Minnesota Transportation Funding (General)

[intercomnut]

Looks like there will be no transportation bill at all this session.

[froggie]

So if I'm reading/understanding y'all right, the only thing a county would have to do in order to enact a 1/2 cent sales tax of their own for transportation (any transportation, not just transit) is to have a list of projects.

Correct. The sales tax must have a defined project or list of projects that it is paying for, and once paid off, the sales tax goes away and the county must wait at least 1 year before they can enact a new tax/project-list.

[twincitizen]

Here's Scott County's list of projects (page 2): http://www.co.scott.mn.us/CountyGov/New ... %20Tax.pdf

Remember that $1MM annually will reportedly go to transit capital/operations, which would be 17% (1/6) of the annual proceeds of the .5% tax. They project $6MM coming in annually, with about 30% of that revenue coming from non-resident visitors (ValleyFair, Canterbury, Ren Fest, etc.) The tax will expire when the list of projects is complete or 7 years...supposedly

[mattaudio]

Interchange, interchange, interchange. What, do they want to make CR 17 a freeway from Shakopee south? When standard stroads aren't enough to induce growth fast enough, upgrade your two lane country roads with grade separation!

[Mdcastle]

The County 17 Interchanges are a new one to me. If they want it to be the major north-south road my thought is that could be a principal arterial, and have the state take it and County 42 over in exchange for 282 and 13 in the area. The Chowen interchange is also the new one, all the plans I've seen call for installing a traffic signal there (and investing in replacing the existing one at Washburn). County 86 I've heard of and I've also heard Dakota County wants the state to take it over. The ones on US 169 have been talked about for over 10 years and are nowhere close to reality. I'm surprised there's not one mentioned at US 169 and County 14, which is in the long range plan.

[Tcmetro]

Actually Scott County wrote a plan some years ago about upgrading a number of roads (including 17) to create a freeway from 169 to New Prague in the long-term. A lot of these projects have been in discussion for 10+ years, and even though the housing market is not ok what it once was, I'm not surprised that Scott County thinks that all these roads should be built.

[Mdcastle]

I did kind of wonder why they were so eager to build that half interchange with County 17 and 42. Probably learning from the mistake on County 42 where it's several decades to late to even think about building a freeway there.

[RailBaronYarr]

I'm confused by the strategy for CR 17. Full interchanges at cross-roads with 5-7k AADT, but they'll (presumably?) leave access to all the subdivisions with entry points right on 17? I used to drive this every day on the way home to Lakeville from Chanhassen to avoid freeways/etc. I can see where those intersections are dangerous, but that's driven mostly by the 65 mph speeds people drive on the freeway geometries of 17 itself.

The interchange improvements to CH2 and CH86 are explicitly to make the area more accessible to economic development aka more subdivisions. Of course, that isn't possible without a major widening of I-35 through Lakeville, also planned.

As far as transit goes, I hope they know what they're doing. I sketched out a rough local bus system for Shakopee with 5 long, straight routes serving the walkable core and most of the more sprawly jobs to the east. Mayor Tabke replied on Twitter saying "Think more in circles instead of lines - our city is long and narrow. They’ll work better." Oof. I pointed him in the direction of Human Transit. I would think even 2 perpendicular bus lines running every 15 minutes for most of the day would do wonders for the city to allow infill and families working in-town to drop a car. Ops costs for that would maybe run in the $2m/yr range (not including up-front capital costs). Not crazy to think $1m/year could go a decent way to subsidizing routes, but that's a county-wide number. I just don't know what they'll get out of it.

[mattaudio]

Oof indeed. For Shakopee, I could see a few circulator routes, but hopefully more "lines" than "circles." They could all touch my proposed DT Shakopee Green Line terminus at one end, and an express bus facility along 169 at the other.

[acs]

The Met Council really should have gotten Minnesota River Valley commuter rail going much sooner. That would have been the one at least semi-viable transit project for this area that could have steered them away from going all in on sprawl and freeways. It sucks that the rest of us are going to have to foot 90% of this bill.

[Tcmetro]

MVTA is conducting a Scott County service restructure plan soon, it should be finished by the end of the year. Also a 169 BRT study is supposed to begin soon.

