Video Transcript
Highway 169 / Interstate 494 Interchange
Flexible Design for 21st Century Challenges
Highway 169 is an Inter-regional Corridor connecting Mankato and southwestern Minnesota to Minneapolis and the rest of the Twin Cities.
It carries regional traffic, commuter traffic and local traffic. It serves as a major conduit for freight movement carrying commercial, agricultural and manufacturing products and it provides regional access to retail, institutional, recreational and entertainment facilities. It also connects to the ports of Savage, an important transfer point on the Minnesota River for grain heading to other parts of the country and to International destinations.
It’s been said that a road is only as good as its weakest link. In the case of Highway 169, the weakest link remains the Interchange at Interstate 494 in the southwestern suburbs where traffic lights still exist, that prevent roadway from fully functioning as it needs to, which is a freeway.
The signals at Highwood Drive and at both the north and south ramps with I-94 dramatically impact the traffic levels in the entire southwest region. The communities of Eden Prairie, Edina and Bloomington rely heavily on Highway169 for access to their existing development and for future development needs. New economic development near Eden Prairie Center, the Golden Triangle, Braemer and Edina and areas south of I-494 in the Bloomington area, cannot be fully realized without improvements to the Interchange.
John Griffith, Mn/DOT, “As part of our project we, obviously, want to remove the existing signals that are there. With a traditional design approach, we would rebuild the entire Interchange, all eight systems moves. With a performance-based design, we’re addressing what’s really needed at this point in time.”
Mn/DOT, along with its local partners, collaborated on a solution based on performance. The solution would have us rebuild the Interchange with six ramps instead of eight, as a phased approach, instead of constructing all eight at once which is the current Federal Policy for Interstates.
John Griffith, Mn/DOT, “Six of those eight movements will be fixed fix in Phase I. The remaining two movements really aren’t necessary to fix at this time.”
The phased approach would save approximately $40 to $30 million in construction costs that Mn/DOT could use elsewhere in the Twin Cities Metro Area.
The 169/494 performance-based solution rebuilds the Interchange at a lower cost, yet achieves 90 percent of the benefit of a full build.
The design removes stoplights, reduces congestion and improves safety. It improves the larger southwest Twin Cities transportation system.
John Griffith, Mn/DOT, “The performance-based design will allow us to free up financial resources and put them somewhere else in the system, perhaps maybe in the Interchange here sometime later in the future or maybe one of the other close by interchanges where we see a performance issue arise. It’s putting money where we have performance issues, rather than putting the money where it’s really not needed at this time.”
Performance-based design can be applied state-wide and across the nation. It represents an innovative way forward in improving and maintaining safety and mobility on our highway system. We can fix the weakest link on Highway 169 with performance based design. Collaborating with the Federal Highway Administration, we can make this solution a reality.
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