South metro knows: Not all Minnesota road projects lead to stimulus funds

Orange cones will pop up all over the southern suburbs in the months to come, with the number of road projects jump-started by federal stimulus money at more than $20 million and counting.

But there is also reason to fear that the lack of attention to the intersection of Hwys. 169 and 494 will continue to echo for years -- if not decades.

The project failed to shoulder its way into the $240 million metro-area road-funding bonanza. Local officials have for years wanted to remove the intersection's much-maligned stoplights, which slow traffic to a crawl, and replace them with a freeway interchange.

And while there's no sniffing at free money, Dakota County Transportation Chief Mark Krebsbach is disappointed that the intersection of Hwy. 13 and County Road 5 couldn't have been added.

"We would have liked to make the case for it," he said, but it wasn't "shovel-ready." "If it was further along it could have been considered."

Still, several projects in Dakota and Scott counties were given the go-ahead last week, and others remain in the mix in a round of high-speed decision-making that will take place over the next few weeks.

The paving of a new stretch of County Road 21 in Scott County is the biggest item for the south so far, in terms of dollars. But the greater number land in Dakota County, from Burnsville through Eagan and Inver Grove Heights.

Among the transit projects still being considered, Metro Transit's finance head Ed Petrie told a Met Council committee last week, are an additional parking deck for the Apple Valley transit station and a bus-only ramp onto Hwy. 169 in Shakopee.

The latter is aimed at creating a major new time saver for express bus riders from Scott County, encouraging more drivers to leave their cars at a park-and-ride rather than add to the morning and evening rush-hour messes.

And that may be all the more tempting given the failure to make the big fix for Hwy. 169: whisking away the stoplights and creating a full freeway intersection in their place.

Judging by the byplay between Met Council members and senior staff last week, it could be a long time before anything happens.

Bob McFarlane, a former interim commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation who's now a Met Council member, said the delays at 169/494 remind him of the endless impasse over building a new river crossing in Stillwater.

Scott County officials warned before the decision was made that this could be the last best chance for the intersection for a long time to come. And Wendy Wulff, of Lakeville, newly sworn in to the Met Council last week, expressed disgust at federal highway officials' unwillingness to flex their normal rules in order to get it done.

"If they are going to insist on an overly expensive stupid interchange, the feds should pay for the whole thing," she said. "Carver, Scott, Dakota counties all consider that a major bottleneck not only for the metro but for Greater Minnesota," since 169 is a major entry point for the southwest part of the state.

On a smaller scale, meanwhile, local officials are still vying for money for a host of improvements in their areas. In Dakota, for instance, Krebsbach said, "there are five projects still in play," one advanced by the county and four by cities.

Those include reconstruction of County Road 96 near Northfield; the upgrade of 73 in Rosemount from gravel to paved; an intersection improvement in Mendota Heights, and pavement upgrades to roads in Lakeville and Apple Valley.