Deciding what to do with the federal transportation stimulus is a bit like Christmas shopping: Do the kids want a couple of big-ticket items, or a whole bunch of stocking-stuffers?

On Wednesday, the "kids" -- representatives from metro-area cities and counties -- voted for one big-ticket item, an extension of Hwy. 610 in the northern suburbs.

Next they'll need to choose between the heavily traveled interchange at Hwy. 169 and Interstate 494 and about 20 smaller projects throughout the metro area.

That looming choice provoked some spirited debates over metropolitan fairness, the definition of shovel-ready, and even the very purpose of the stimulus.

Minnesota must "obligate" 50 percent of its half-billion dollar share of transportation stimulus money by July 1, and putting the $86 million Hwy. 610 project out for bids this spring would help it achieve that goal.

The Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) also gave the green light to the $40 million in smaller projects on Wednesday, but those might get bumped down the list in favor of 169-494 in the Bloomington-Edina-Eden Prairie area.

To get the cost of that project down to about $140 million, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has come up with a less-ambitious design. It would eliminate the traffic signals that torment drivers on 169, but it wouldn't include a couple of ramps that federal planners want: an eastbound-to-northbound flyover ramp, and a southbound-to-westbound ramp.

MnDOT says these would get little use because drivers wanting to head either northeast or southwest tend to use the diagonal Hwy. 212, a mile and a half away.

The Federal Highway Administration has yet to sign off on the plan -- it's not a big fan of less-than-full interchanges. MnDOT expects to learn soon whether the modified design gets the OK, and then the TAB could decide at its April 15 meeting.

Many officials had hoped for a more definitive outcome from Wednesday's meetings, which stretched for nearly five hours. "It's amazing how difficult it is to spend a lot of money," said Edina Mayor Jim Hovland.

Much of the debate centered on the 169-494 junction, with Jon Ulrich of Scott County saying the interchange sees more than 500 accidents a year and is congested for six hours each day. Rebuilding it would keep people employed for three years, he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this."

Tom Workman of Carver County said that even though the project is miles from his county, public officials he talked to thought it should be at the head of the list. "One hundred percent of them said, 'Get 169 done,'" he said, even if it meant risking their local projects.

Dennis Berg of Anoka County noted that job creation and project readiness, not traffic flow, are the stimulus plan's top priorities. He expressed concern about the lack of federal approval for 169-494 and the fact that construction wouldn't begin until 2010.

"These families out there that are looking for work this year, they're in a depression," he said. "When is Daddy going to get a job out of this? That's what we should be looking at."

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491