urbanMSP

https://streets.mn/2015/02/02/main-stree ... minnesota/
Link in comments to this...
http://www.us169corridorcoalition.com/d ... bypass.pdf

And it looks like the creator of this is the City of St. Peter Public Works Director. I guess Mr. Lewis Giesking didn't get the memo that the 50s are over, and we no longer like to destroy towns with freeways.

Yeah, that does seem like a bizarre proposal. It's true, though, that the current situation is less than desirable.

I've often wondered why the historical ROW through St. Peter is as wide as it is -- it feels vast driving through town, and I suspect that if it had been a more typical ROW, they would have built the by-pass 40 years ago.

Oof. There's no way you can build a freeway along Front Street without decimating the town center/Heritage Preservation District.

Is there any actual effort being put into adding passenger service to the rail line between Mankato and the Twin Cities? Considering that there are several significant towns along the line, it wouldn't be surprising if it could exceed the ridership of Zip Rail (though many trips would be shorter, so it wouldn't necessarily do any better revenue-wise).

Why would they not reroute it west of town? Sure, it'd be more pavement, but it would preserve the town better, and take out some of the bend in 169.

There's a pretty good sized hill in the way.

Why would they not reroute it west of town? Sure, it'd be more pavement, but it would preserve the town better, and take out some of the bend in 169.

I was thinking the same. Outside of town, 169 seems ideally positioned on both ends for a bypass west of town. Even if there are substantial elevation challenges, would that really be more expensive (and disruptive) than running it through town?


And honestly, other than heavy truck traffic, is the present situation that bad? What the heck would they do with that super-wide ROW after the freeway was added? It already looks to have wide-enough sidewalks, street trees, benches, a planted median, on-street parking, etc. Is there perhaps a different strategy to lessen or mitigate the truck traffic through town?

Unfortunately it looks like this is just fantasy for a while. While it's irritating to have to slow down and come to a stop on a highway of statewide importance, I think there's better ways to spend our money right now. If US 169 hadn't been relocated to the west side of the river it would be pretty simple to built a bypass east of the river.

They're probably not online anymore, but I recall the objections to the west bypass were
1) The steep hills would cause operational and maintenance problems.
2) The area on the west side of town is mainly residential, they didn't want the highway oriented businesses to relocated their from the existing alignment.
3) Businesses and community groups wanted through traffic, especially truck traffic, away from the downtown area. I can see this logic, I've stopped at the McDonalds and gasoline stations countless times but never downtown so when I drive through my cars just taking up space and emitting exhaust without contributing anything to downtown.

Mn/DOT seems to be backing away from improving US 169 in general. They've told Jordan that if they want to get rid of the light that Jordan needs to be the driver and come up with a substantial amount of money. Belle Plaine is building a new overpass on their own intiative after Mn/DOT told them a full interchange is not going to happen.

One idea of what to do with the extra space if downtown is ever bypassed would be cycletracks.

^Where is Belle Plaine adding an interchange? That town is horribly disconnect with only one road on the edge of town providing any way for anyone not in a car to actually cross the highway.

As someone who drives this way to get to family in Mankato and further south, I really don't see much truck traffic most of the time, at least until you get south of Mankato where it seems to pick back up. Because of that, seems like it wouldn't hurt to keep the highway right where it is. Most people, in my experience, even slow down to roughly the speed limit, so it's not like cars are whizzing by.

Seems like I-35, new US 14 freeway west, and even US 212 four laning, has the same potential to improve truck access to/from Southern/SW MN than $20 million/mile projects to save people 2 minutes of time on 169.

There's a new overpass going in at County 3. Although a nice interchange was designed with the studies a decade ago, Mn/DOT's current position is that it's not needed due to it being so close to another one and the reduced conflict intersection that they forced on the city that was supposed to be an interim measure is good enough. Since the local agencies have to pay for most of it they're doing it the cheapest way possible, with a two lane overpass leaving the existing RCI alone.

Not at all news, but a historical query.

I was looking at an aerial of Nicollet, MN after reading a great write-up of Schmidt's Meats in the Heavy Table. Noticed that there was a large grain elevator complex to the north of town with no rail line serving it. Zoomed out in the map a bit, and started to see (or imagine) an old railroad ROW that would have gone from New Ulm to Courtland to Nicollet to Traverse and then into St. Peter, presumably somehow connecting to the extant tracks across the river.

Anybody have any history about this line? Looking at you, Mulad.

EDIT: OK, a little more digging shows that this would have been part of the Chicago and Northwestern.