[Mdcastle]

I dug up plans for County 17. Looks like the freeway would come by 2050. Maybe if we planned County 42 as a freeway starting in 1970 we might have at least some interchanges by now, instead of land use that makes interchanges effectively impossible. The long term plan is to eliminate private accesses and direct subdivision access, and to transfer jurisdiction to the state in exchange for 13 and 282. The traffic volumes at 17 and 42 do raise eyebrows why they built an interchange there, but then years ago Cedar and 42 probably had that low of volume and look how badly an interchange is needed there now.

Evidently the Chowen / 13 interchange is the only thing that directly conflicts with previous plans.

[mattaudio]

If Cedar and 42 were built as an interchange decades ago as Apple Valley just started to develop, it would currently be on MoveMN's list of deficient bridges to replace.

The thought of more exurban freeways is awful. I'm glad many of them, such as a Freeway CR21 cutting across Prior Lake and the city of Prior Lake's downtown, was turned down long ago.

[froggie]

such as a Freeway CR21 cutting across Prior Lake and the city of Prior Lake's downtown

<wikipedia> citation needed </wikipedia>

On a more serious note, this is the first I've ever seen or heard of a freeway proposal through Prior Lake. And I've been studying this sort of thing for years.

[Mdcastle]

Was County 21 ever proposed as a full freeway. The only proposals I've seen are an interchange at County 18 (dropped because the local businesses objected and an at grade intersection would work fine), and in downtown Prior Lake (apparently also dropped because of local businesses.) The interchange at County 18 would sure have been nice, but if they want to make County 17 the major north-south road maybe it's better to focus efforts there.

Maybe they could "finish" the County 101 / MN 13 interchange to eliminate the weave and the "left exit" from the mainline.

Also of note a "I-894 second beltway for congestion relief" actually got submitted as a Corridors of Commerce proposal.

[mattaudio]

Here's a compromise being floated by DFL lawmakers...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/267044129/Com ... ion#scribd

My take? While it's great to see a proposal to raise the taxes paid by motorists via the traditional gas tax:

1. That tax should not have continuously eroded purchasing power due to inflation. We need to move to a percentage-based gas tax, not a rate per unit of sale.

2. The tax should not go towards roadway capacity expansion until it can be proven that existing roadway costs are being borne by roadway users (it's not anywhere close right now) and that's not to mention all the negative environmental, land use, equity, etc externalities associated with our road capacity.

3. General revenues already pay for a large share of motor vehicle infrastructure directly and indirectly through local revenue streams, local government transfer payments, and general fund payments. So the idea that local transportation sales taxes should pay for road projects is a horrible idea. This would further degrade the feedback loop between the level of motor vehicle infrastructure consumption and the expenses required to provision that infrastructure. And it would also INCREASE the indirect subsidy of those who consume little to no motor vehicle infrastructure capacity for those who consume more. That's not progressive.

The most progressive option is still to do nothing, so we can avoid roadway expansion.

[acs]

You're joking me, Dibble, this is abhorrently tilted towards local pet road expansion projects and local pet projects and far, far away from transit. I'm pretty sure Erhardt wrote this and he's a former GOP'er.

[Mdcastle]

$800 for Corridors of Commerce. Not sure I feel about that since it's entirely for popup projects that short-circuit statewide planning, but on the other hand some of these badly needed expansion projects wouldn't happen otherwise without doling them out like that to make local officials able to say they've done something important.

The Two latest examples of, lame, half baked popup projects: The last intersection on the Willmar bypass now and the County 25 and US 169 intersections. Both current plans are to build an overpass while leaving the intersection as not to need to pay for proper ramps.

[UrsusUrbanicus]

The traffic volumes at 17 and 42 do raise eyebrows why they built an interchange there

I'm an office temp by day with a Shakopee delivery gig as my evening/weekend "insurance policy", and I definitely concur with regard to low traffic volume. This one owes to a combination of the county's safety concerns regarding at-grade left turns + SMSC's willingness to fund much or all of the project (as the tribe also did with the expansion of Scott County 83 to four lanes).

[mattaudio]

I'm also frustrated that the 25% Hennepin/ 50% Ramsey provision is still in this compromise. Way to blow the wad on the CWADS, if you will.