6.3. SR 12-03-2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Howard R, Green Company Item 8.1 - 8.6. November 20, 2001 File: 230000M-0325 Honorable Mayor and City Council City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway P.O. Box 490 Elk River, MN 55330-0490 RE: TRANSPORTATION ISSUES Dear Council Members: As you are aware, the focus of Monday evening's City Council meeting will be various transportation issues within the City. This letter is intended to give you a brief background on some of the topics we will be prepared to discuss with the City Council: 1. INTERREGIONAL CORRIDOR STUDIES MnDOT is currently performing planning studies on seven interregional corridors throughout the State of Minnesota. Two of these studies happen to cross in the City of Elk River. These are the corridor studies on TH 10 from 35W in Mounds View to Clear Lake, and the TH 101FFH 169 Study from Rogers to Garrison. We have asked the engineer working on the TH 10 Study to be available at the meeting to discuss specifically the recommendations that will be coming forth relative to TH 10 in the City of Elk River. We will have available the drawings and information for the TH 169 Study relative, again, to proposals for inside the City of Elk River. It is important to point out that these are only planning studies at this point in time. Each of these studies, when they are concluded, will develop a list of deficiencies in the corridor and potential projects to remedy these deficiencies. It is likely that the seven interregional corridor studies will generate several billion dollars worth of identified improvements that are necessary. In order to implement any of these improvements, first of all, money needs to be appropriated. Once money is appropriated to a specific project, there is a fairly long process, including environmental studies, an ElS if necessary, preliminary and final plan preparation, and land acquisition, followed by construction. The typical project would take at least five years to implement once money has been appropriated. MnDOT has appropriated a few hundred million dollars for interregional corridor improvements. As you might guess, there will likely be stiff competition for these dollars and no one knows at this time which interregional corridors or which projects on those corridors will be allocated monies from this pool. Also, it is unclear how quickly and how much additional dollars MnDOT will be able to earmark for interregional corridor improvements. Ltr 11-20-01 Council 1326 Energy Park Drive · St. Paul, MN 55108 ° 651/644-4389 fax 651/644-9446 toll free 888/368-4389