A listing of some current transportation projects.
Project: New intersection
Location: Hwys. 169 & 69
Status: Bids let 2013; open 2015
Cost: $15 million
Significance: Continues effort to make an expressway of 169 by removing stoplights; only two will remain within the county. Existing intersection is crash-prone.
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Project: Hwy. 101 Bridge
Location: Shakopee to Chanhassen
Status: Design complete 2013; bids let 2014; done 2015
Cost: $34 million
Significance: A wider bridge lifted above increasingly frequent and serious flood waters will be a major improvement. Only a flood the magnitude of the legendary 1965 version would close the new bridge.
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Project: Marschall Road Transit Station
Location: Hwy. 169 & Marschall Road
Status: Built 2013; opens 2014
Cost: $1.9 million (for transit portion of larger project)
Significance: Main transit hub for express buses from Scott County; first station with an indoor waiting area. Ties local circulators to commuter express coaches; adds 400 parking stalls alongside a re-purposed auto dealership. On-ramp access to 169.
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Project: Eagle Creek Transit Station
Location: County Roads 21 and 16
Complete: July 2012
Cost: $1.2 million
Significance: Second transit station in Scott County; unique, low-cost, 50-year land lease deal with the Shakopee tribe saves millions. Final stroke in wider, $20 million project adding a new segment to County Road 21.
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Project: New intersection
Location: Hwy. 169 & I-494
Complete: November 2012
Cost: $125 million
Significance: Cleared multiple stoplights off a freeway, a state of affairs that made no sense from the start. Was No. 1 priority for a coalition stretching from Hennepin County to Mankato.
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Project: New intersection
Location: Hwys. 13 & 101
Complete: Fall 2012
Cost: $19 million
Significance: An innovative, unprecedented in Minnesota, partial flyover allows east-west traffic to flow freely, with stoplights only for those seeking to make left turns.
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Project: New intersection
Location: Hwys. 13 & 5
Status: Work starts this spring, lasts two years
Cost: $27.5 million
Significance: A crash-prone intersection becomes free-flowing by dropping Hwy. 13 down 22 feet and building a bridge to take Hwy. 5 over the top and make it safer by closing off access points and creating frontage roads.
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Project: Red Line
Location: Cedar Avenue in Lakeville to Mall of America
Begins service: May or June
Cost: $112 million
Significance: First launch in Minnesota of Bus Rapid Transit, a station-to-station service mimicking light rail but at a fraction of the cost. Carries riders to the Blue Line (Hiawatha light rail). Orange Line access, on I-35W, arrives later.
It’s too soon to tell how much the immigration crackdown is to blame.
