidewalks added for a few years.  The project was put off for at least a year due to supply chain issues.  The project was a major undertaking, and was due to reopen by mid-October.  As of today (Wednesday) the road has opened completely to through traffic ahead of schedule.

Cooper Avenue has widened, added a bike lane, sidewalk, and an extra lane at the intersection with Roosevelt Road.  This will help traffic flow, and will allow pedestrians to walk and run in a safer spot.  Previously, there was no shoulder on a large portion of the road, and pedestrians needed to be extrememly vigilant around that area because of the hill, visibility was extremely limited.  This improvement will help that situation tremendously.

The other great thing is that drivers will no longer be forced to use Traverse Road, which is located just off of Roosevelt Road and was the detour to connect with Cooper Avenue.  That traffic light has been an issue with the increased traffic.  The light does not change enough for the cross traffic, or for people making a left turn onto Roosevelt.  In normal circumstances, there isn't that much traffic to make a need for the light to change more often than it does.  But it didn't seem to be altered for the increased traffic during the construction project.  So, that issue will be resolved now.