The Association of Minnesota Counties forecasts a funding shortfall of more than $1.1 billion dollars annually over the next twenty years based on current funding from the State Legislate. The Polk County Commissioners have signed a resolution to the Minnesota Legislature to pass and have the Governor sign a bill that brings adequate funding to the statewide transportation system.
Polk County receives about $9 million dollars for the County State Aid Highways (1-75), which according to a presentation to the commissioners by Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders will be about $270 million dollars short of Polk County’s needs. The legislation would also provide funding for township roads and municipal state aid streets said, Sanders. “All of the counties are hoping to get a transportation bill passed through the legislature to help with funding of County State Aid Highways, MNDOT’s Trunk Highways, municipal state aid streets for cities greater than 5,000 and township roads. All those roads are funded through the Highway User Distribution Fund which is paid through the gas tax, tab fees, and motor vehicles sales tax when you purchase a vehicle.”
The County signed an agreement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to detour traffic around Erskine onto county roads while Highway 2 and 59 are worked on. “Every year MnDOT reconstructs some roads within Polk County and when they do that they set up an agreement with us to detour traffic on our roadways,” said Sanders. “They are currently working on the construction plan for downtown Erskine, Highway 2, and some work on Highway 59 and because of that they will need to use our county roads between Erskine and McIntosh as a detour.”
Following the state’s speed increase on the State Highway System, Polk County has submitted four County Road’s to be reviewed to be increased as well. “As most of you know the state’s been increasing their speed limits on Highways up to 60 miles per hour,” said Sanders. “It’s all done based on a speed zone study and looking at each of the roads and their safety measures to see if they can be increased to 60. I’ve sent a resolution to the state for County Road 9 (KT Road) from Crookston to Red River Bridge, for County Road 21 (St. Hilaire Road) from Highway 220 to the Polk/Pennington County Line and then the truck bypass around Crookston, County Road 11 and 46. Because they’re all minor arterials with higher volumes of traffic, eight-foot shoulders, flatter in-slopes, we feel those roads would merit the increase. We’re hoping those four roads will increase to 60 miles per hour.”
Throughout the state, roadways have become safer since the introduction of the Toward Zero Death (TZD) program and new data shows that the program has saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars since it’s inception. “If you look at the crashes and the fatalities within the State of Minnesota since we started TZD, they’ve decreased by a little over 300 fatalities a year,” said Sanders. “You can’t really put a price on a life, which you can’t really put a number on but they put a number on it anyway and the cost of a serious injury crash. If you take that money towards the lives that have been saved it’s right around the $10 billion mark. If you look at the low-cost solutions such as rumble strip/stripes, six-inch edge line markings, rural intersection light it’s right around $500 million. You can see there is quite a benefit in the program between the $10 billion saved and the half a billion spent. That’s one of the reasons why Polk County has really been pushing to get these safety projects done because they save lives and are a benefit to residents in Polk County.”
Spring load restrictions also went into effect Tuesday and have been posted. If anyone has questions about whether their truck is legal on a road during spring load restrictions Sanders has provided a link to a truck weight calculator on the Polk County Highway Department Facebook page to determine what gross vehicle weight is legal on the different roadways.
