GearHeadGrrrl wrote:
Now there are occasions of truly unusual situations that require outside consultants. The access project is not one of them. The highway department (mis)designed 35W in the first place, and there seems to be quite enough "institutional memory" enshrined in the Highway Building to manage or mismanage a redesign of the Lake Street access to 35W without the assistance of consultants.
WM: In theory, I would agree with this statement except that those who did it have probably all retired by now. However, the fly in the ointment, in the instance of 35W, IS...>>> MNDOT. It is MNDOT that, two years into the Access Project, insisted on wider bridge support spans, to accomodate some nebulous "future" expansion. At that time, the 8th Ward's rep on the PAC nailed MNDOT by asking, 'why did you wait until now, having sat with us for 2 years, to introduce this issue?' It was the 8th ward council member who found that unacceptable and went to the mayor who then said she would not tolerate any widening of 35W, as I understand the sequence of events.
As it stands now, the 35W Access Project does not widen the road bed outside the trench it now occupies. Since we have experienced a change of mayors and council members, the "street cred", if you will, of the former did not devolve to the newly-elected mayor and council members.
During the time following the election, it is the employed law firm, Smith-Parker, that has done the heavy lifting to keep the PAC's chosen plan (17 for, 3 against) intact as the project moves forward into phase two.
On another level of the issue, that of MNDOT's relationship to the building of highways, I'd be curious if anyone knew when MNDOT shifted to a consultant-based operation or was it always consultant based?
WizardMarks, Central
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