The 2nd ‘4th Monday of the month’ LWV discussion focused on the Rice County Transportation Plan, which is still in process of being approved and implemented.
According to the Rice County Website the plan is guided by the following elements:
Development of roadway standards that can be put into action across the County, these standards will answer questions such as:
What design standard should be chosen for a roadway’s reconstruction?
Where driveways should be located?
How roadway improvement costs should be shared?
Identify solutions to existing safety and traffic volume problems?
Anticipate where safety and traffic volume problems are likely to occur over time as the area grows and plan for those future needs before problems occur?
Develop a vision of a future roadway network that works with existing and future land uses and can be supported by cities and townships within Rice County and neighboring counties
Identify trail locations and “park and ride” opportunities
Develop an approach to fund identified transportation improvements
The County Board has already approved some parts of the plan to facilitate its implementation, however the plan does not deal with what are termed “local issues” within the boundaries of the communities of the county, like deadman’s curve on Cedar Ave. or what will become of Jefferson Parkway. League President Kathleen Doran Norton moderated the discussion and shared a map of the plan, 
which shows the establishment of traffic corridors flowing East and West to I-35 and North and South a long it to provide for local traffic. The plan identifies 150th street as the East West trunk road south of Dundas that would funnel traffic from MN246 across the river and to I35. (The plan and map can be downloaded from the County website.)
When some asked about the plans for the idea to extend Jefferson Parkway across the river, Bruce Morlan of the Dundas planning commission stated that as far as he knew the county would build only one bridge across the Cannon. Hopefully Dundas Bridgewater and Northfield would be able to come together on what might be the best option. Of course this is all being driven by runaway development that already exceeds what even a few years ago was predicted for our area. The city has requested new predictions from a demographer to determine what might be more accurate predictions for the city. I wonder if it will include growth predictions in the Dundas/Bridgewater area. This is information the school board will be interested in as their boundaries extend beyond the city.
Bruce has done a fair amount of thinking about development in the area and has offered his expertise on dealing with planning issues to the Dundas City Council. Bruce indicated that it is only through a thorough planning process that one can identify those hidden costs you will encounter when you city and county staff what happens when you develop a certain area. Bruce is also chairman of NCO so of course he has a blog too. Check out what he has to say. Here are a couple of posts on the issue: 1, 2
Bruce reports that “Bridgewater and Dundas are very concerned, and actively working to keep transportation issues at the forefront of their planning processes, with traffic being a driving factor in resource sharing between the two.”
Bruce explained some of the complexity of the traffic issues with an example you can also find on his blog:
“A proposal to develop the Chester property was met with some concern, especially with respect to traffic planning for C.S.A.H. 1, Cty 20, MN 3. Dundas is firmly committed to not repeating the errors that make Cty 22, MN 246, C.S.A.H. 1 so dangerous on the south side of Northfield, east side of Dundas. Indeed, while Bridgewater Heights, Phase II, will be blocked if the traffic problem along 115th Street is not solved, it turns out that solving that problem will require:
– straightening out 115th on the western approach (blind curve)
– reducing the grade (steep steep hill will need to be reduced to no more than a 5% or so grade)
– surfacing the road with blacktop rather than gravel
Note that the neither of the dangerous intersections need to be fixed to satisfy this list – though I have and will continue to argue that it is really poor form to spend as much as $4M to fix 3/4 of the problems only to spend that amount again to fix the last 1/4, when we could design the first 3/4 to grow smoothly into a final design.”
Others talked about the need to think more about trails and sidewalks as sections of the county become more urbanized. It may be even more costly to think about them after the fact. Betsey Buckheit of the Northfield planning commission added that it has been very difficult to solve the problem of adding in sidewalks in Northfield. Residents see the value of a sidewalk on the street but don’t want it put on their side of the street.
Then there was the concern about what will happen with highway 19 and how difficult it is to work with other local units of government. This issue will not only involve Rice County but MnDOT, Dakota County and several townships and probably St. Olaf College. It would be useful if the state could play a role in providing information and expertise to local interests to come together to solve some of these issues. Local control is very important but often local units don’t have the expertise or information to make the best decisions, consequently they can be at the mercy of who ever applies the most pressure to get their way.
Bruce described several decision-making tools he used to help groups think their way through this kind of planning. It made me think how lucky Dundas is to have someone willing to volunteer their expertise in this way. The state used to have a department of planning that could provide expertise and resources to local units of government if they desired to make use of it. Another casualty of the “we don’t need government” frame of mind holding us hostage these days. Apparently some of their resources can still be found online at their website: Local Planning Assistance