When the last major I35W Expansion plan was iced in the early 1990's, the city of Minneapolis came to agreement with MNDoT that light rail would eventually be developed in the I-35W corridor instead of additional lanes. As noted in the following excerpts from a recent Star Tribune article, it would seem that the success MNDoT has had including expansion in the Access Project has encouraged them to accelerate adding a plan to add lanes, making I35W a 10-lane highway. Here's the quote:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4198539.html Extending the fifth lane on 35W toward downtown is now scheduled for 2015 or later, but it's being considered for potential advancement if new funding is available, O'Keefe said. Even if northbound I-35W is widened to five lanes, the junction of I-35W and I-94 near downtown Minneapolis will remain jammed. MnDOT is not even discussing improvements there, and that means that congestion is likely to filter back through south Minneapolis from that constriction. **** This is the repercussion of having Peter McLaughlin, RT Rybak and others simply accept the widening that MNDoT inserted into the orginal plan rather than continue the fight against widening that Sharon Sayles-Belton initiated. Shame on Peter & RT!! It is, however, untrue that MNDoT is not discussing improvements at the interchange with I-94; Smith Parker developed a whole set of "improvements" to this interchange as part of their Excess Project. It's very sad to see this continued focus on enabling and encouraging automobile traffic. As I've noted before, Minneapolis seems to be about 20 years behind the curve on national trends, and transit is no exception. David Piehl Central __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
