INFORMATION 06-04-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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INFORMATION MEMORANDUM ver TO: Mayor and City Council FROM: Justin Femrite, P.E., City Engineer DATE: June 4, 2012 SUBJECT: MNDOT CIMS Summary On Monday May 21, I attended a Corridor Investment Management Strategy (CIMS) meeting at MNDOT in St. Cloud. This meeting was hosted by MNDOT in an effort to receive local input regarding transportation needs for the next 20 years on the Trunk Highway systems. I have attached some information from MNDOT with some background on their CIMS initiative. Attendees of the meeting included members of various highway coalitions, council members, mayors, county commissioners, city administrators, city and county engineers, and concerned residents. At the meeting, MNDOT discussed how their limited budgets must be focused on preservation and rehabilitation of their existing infrastructure. They further explained the current funding levels are not sufficient for MNDOT to undertake large scale mobility or expansion projects. As such, they have now reallocated the limited amount they have previously budgeted for mobility and expansion to go towards pavement preservation. Mobility enhancement projects axe essentially traffic congestion relief projects. This means projects like the proposed improvements to TH 10 and TH 169 through Elk River will have even less funding allocated toward them. This is an approach MNDOT is Eoxced to take at a state wide level due to their current funding levels. On the behalf of Elk River I expressed concern that, as a city, we have recently put up a large amount of local money to study mobility improvements to the trunk highway system on MNDOT's behalf. I further expressed that seeing no movement towards making any type of mobility improvements to TH 10 or TH 169 in Elk River is hard to understand and justify our investment in the planning we completed fox it. I also stated that it is difficult to get community buy-in to the layouts if MNDOT never puts these projects in any of their improvement plans. Sherburne County Commissioner Ewald Peterson and Felix Schmiesing further emphasized the need fox MNDOT to put efforts and funding towards making mobility improvements to TH 10 and TH 169 through Elk River. The Sherburne County Public Works Director and County Engineer also expressed similar comments and support for needing these improvements. This was the 6xst round of several meetings I expect MNDOT to host on the CIMS initiative. If you have any questions on the CIMS initiative or want to add formal comments to MNDOT beyond what was communicated at the CIMS meeting, please call me at 763-635-1051. PflMEflEfl IY ~Aru~~