Traffic to be affected by permanent road closures near Spencer railroad

By Cheyenne Thomas Navigating around Spencer’s downtown along East Clark Street/Highway 98 is expected to become harder after 2026, as the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Railroads (OCR) has determined that the intersections of Park Street and North Wisconsin Street with Clark Street near the railroad tracks are not safe and will have to be permanently closed to through traffic.

Spencer Administrator Chris Helgestad informed members of the community about the upcoming closing — which is expected to happen sometime in 2026 — during the “What’s Happening in Spencer” event at the Spencer Public Library April 23. The closing of the streets is currently in the process of being petitioned as part of the process to complete the road closure, and Helgestad said he hopes the village will be able to convince the OCR to at least keep the intersection of Clark Street and North Wisconsin Street open to try to avoid having traffic on the north side of town funneled to only a few points of access.

“We don’t have a date yet,” he said. “But it’s likely to happen in 2026. In working with the OCR, we have six months to petition the project, and it is required to petition anyway, so we are going to see if we can at least keep Wisconsin Street open.”

The Park Street intersection will be closing, and the final part of the repaving project for Park Street will reflect that. Helgestad said there will be a few feet of Park Street that will remain as one coat of blacktop where barricades will eventually be put up to block through traffic. The project will be completed by the village, but the state will reimburse the Village of Spencer for the cost of putting in those permanent barricades to turn Park Street into a dead-end road.

The closing of those intersections will pose quite the problem for the village, as traffic will be heavily impacted. For locations such as Land O’Lakes or the Spencer Police Department, the change of access points could cause some logistical issues and the village is trying to look at ways they could ease that burden of traffic.

“Land O’Lakes will need to have a new truck route,” said Helgestad. “Maybe we could use Louisa Street to make a loop? The only concern there is there are a lot of storm sewers under that street, and it would be expensive to redo that road to be able to support the weight of traffic. Then the police have to have a way to get out. Because right now the only ways out for them would be to go all the way around or through the ally by Nuts Deep and that intersection is already a hazard.”

The Nutz Deep intersection — where LaSalle Street crosses East Clark Street — has long been considered by Spencer residents as one of the village’s most dangerous intersections with lowered visibility around corners. The closing of the intersection at Park Street in particular is

For the rest of the story and a map, please see Spencer road closures, page 11 Spencer road closures,

from p. 1

expected to cause an increased traffic load at that crossing, which could lead to more accidents at the site. When asked what could be done to try to prevent those accidents, Helgestad said the village will try to continue to ask the Department of Transportation (DOT) if it would be possible to get traffic lights installed at that intersection. If the DOT refuses, however, he said all the village will really be able to do is reduce parking near that intersection to try to increase visibility.

As for the railroad itself, Helgestad noted that one of the tracks that is being considered as part of the OCR’s ruling is in too poor of condition to actually be used for trains.

“The OCR has determined that the intersection is not safe,” he said. “The track may not get used, but they still have to be safe and operate by standards. It takes a number of years for a rail line to be abandoned, so the railroad has to consider safety until then.”

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/APPLE MAPS