Latest glimpse of expansion project

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

COURTLAND -- Even though it might not materialize until after 2010, everyone who came here Wednesday got the latest glimpse at the future of U.S. Highway 14.

Residents, politicians and MInnesota Department of Transportation officials met once again at a open house at the Courtland Community Center to take another look at the ongoing evolution of the expansion project.

The open house was the latest in a string of public meetings that began about three years ago between the various groups and individuals involved with the project.

The project would expand sections of U.S. Highway 14, which begins near Rochester and stretches to the South Dakota border, from a two-lane road to a four-lane highway. The project includes the section between North Mankato and New Ulm.

Even though the project is in the MnDOT's 20-year plan and expansion is closer to completion on paper, the project still faces hurdles in the Legislature and in Congress. Members of the U.S. Highway 14 Partnership have lobbied state and federal agencies and representatives to try to speed the project up with lukewarm success so far.

The complete cost to upgrade 14 to a four-lane highway is still unknown and will depend on a more detailed design study. Most project estimates put the price tag in the neighborhood of $100-200 million.

Nicollet County Commissioner Paul Engel, who represents the district through which Highway 14 runs, said he's fielded plenty of questions about the project.

"People are interested in how it affects farmland or the city and then it's 'When's it going to happen? In our lifetime?' Talk of 14 started in the '70s," he said. "Look at the traffic accidents. There have been four fatalities in between Nicollet and New Ulm this year. People are also getting kind of excited because they think it's getting a little bit closer to seeing it done."

MnDOT project manager Peter Harff said the department is getting ready to write a draft of an Environmental Impact Study -- an EIS -- which is expected this winter. He said the best realignment for the highway will be selected in summer 2005.

"It's not projected when we will build it even though it is in MnDOT's long-range plans because we don't know what the Legislature or Congress will do," Harff said.

A MnDOT scoping study found improvements were needed to address concerns about safety, traffic congestion, increasing truck traffic and highway access. MnDOT considered 10 possible realignments and screened out half of them for reasons such as bluff impacts, ravine impacts, inefficiency, adverse impacts on farmland or residential property or wildlife management areas. It also eliminated realignments with Nicollet County Highway 21, a northern bypass of Nicollet and a realignment with State Highway 68.

The EIS will consider the 22-mile segment of U.S. Highway 14 between the Minnesota River in New Ulm and Nicollet County Road 6 in North Mankato. It will examine traffic and safety, socioeconomic benefits, wetlands and the Swan Lake wildlife management area and the Minnesota River, farm field access and tile lines, historical buildings and properties and noise.

Regardless of the exact route, U.S. Highway 14 will likely continue to follow its present route from North Mankato until it its about a mile southeast of Nicollet. After that point, it could branch off into four possible directions.

The EIS and preliminary design are expected by the end of 2006, right-of-way preservation is expected between 2007 and 2009, The final design as well as the right-of-way acquisitions and construction are expected sometime beyond 2010.

"I guess the big news is we've limited the alignments we're going to study," Harff said.

Funding for the sections of 14 between North Mankato and New Ulm and between Owatonna and Dodge Center are considered the most crucial by the project's supporters. The section between Janesville and Waseca is funded and is under construction. The sections between Nicollet County Road 6 and North Mankato and between Waseca and Owatonna are in MnDOT's 10-year plan and have been hastened with additional funding. The section between New Ulm and Mankato will need an estimated $120 million and the section between Mankato and Rochester still needs $176.7 million, the study said.

New Ulm Mayor Joel Albrecht, who is chair of the U.S. Highway 14 Partnership, said he felt the meeting was on a par with previous MnDOT open houses.

"I think this is excellent as all have been. Remarkably, there is very little opposition to any of the alignments. There has been big opposition in other areas of the corridor, but not here. Then, this thing points out the dire need to upgrade the roadway," Albrecht said.