Interstate 35 through Lakeville is not one of the road projects in MnDOT's 20-year plan, but the city's mayor and City Council say a third lane through the fast-growing suburb is needed, now.
So they took their request straight to Gov. Mark Dayton. In a Feb. 19 letter, Mayor Matt Little asked MnDOT to add a third lane through the city to ease congestion and reduce accidents..
In the letter Little said I-35 corridor is the "busiest, most heavily traveled highway corridor in Minnesota," and he noted that a section of the road beginning at the southern edge of Lakeville and extending to County Road 46 accounted for 300 crashes, 125 injuries and four fatalities in the past three years.
You can read more about the request in a story by colleague Erin Adler here.
In case you missed this earlier this week, my colleague Rachel E. Stassen-Berger had this nuggett about Michele Bachmann and others calling for an additional lane on I-94 between Rogers and St. Cloud. They also called for improvements on U.S. Hwy. 10. The cost would be about $400 million.
Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, backed by a bipartisan cohort of about three dozen lawmakers, local elected officials and business folks, came to the Minnesota Capitol to offer support for about $400 million worth of improvements to I-94 and Minnesota Highway 10.
"This is one of the supreme duties of government, that no one can do privately is build roads and bridges and interchanges and we are woefully behind on infrastructure," Bachmann said.
Bachmann, Democratic U.S. Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar and Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen have all signed letters of support for the build out project on I-94, which would add lanes on the interstate between the Twin Cities and St. Cloud.
