02-20-07 Item 2C, I-35W Corridor Coalition Membership

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'0 Coalition response: As we learned early on, there are conflicts between MnlDOT's desires to maximize flow on I-35W, TH 10 and 1-694 and the need to provide local mobility and access to the regional system. That led to MnlDOT's position that there are too many interchanges on 1- 35W and perhaps the County Road I ramps should be removed. Freeway interchange spacing is crucial from a traffic flow perspective and the Federal Highway Administration will playa role. How access is provided at Trunk Highway 10 and County Road 96 affects how access is provided at County Road 10 into and out of Mounds View as well as the design of the County Road H interchange proposed as the 'front door' to TCAAP redevelopment. Transportation access will forever be a challenge in redeveloping our cities. Accomplishment of TCAAP redevelopment will likely be hampered from a marketing perspective until the major system design and access issues are resolved and there is hope for funding of interim as well as long term fixes. Completing the design homework is made extremely difficult by the severe shortage of both construction funds as well as design development funds at the County and State level. #3: What are the strategies and objectives of the I-35W Coalition? Are they open to change and modification or have they been set in stone? Coalition response: The primary objective of the Coalition is to generate the resources necessary to conduct the technical studies needed to provide the information upon which the competing interests addressed in Question #2 can be resolved. The attached document ("Coalition Purpose") provides a more detailed description. Our strategies and objectives are determined annually by the Board based on advice from Mr. Bob Benke, other agency staff, and City and County staff. They can be changed whenever the Board decides. Most recently, the Coalition completed build- out studies that identified ultimate growth/capacity needs that will be used in the next stage of design. At that time, the objectives changed from a planning perspective to specifically focusing on design ofthe solutions to the problems we identified. #4. What are the most recent 'successes'? Coalition response: As noted in the attached document, we have two major tasks at hand. First, on a longer term basis, we need to get 1-35W improvements into the MnlDOT and Metropolitan Council plans and program so that we don't continue to face the chicken and egg problem of ineligibility because improvements are not of high enough priority. Toward that end, our recent meetings with MnlDOT Metro District staff have convinced them that I-35W needs to have a higher priority. We have also been in touch with our Metropolitan Council members to drive home the same point and will continue on this task as they update the regional system plans in 2008. We have also been encouraging the MnlDOT metro division to assign internal staffto the design task rather than using consultants given that they have not had funds for consultant services in their budget, especially since expansion ofI-35W is not in the 2030 plan horizon. The only other alternative has been for Coalition members to come up with the funds, estimated at $250,000 for the first design tasks if done by consultants. They recently assigned a staff planner to the project