Funds sought for Highway 14 planning

New Ulm, Nicollet, Courtland officials

seek location of highway expansion set to start in 2015

By CHRIS VETTER

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Although expansion along Highway 14 is not slated for 15 years, area officials want to get planning work done now.

City officials in New Ulm, Courtland and Nicollet are hoping to secure money this fall for "scoping," or development planning, to plot out the future location of the highway, which is slated to be expanded to four lanes in 2015 to 2020.

Earlier this year, the Legislature approved $177 million in one-time funding for interregional corridors, which are main roads outside the Twin Cities metro. The vast majority of those funds will be spend on 26 major projects, said Dick Bautch, interregional corridor manager in Mankato. However, $6 million is set aside for scoping and planning projects.

"The cities and the counties want the study because they are looking at long-term development," Bautch said. "They want to know where the road will go."

Within the next two or three weeks, The Mankato MnDOT office -- District 7 -- will compile a list of projects it would like to undertake with the money. That list, with spending proposals, will be sent to the central MnDOT offices in St. Paul, where state officials will determine in November which projects get funded.

Brian Tohal, New Ulm Economic Development Corporation coordinator, estimated that scoping costs for the 24-mile stretch from New Ulm to North Mankato at $200,000. Bautch said he does not know how much the district office will request for the scoping work.

"I think District 7 realizes it's important to the communities," Tohal said. "For two lanes, the traffic volume is high."

Scoping is important because it outlines where the state will eventually purchase right of ways. It also tells community planners where they should avoid developing land.

After scoping is done, the transportation department can start to buy right-of-way land.

"We're trying to get a jump on it so it doesn't get too costly," said Rebecca Arndt, MnDOT public affairs coordinator. "We would like to try and beat the development."

Buying right-of-way land in North Mankato is considered highly important because of the current expansion in that vicinity, Arndt said.

One possibility that will be explored during scoping is moving Highway 14 out of Main Street in Courtland and farther away from Nicollet.

"I think that's the purpose of this study -- do you go through town or around it?" Bautch said. "I don't think even the study will be the definitive answer on it."

Dan Wietecha, city administrator for Courtland and Nicollet, said both towns prefer to move the busy highway. Wietecha said Courtland officials approved a comprehensive land management plan 18 months ago that would place the highway a quarter-mile farther north of its current location.

"Let's not have it on Main Street, primarily out of safety concerns," Wietecha said. Also, expanding the road to four lanes would require the removal of homes along Main Street, Wietecha contends.

"We don't want it to be some distance from town," he said. "It is important to Courtland and Nicollet to have access to it. But for a half-dozen reasons, it shouldn't go right through town."

While Courtland officials have chosen a place they want the road to eventually be placed, Nicollet planners are having more difficulty plotting a location, Wietecha said.

"It is very important that as Nicollet grows and develops, it doesn't grow in the wrong spot," he said.

After scoping work is done, MnDOT still must secure $1.5 million for an environmental impact survey before any construction could begin.