01-26-2004 Council Special Agenda

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January 15, 2004 Joel Hanson, City Administrator City of Little Canada 515 East Little Canada Road Little Canada, MN 55117 Subject: SP 6280 -304 (I -35E and 1 -694 interchange) "Unweave the Weave" Dear Mr. Hanson, A Little Canada Neighborhood Meeting was held on Tuesday January 6, 2004 at 7:00 PM to answer questions about the Unweave the Weave project. At the meeting, a resident from the the Twin Lake Trail area asked several questions and expressed concerns about the project. As I recall, the concerns and comments he offered were in three general categories, as follows. (1) Geometry It seems as though the new roadway alignment is being pushed 20 feet closer to the residential neighborhood. This brings the construction impacts and traffic noise closer to the residents. Also, the roadway alignment looks like it has too sharp of a curve. Many cars go off of the road in the vicinity of Waldo pond and the guardrail on the outside of that curve is all banged up. The state should realign the roadway to push it farther away from the residents. Use up some of the space in the wide median. Also the state should flatten the curve and raise the design speed of the roadway to increase the safety of the design. Mn /DOT Response: The roadway alignments proposed for the Unweave project will use all of the state's current right -of -way in this area to accomplish the construction (see construction limits), and in fact will not require the acquisition of any easements in this area from private land owners. If we move the proposed alignments further away from the Twin Lakes residential neighborhood, it would require us to buy expensive property easements from landowners on the other side of the interstate. Many years of studying alternatives were needed to come up with the proposed alignments. Many things were taken into consideration as the alignments and profiles were chosen. For example, the proposed alignments will allow us to continue to use much of the existing bridge and roadway alignments during construction, which reduces the traffic disruption impacts to the roadways (both interstate and local) during many months of constriction and reduces our bypass costs. The roadway profiles provide necessary clearances beneath bridges and allow the roadways to join with one another at appropriate common elevations. The roadway alignments, major roadway forks, and conversions are designed to meet urban freeway design safety standards for a 60 mph design speed. If we were to increase the design speed to something higher than this, the interstate might not be safely compatible with the nature of the Local interchages, and we might be required to buy additional expensive land area from the adjacent community. 6