5.3. SR 11-16-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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movement of products to customers are very costly. According to TI'I, Federal Express and UPS report that a daily delay of five minutes cumulatively costs their businesses $40 million a year. Trucking: The major source of truck traffic is the movement of agricultural commodities and year-round movement of commodities and manufactured goods by over-the-road trucks. In Sherburne County, another major source of truck traffic is the movement of aggregate materials from area quarries. TH 10 is the east-west route that is heavily used by trucks in Sherburne County in addition to the Mississippi River crossings at TH 24 and TH 25. Railroads: There is an increased demand to transport large volumes of commodities in a timely fashion by rail. Railroads are improving facilities to meet the need to move commodities to national and international shipping points. Changes in'railroad companies have led to railroads becoming more competitive with long-haul trucking operations. Located in the TH 10/47 Corridor, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad currently carries an average of 50 to 60 trains per day. The primary commodities shipped are agricultural and industrial commodities between Chicago and the west coast, general freight, and coal to the SHERCO Power Plant in Becker. BNSF's current policy is to maintain the same number or fewer rail crossings. In other words, BNSF will not allow the opening of new crossings unless an equal number are closed. Future activities of BNSF include the upgrade of the single track to double track between Clear Lake and Big Lake, although this has not been assigned to a definite program year. In addition, BNSF has indicated that it expects train traffic to increase to up to 80 trains per day, although there is no definite timeline. On-time delivery is critical to BNSF profitability. For instance, BNSF receives incentive pay from time sensitive clients such as UPS and the BNSF/LrPS contract states that there will be no on-line construction from Thanksgiving to Christmas. 3.2 HIGHWAY FACILITIES The corridor has several types of roadways, including freeways, multi-lane rural and suburban highways, two-lane highways, and urban and suburban arterials. TH 10 and 1-94 are the major east-west roadways in the study area. The remaining roadways provide a series of facilities that connect and allow traffic to move efficiently to TH 10 and 1-94. Along the north side of the Mississippi River, TH 10 extends from the Twin Cities area north to St. Cloud and further north and west to business, home, and recreational land uses. Along the south side of the Mississippi River, 1-94 is the major east-west route in and through the Twin Cities traveling north to St. Cloud and the areas north and west into the remainder of Minnesota. The primary north-south roadways in the Northstar Corridor are TH 15, TH 23, TH 24, TH 25, TH 169, TH 101, and TH 47. 3.3 EXISTING AND FUTURE TRAFFIC CONDITIONS Existing traffic conditions in the Northstar Corridor indicate that some roadway segments are currently congested and the balance of them are approaching a congested level-of-service. The level of service analysis for traffic forecasts from Mn/DOT indicates that the Northstar Corridor will be severely congested in Anoka, Sherburne, and Hennepin Counties by the year 2020. Level-of-service (LOS) refers to the degree of congestion on a road or intersection and is based on vehicle operating speed, travel time, traffic interruptions, delays, safety, and driving discomfort. LOS is described by a letter scale from "A" to "F", with "A" representing the best Northstar Corridor Major Investment Study Section 3 - Transportation 10-28-98 3-5