When we traveled to the west end of town for a Valentine’s Sunday night out at Bootlegger’s, the wind was really starting to howl. A great meal and hour later, we were slammed in the face as we headed home by a mini blizzard that worked its way into the valley and made visibility while driving a real challenge. You always wonder what its like up on the prairie, away from any shelter so we made a trip to the top of the hill in East Granite and could hardly see enough to turn around. Below the hill, things were a bit more calm but still blustery, none-the-less. It was a good night to hunker down but getting out on a Sunday night was kind of fun even if the weather did turn into a snow squall. There would be plenty to shovel once again, come morning. The piles are getting high and the mailbox needs rescuing after being nearly buried again.
It jolted me a bit when Art Rillo told me last week that he hadn’t seen this much snow since he and his family moved here in the summer of 1997. That got me thinking about how much snow we actually do have and how much is upstream from us. There are some legitimate concerns being voiced by the weather service and from those of us who cast a wary eye at the snow piles that line the streets and highways in our area.
That may be a real problem this spring but it depends on how fast spring weather arrives and how much more snow or rain we get between now and the first two weeks in April. Let’s hope that we get a long and moderate thaw. There’s a lot of water upstream from us and we don’t need it to all go down the river at once. Slow and easy would be nice.
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I had a chance to hear MnDOT commissioner Tom Sorel speak in Chanhassen a couple of weeks ago. He was there at the invitation of the Southwest Corridor Transportation Coalition, the group who beats the drum for improvements on Highway 212 and Highway 5 in Carver County and points west.
The SWCTC has done a good job of advocating for the huge strides made so far with both highways. They also are well aware that there is much work left to do. Both roads still need major upgrades as you travel west from the metro area and both roads compete with much busier highways in the metro area for scarce funding. Still, there is a lot of growth happening in Carver County and a lot more coming and the demand for better designed and safer roads will grow with that population.
Chaska was around the size of Granite Falls in the 1960s but now is larger than Willmar and not looking back. Chanhassen is even a bit larger and both cities have lots of room to grow. Even the tiny hamlet of Carver now has more than 3,000 residents. Over on Hwy. 5, the little town of Victoria is now larger than Montevideo and Waconia is the size of Marshall. Both are growing fast. The highways that serve those towns and those of us who live to the west are woefully undersized. Land needs to be purchased for a wider road before more development occurs. The price of that land will be going up but MnDOT doesn’t even have the money to buy the right-of-way. In a decade or two the land prices will be much higher and the funds will be just as scarce unless something is done to provide more money.
The assembled group, which included some congressional staffers and some legislators, had been hoping to hear about some big highway construction plans but instead heard more of the same sad story about not enough funding and too many needs. The modest amount of extra money raised by the recent small increase in the state gas tax doesn’t go very far when compared to the cost of these projects that are needed to improve safety and cut travel time. I wonder what the state senator from Chanhassen thought when she heard that . She voted against the gas tax which increased that meager funding. While she has voted against any and all tax increases, including the gas tax, that didn’t stop her from being right in the front row at the 2008 ribbon cutting for the new 12-mile Chaska Bypass freeway project on Hwy. 212.
The news of a funding shortage for highway construction was met with plenty of grumbling that day. Residents of that area are tired of driving on clogged and dangerous roads. So are we. Tragically, the very next day, two people were killed in a head-on spinout type of accident on Hwy. 5 just a quarter of a mile from where that meeting was held.
One good project that was announced that day is the modest but safety-driven idea of putting in left turn lanes at the Bongards intersection between Norwood and Cologne on Hwy. 212. A woman from Norwood and a family from Bird Island collided there last fall when she was in the eastbound driving lane and was waiting to make a left turn. She was hit from behind by a semi and pushed into the westbound lane. She died at the scene and the father who was driving his family home to Bird Island, died the next day at the Waconia hospital. Those left turn lanes will make that intersection a bit safer. Still, a divided highway would be much better. That segment of Hwy. 212 was designed in 1930. Somewhere, there has to be some money to make that stretch of highway safer. The huge majority of fatal crashes in Minnesota happen on rural two lane roads.
The SWCTC will keep working on these projects but we all need to speak up and let our legislators and congressmen know how important those transportation links are for us. Safety should not be sacrificed any longer.
