NORTH MANKATO — Members of the Mankato Area Transportation and Planning Study held an open house Tuesday to showcase dozens of recommendations.

The study team is comprised of representatives from Blue Earth and Nicollet counties, Mankato and North Mankato, MnDOT and Minnesota State University.

Charged a year ago with creating a regional planning document stretching until the year 2035, group members proposed a variety of improvements, from revamped public transit routes to passenger rail lines to pedestrian crossings over the Minnesota River.

None, however, caused the kind of anxiety some business owners are feeling about proposals to reconstruct the Highway 169 and Highway 14 interchange.

“Anytime you start changing traffic patterns,” said Tom Frederick, who owns the Happy Chef located on the northwest side of the interchange, “you affect business.”

Frederick’s restaurant, like many businesses along the 169 corridor north of Veterans Memorial Bridge, stands to lose a sizable share of its customer base without convenient access from the highway.

All four interchange scenarios presented during the open house would create a cloverleaf and eliminate the signal at Lind Street. Two scenarios would keep one signal; the other two would create a highway underpass (somewhere between the lights at Lind and Webster streets) with frontage roads along the east and west sides of 169.

Jerry Brambery, owner of the McDonald’s near 169, said none of the options were “favorable” as all would require the relocation of his restaurant.

Arlo Zander, who co-owns The Service Rack, located southwest of the traffic signal at Webster Street, said removing the light at Webster and creating frontage roads might make his auto service center too difficult for motorists to find after exiting the highway.

Frederick said northbound traffic on 169 now can turn left into Happy Chef’s restaurant via an access road directly across from its parking lot. But all four interchange scenarios would close that access road — and, he hypothesized, virtually eliminate the convenience factor of his restaurant and the neighboring gas station.

“And this is a convenience business,” he said.

Chad Davis, store manager of the Kwik Trip on 169, said semi-truck traffic makes up a significant share of his store’s business.

A cloverleaf interchange would extend entrance and exit ramps far enough that trucks would have to drive several hundred yards — past Kwik Trip — in either direction before turning around at an intersection to come back.

While Davis acknowledged such a scenario would have a serious impact on his store’s accessibility, he also said any changes are likely more than a decade away.

MnDot’s Zachary Tess, who was on hand to answer questions about the four interchange scenarios, estimated a similar timeline.

“It looks like it’ll be difficult to get trucks in and out,” Davis said. “But this is a long way off.”

Lisa Bigham, MnDOT’s district planning director and a MATAPS member, said the 169 interchange was the “hot topic,” but several other recommendations also generated discussion.

Bigham said people seemed particularly interested in a passenger rail line connecting Mankato to the Twin Cities and plans to improve transportation routes for pedestrians and bicyclers.

She also said there was interest in the group’s recommendations to improve current public transit routes by expanding service in North Mankato and making routes quicker by eliminating unnecessary stops and creating transit hubs at key destinations.

Bigham said a draft of the study will be available at www.mataps.com by the end of the week. After that, the group will collect public comment for about three weeks before adopting a final plan this fall.