4.0. SR 11-18-1996 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Honorable Mayor and City Council November 13, 1996 Page Two no projects are programed by MnDOT, we could still attempt a locally initiated project with MnDOT participation. Finally, Mr. Raisanen points out that Tom Dumont, Assistant District Traffic Engineer, located in St. Cloud, has been assigned to work with the City on these issues. I will keep in contact with Mr. Dumont regarding the status of the issues referred to in MnDOT's Annual Safety program. With regard to an overhead pedestrian crossing, we have done further research regarding several issues. The first pertains to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. There is no individual agency charged with enforcing the ADA standards. The most likely scenario would be if the City did not follow the ADA requirements, some individual may try to force the City to comply with the standards by filing suit against the City. Therefore, we would recommend that any pedestrian overpass have ramps meeting ADA requirements. These would dictate that ramps be at a 12:1 slope with a 5-foot landing for every 30" of rise. There is another requirement which eliminates the need for the landings, but lengthens the slope of the ramp to 20:1. One way to minimize the impact of the ADA requirements for ramping and the effect that this has on the cost of the structure is to try to pick a location where the landing point is already substantially higher than the highway, therefore minimizing the amount of ramping or allowing this area to be ramped using earth. We have looked at the TH 169 corridor between School Street and 197th, and the most likely location for minimizing the impact of ramps at each end would be somewhere on the water tower side. A pedestrian overpass at this location would run into the MnDOT property on the east side. Perhaps a small strip of property could be acquired on the south side of the MnDOT parcel to facilitate pedestrian movements back over to Dodge Avenue. There are several different styles and types of pedestrian overpass. Assuming a minimum width of 8 feet and a rather simple structure, the cost estimates for a overpass with full ramps on each side would be approximately $850,000. To locate it where earthen ramping could be accomplished would lower the cost to approximately $600,000. In addition to these estimated costs monies would have to be added for pedestrian pathways from Dodge on the east and Freeport on the west to the start of the pedestrian overpass. With regard to funding of a pedestrian overpass, the most likely candidate would be the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). As the City Council is aware, this is a rather competitive process where the City's project would be evaluated against other projects within the region and then also compete with projects State wide. We would certainly recommend that the City submit the overpass as a potential project, but we are really not very optimistic about it being funded in the near term. In our letter to MnDOT, we asked for their thoughts on fuming sources. Potentially, there may be some highway funding that could be combined with City funding to facilitate the project. We will have to wait until MnDOT responds regarding this issue. 230/347-1303.nov