Drivers who use northbound Hwy. 169 in Bloomington will notice they have one fewer lane to use. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) re-striped the highway over the weekend from the Bloomington Ferry Bridge to Pioneer Trail and returned it to its original configuration with two lanes.
MnDOT added an extra northbound lane on the shoulder of Hwy. 169 in the spring when flooding forced the closure of Hwy. 41 in Chaska, one of the few places motorists in the south metro can cross the Minnesota River. The shoulder lane on Hwy. 169 helped accommodate additional traffic during that time.
That's been done in the past, too, but the extra lane was normally removed as soon as the waters receded. Not this year. Drive reader Kevin wondered why it had been that way all summer.
After the spring snowmelt, significant spring and summer rain pushed river levels up, so MnDOT held off, said MnDOT spokeswoman Christine Dufour.
Once the water no longer posed a flooding threat, MnDOT decided to wait and combine the re-striping job with a nearby paving project, Dufour said.
MnDOT is not keeping the extra lane because shoulders are not designed to carry large volumes of traffic, and they serve other important purposes, she said. Shoulders are used for snow storage in the winter, allow for rainwater to run off during the summer and provide space for emergency vehicles. Motorists whose vehicles break down can use shoulders for refuge.
"Therefore it is important that we restore Hwy. 169 to maintain these shoulders," Dufour said.
With 2017 traffic counts showing that Hwy. 169 carries 98,000 vehicles a day between the Minnesota River and Pioneer Trail — with traffic jams common during the morning commute — a third lane would come in handy. But that's not in the immediate future. MnDOT would have to study the social, economic and environmental impacts of adding a third lane, Dufour said. Plus, the agency would have to come up with the money, and "unfortunately, MnDOT does not have funding to expand Hwy. 169 at this time," she said.
