Elk Run Biobusiness Park (Pine Island)

[Mdcastle]

As usual, it takes a bit of searching and picking to find resources, but here is an Excel database of all bridges over 20 feet in the state.
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/s ... s-20ft.xls

If you're interested I'd suggest saving your own copy because stuff disappears from Mn/DOT.

Looks like the Pine Island overpass is line 3016, and was built in 1960.

Arguments for removing and relocating the interchange were
1) Substandard ramps that are difficult to correct
2) Difficulty tying in new frontage roads (which as it turned out they solved with a roundabout)
3) A desire to direct car traffic away from residential neighborhoods (similarly County 12 was rerouted away from the north side of Oronoco.)

Before they got tangled up with Elk Run, the city of Pine Island was initially less than thrilled about the preferred option for US 52, because it would result in the only accesses being miles from the dowtown area on either side. As I've noted before, the location of the Elk Run interchange was planned long before Elk Run, it was done partly to save money as opposed to building two closer to the towns, and ironically to discourage "sprawl" since there's be only one interchange to attract "sprawl" than two. The original study is long gone off the Mn/DOT web site, but I have a copy I saved.

[mattaudio]

If that was built as a way to discourage sprawl, it shows MnDOT doesn't understand sprawl.

[Mdcastle]

Two new interchanges would attract less "sprawl" than one new interchange? I don't think Mn/DOT originally thought Pine Island would even run utilities out the "split the difference" option. In no cases were the new interchanges going to be built right in the existing urbanized areas due to ROW impact and the desire to get car traffic out of the residential neighborhoods on the north side of Oronoco and the east side of Pine Island.

[mattaudio]

Yes, two new interchanges in existing urban areas. Pine Island, and Oronoco. That's exactly where those interchanges should be.

[Mdcastle]

Which wasn't even considered in the study for the reasons I mentioned. The proposal for the two interchanges was the Pine Island would have been about a mile northwest of the one that became Elk Runt one, still a long ways away from downtown (they wanted to build a southern bypass of sorts and remove the existing one to keep regional traffic out of the Pine Island residential areas). The Oronocco interchange would have been roughly where the interim ending of County 12 was, but it included a northern bypass of Oronoco to keep regional traffic out of those residential areas.

As a bit of trivia for people unfamiliar with the history of this segment, there was an western bypass of Oronoco proposed at one point. It would have avoided some residential taking on Oronoco, but was dropped pretty quickly due to the extreme cost of building a new freeway on new alignment and deconstructing the existing expressway, farmland impacts, and not being conducive to economic development in Oronoco.

Maybe I can write a Streets article "In defense of the Elk Run Interchange". It's easy to laugh at the roundabouts ending in grass and the traffic lights with no traffic and pedestrian pushbuttons that don't work, but an interchange more or less in the same location and the frontage roads have been part of the master plan for the freeway conversion since 2001, and what was spent was in the ballpark of what it was projected to cost back then. Traffic signals and concrete stubs to nowhere are small potatoes compared to the cost of a bridge, the bridge at the south interchange has wide shoulders and a turn lane so it looks almost as wide as the Elk Run interchange.

[mattaudio]

What exactly is bad about regional traffic, arriving by road, to navigate local streets through a town? We definitely "misunderstand mobility" if we had a set of bad options from the start.

[Mdcastle]

Cars don't like to have to slow down for a residential area when there could be a bypass...
Residents don't like all the traffic in front of their houses when there could be a bypass...
Why take buildings for new interchanges when you could build it in cornfields.
Cities want highway oriented development opportunities to increase their tax base that wouldn't exist if interchanges were plopped down in residential neighborhoods. (Of course there's plenty of room for a McDonalds and Kwik Trip at the Oronoco south and future Pine Island north interchanges. That probably was the thinking in the split the difference option, let development happen at 2 out of the 3 rather than 4 out of 4).

You may not agree with the reasons, but there are reasons.

[mulad]

I'm pretty baffled as to what this is bypassing, though. Arguably we've gotten a new interchange built for Plainview at this point, which is where Highway 12 eventually ends up 20 miles to the east. It's hard to argue that it's any better than what existed before for them, since the new route is longer. Oronoco itself is now further from the highway, and the speed limit on the road is officially pretty low, though it is designed for high speeds.

