 Well, it's been a long season of road construction in the Bemidji area. Tonight, our Josh Peterson shows us how projects planned for the Highway 2 corridor could impact Bemidji's west side soon. After a long summer of seeing the color orange in just about every direction, you can plan on seeing even more of that color over the next five years. In a tale of two cities, both those being the city of Bemidji and the town of Wilton, major changes are in the works for Highway 2. We know that we have a corridor behind us that's a high-speed corridor that's leaving Bemidji and it's overrepresented in crashes, right? So we need to do some changes to the corridor to help make that corridor safer. The plan is to make the stretch of roadway safer by installing RCIs, which means reduced conflict intersections. The plan is for motorists wanting to cross the highway, would need to take a right turn first, then merge left, and then make a U-turn to go the opposite direction. We're trying to meet the needs of everyone. There's over 12,000 vehicles a day on this stretch of Highway 2 that's through traffic. There's a lot of residents that live around here and a lot of small businesses. Road construction is a familiar sight on the stretch of roadway, where continued efforts to make Highway 2 safe continues to take place. Two years ago, a major road construction project here at the intersection of Highway 2 and Highway 89 left a significant impact on area businesses. Now the fear is, with the proposed changes to Highway 2, it could leave a lasting impact. For the owner of Pete's Place West, he doesn't see the need for the RCIs and fears it will no longer make his convenience store convenient. Pretty much lose most of all my truck traffic. I'll just be a regular gas station. And the biggest problem is it's a convenience store. When you make it in convenience, they're not going to come. They're just going to drive on into town to stop at the next guy. While the location of the RCIs are not confirmed yet, Mendot says they will have a final decision by the spring. In Bemidji, Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. The reduced conflict intersections are a new concept to the area. The very first one will be built next summer at the intersection of Highway 2 and 69th Avenue Northwest near the current palace casino in Cass Lake. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.