05-13-1991 Council Minutes (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING HELD JUNE 10, 1991 (#14)HIGHWAY 12 CORRIDOR CONTINUED upgrade beyond a four -lane highway. I would think at a minimum that the City should be in favor of deleting Highway 55,. and County Road 11, and possibly County Road 6 and the south bypass based on an inability for those routes to meet traffic objectives. However the arguments supporting the deletion of County Road 6 and the south bypass may not be shared by the other communities." Sherokee Ilse asked Council if they were going to take the position for deleting corridors suggested by the City Administrator. She indicated that the Citizens Group had met with the Long Lake Residents Group. She said, "At the meeting we put together three pages of items to which there was mutual agreement, and three pages of items to which the City of Long Lake disagreed.- One of the items in which the City of Long Lake is interested is the idea of shared transportation burden. This means that County Road 6, Highway 12, and Highway 55 would be upgraded and designated to address various aspects of traffic. It seems that may be one of the main issues that the two groups could. agree to, but if we delete Highway 55, that would not be possible. We agreed at the meeting that we would encourage PINDOT to take a serious look at the possibility of .upgrading both Highway 55 and Highway 12. I would urge the Council *to think hard about Highway 55 to see if we cannot convince MNDOT to look at that option first." Bernhardson stated that upgrading Highway 55 would not pull enough traffic off of Highway 12. The projections are still at 25,000. There are traffic problems - with the current traffic level on Highway 12, which is 18.000. Bernhardson commented further that if P4NDOT spends money to make a link in Delano between Highway 12 and Highway 55 that they would be reluctant to spend additional funds to do any additional upgrades to Highway 12. Mayor Peterson indicated that she had met with Larry Dallam and his comments echoed those just made by Bernhardson. Highway. 55 is too far north to pull traffic off of Highway 12, and for that reason, Highway 55 is not a viable route. Ilse stated that she is leery of using MNDOT's rationale and that there are still many questions to be answered about traffic levels on Highway 12. Goetten stated that it may; not be, wise for the City to take a position on deleting any routes other than the south bypass if it is to have successful negotiations with the City of Long Lake. She said, "It is true we have been getting some negative feedback about the shared transportation burden option, but perhaps that will be the final resolution. Even though it may be true that Highway 55 will not take enough traffic from Highway 12, there - 10 -