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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL - JULY 23, 2007 7 have a constituency in TCAAP yet. Another resident stated that Highway 10 and 96 is a safety issues, and we need to make a change. A resident asked, if this is ajoint project, can the City require a sound wall as part of the project? Mayor Harpstead stated that the City has some standing in these discussions. Councilmember McClung asked, when has Mn/DOT overridden municipal consent? Mr. Tolaas said he's never seen it happen. Mr. Roy stated it happened with the Crosstown project. Mr. Tolaas indicated that you cannot really extort from the state. Since they don't have a lot of funding, they will simply do projects elsewhere if the City doesn't want the project. Highway 10 is already functioning as a freeway with signals. Traffic will continue to increase. Ifwe don't invest in the regional system, traffic will go on local streets. A resident asked, won't the road status change? The response was that the road is not going to change status, it will remain a freeway, and it just won't have a signal. It will remain a U.S. Highway. Ms. Poucher asked what will happen when cars hit 1-694 traffic. Mayor Harpstead stated that was a good question, and it may impact noise and other factors. He stated there is difficulty with phasing of proj ects. Mr. Roy said the result is that they will be relocating the bottleneck from Highway 10 and 96 to 1-694, but that it may actually be a little bit "better" bottleneck than currently at the signal. Mayor Harpstead added that plans are still at the concept stage. The first step is to decide on a concept, then proceed to preliminary design engineering, which will lead to better answers to many of the questions being asked. A resident asked, is safety the # 1 reason for doing the proj ect? Mayor Harpstead responded that the opportunity to be out in front of a decision rather than behind it is important. The resident asked, is the number one reason to reduce crash rates? Mayor Harpstead said that the reasons include safety, environmental, access, and community values. Environmental issues take away many of the design options. The resident stated, so there are two reasons, safety and access. He said it is easy to find statistics to support that position. He continued that he is not convinced that the intersection is an established trend. He has other pollution concerns, not just noise but air as well. He feels we will lose the ability to get to downtown in fifteen minutes and airport in a half hour. Mayor Harpstead stated that we have to trust the engineers to design the project. This has been studied a great deal and many engineers have come to a similar conclusion about the need for grade separation. A resident stated that the human factor is more important, and asked what the process will be moving forward? Mayor Harpstead responded that what we need is either a better idea or action regarding this concept. The timeframe is that in August/September, a minimum of three of the five Council members need to approve a concept. If they do, it will move forward to the preliminary design phase. A resident asked if there could be more time, maybe until November.