There's value in slowing people down in the right places -- If you have an interchange that links to the main street of a small town, then town residents are more likely to decide to visit a local shop or restaurant rather than getting on the highway to go somewhere in the next town over or out in the middle of nowhere. I also often like the idea of two half interchanges on either end of town, so people aren't inclined to hop onto the highway for just one entrance/exit (something I see happen all the time as I'm passing through Zumbrota). Towns should capture the traffic passing through their local areas rather than try to reject it -- you don't get any access to their wallets otherwise. That's why we see new businesses pop up on bypasses -- the traffic gets diverted, so the businesses go to where the traffic is. Homes often follow, and then there's traffic on the bypass. The sprawl effect could be mitigated somewhat by proper zoning, but then there's always the problem that the next town over or the county will allow people to build stuff out in the middle of nowhere.

I think a more appropriate response to increasing traffic is to improve the street grid so that people can make up their own bypass routes as traffic goes up. At some point, yes, more interchanges need to be added, or the highway needs to be shifted outward to make room for more street grid. Intercity transit solutions also need to be considered -- it's not just for big cities.

I still don't understand what's wrong with the existing diamond interchange in Pine Island. There are frontage roads that are too close, but that's fixable without building a whole new road network based around a new interchange more than three miles further down the highway. I would have reduced the existing diamond at County 11 to only have the two southern legs to/from Rochester, and upgraded the northern junction at Main Street to have an overpass for northbound traffic.

Similarly for Oronoco, there probably should have originally been a southern half-interchange at what Google is currently calling County 18 / Minnesota Ave, with the northern half of the interchange correspondingly at the bridge just north of the Zumbro River (White Bridge Road?). In Zumbrota, the northern legs should be removed from the interchange at Main Street, with the southern ones taken out at 5th Street -- for people who don't want to go through the center of town, Jefferson Drive -- a former bypass itself -- could probably see some modest improvements.

[Mdcastle]

It's really not much farther if your heading from Plainview to US 52 north on County 12, and there'd be no reason to head from there to US 52 south

I really don't like half diamonds on each side of town. Usually there's a McDonald's and a gas station at those exits, if I want to stop and eat I'd have to drive through the entire town to get back on the highway.

[mulad]

You are making my points exactly.

[David Greene]

http://www.startribune.com/legacy-of-pi ... 324834181/

It's pretty amazing that people still believe this might happen.

This is maddening:

“I didn’t want to be a naysayer, but I was highly skeptical of some of the things that were being shared,” said Krupski.

Jesus, it's your *job* to advise elected officials when things don't add up!

[mattaudio]

The Infrastructure Cult profited handsomely from this debacle, regardless of if any sprawling bioturds ever get built.

[Mikey]

You mean the people paying 3-4 times the value of the land had no concept of reality? I can't blame the former (and soon to be again) landowners for cashing out and laughing all the way to the bank, but these guys clearly had no sense

[froggie]

In Zumbrota, the northern legs should be removed from the interchange at Main Street, with the southern ones taken out at 5th Street

Your rationale for this being...?

[mulad]

That's intended as a discouragement against sprawling development centered around the freeway ramps, also forcing people to get at least partway into the city and make the businesses in the town center more visible. Many people would probably only get as far as Jefferson Drive, though.

This is a spot where I very frequently see people get on the highway for just that pair of ramps, probably 25-50% of the time I go through Zumbrota, I see someone get on and then off again right away.

[mattaudio]

I was wondering the same thing as froggie... but wow that's such a good idea to get people off the highway. And it would also dissuade using the freeway for short trips between adjacent exits. Of course, we're going the wrong way on that topic considering the new ramps at 65th St Nw.

[Minneboy]

What ramp in ZUmbrota, as there are two. The northern one has little reason to exist other than it being a state highway between Wanimingo and Zumbrota, where the southern ramp has quite a bit of businesses catering to the freeway and it's also the main street of Zumbrota as well as another state highway.