The Problem
Imagine this: It has been a long week. You have been looking forward to the respite of a cabin you rented up north for the arriving long weekend. You leave work early anticipating traffic, expecting to beat the rush. You rush home to pick up the spouse and kids and make your way up 494/694 to I-94 West. After immediately passing the Weaver Lake Road exit in Maple Grove traffic comes to a grinding halt; its only 1pm. “How can I-94 be full of traffic already?”, you ask yourself. Slowly you make your way across the twenty or so miles that separate you from Monticello and freedom. The kids are getting impatient in the back, and the stress of your work week is only compounding. You spend an hour and half on a stretch of road that should only take you 20 minutes to traverse. This the is unfortunate reality of the I-94 West Corridor.
The I-94 West Corridor is clogged with traffic: Traffic from commuters, traffic from Freight, traffic from Vacationers. If you find yourself traveling north on I-94 between the hours of 3pm and 6pm any day of the week you will be moving at a crawl. A Thursday or Friday night of a holiday weekend backups can start as soon as 1pm and last until 8pm. What does this translate to? More accidents, wasted resources and a higher cost to businesses in the area trying to move their goods. A study done by MNDOT and URS in 2000 found that I-94 just before the 101 interchange had a constant crash and severity rate but at a significantly higher rate than the state wide average. The full report can be found here. General Mills reports that they lose $2 million for every 1 MPH reduction in travel speed of its product delivery fleet. UPS reports that it loses $20 million for every minute of delay in its deliveries nationwide.
Transportation is an important element of virtually every sector of the economy and every aspect of people’s lives. Mobility has become an important part of our basic freedoms and expands our opportunities. Over 750 businesses operate within the corridor area, utilizing I-94 to move their products and transport their employees and customers. In addition, Minnesota recognizes I-94 as an extremely important interregional corridor that feeds the economic engine that is the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area and helps to keep greater Minnesota healthy and strong.
Incident and Crash Facts
Congestion can cause Crashes and Crashes cause Congestion
Mn/DOT defines congestion as traffic flowing at speeds less than or equal to 45 miles per hour (M.P.H.). This definition does not include delays that may occur at speeds greater than 45 M.P.H. The 45 M.P.H. speed limit was selected since it is the speed where “shock waves” can propagate. These conditions also pose higher risks of crashes. A shock wave is a phenomenon where the majority of vehicles brake in a traffic stream. As the rate of movement of the shock wave increases, the potential for rear end or sideswipe collisions increases.
Conventional wisdom would say that if you had a 2-lane highway and one lane was blocked, you would have a 5 percent reduction in the number of vehicles that can travel that road. And, if you crash on the right shoulder, not blocking a lane, you would have no reduction in freeway capacity or throughput. However, in real world studies, any disruption on a heavily traveled route will have a magnified effect due to human behavior.
The graphic to the right shows the concentration of crashes along the I-94 corridor from 2005 to 2007. The graphic also provides the calculated crash and severity rates for segments along I-94. Crash rates are used to measure the relative safety at a particular location. The combination of crash frequency, vehicle exposure (traffic volumes), and length of segment results in a crash rate. The severity rate considers how severe the crashes were that occurred along the segment along with its length, number of crashes, and traffic volumes on the roadway.
The segment from Rogers to I-494 has the highest number and concentration of crashes. This segment also has crash and severity rates that are higher than the statewide average for rural freeways. The middle segment, from Albertville to Rogers, has even higher crash severity rates. The crash rate in this area is twice the statewide average for a rural freeway section.
An Economic Development Corridor
Transportation is an important element of virtually every sector of the economy and every aspect of people’s lives. Mobility has become an important part of our basic freedoms and expands our opportunities. Over 750 businesses operate within the corridor area, utilizing I-94 to move their products and transport their employees and customers. In addition, Minnesota recognizes I-94 as an extremely important interregional corridor that feeds the economic engine that is the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area and helps to keep greater Minnesota healthy and Strong.
A Transit Corridor
Including transit advantages in the I-94 corridor is essential to providing transportation options which will help to alleviate future congestion. Express corridors with transit advantages provide express bus service with an alternative to congestion. These advantages could be bus only shoulders, HOT or HOV lanes, ramp meter bypasses, or other advantages for transit. These services primarily connect commuters from suburban markets to employment in the central business districts, University of Minnesota, and other major employment centers. Services in these corridors typically operate non-stop between a park and ride lot and the destination.
A Recreation Corridor
A Key Freight Corridor
Freight is big business. It is a necessity, not a luxury. When transportation system performance decreases, freight-related businesses and their customers are affected in two ways. First, freight assets become less productive. Second, more freight transportation must be consumed to meet the needs of a thriving and expanding economy. thus, when freight transportation under-performs, the economy pays the price.
Reliable, predictable travel times are especially important in an economy where many goods are expensive and are needed in tightly scheduled manufacturing and distribution systems. Late arrivals can have significant economic costs for factories waiting for parts to assemble and for carriers who are missing guaranteed delivery times. General Mills reports that they lose $2 million for every 1 MPH reduction in travel speed of its product delivery fleet. UPS reports that it loses $20 million for every minute of delay in its deliveries nationwide.
The Solution
The Cost of Mobility
Providing the highway capacity to efficiently move people and freight in the I-94 corridor west of the Twin Cities Metro Area comes at a significant cost. The focus of this request is for additional travel lanes on I-94 between the I-94/I-494 (Fish Lake) Interchange in Maple Grove westward to the I-94/TH 25 Interchange in Monticello.
Mn/DOT has indicated that for planning purposes, they anticipate the cost of converting four lanes to six lanes to be $11.7 million per mile (2008 dollars) and the six lanes to eight lanes conversion to be approximately $14.6 million per mile (2008 dollars) along with approximately $11million per mile for right of way costs.
Mn/DOT has indicated that for lane additions on this segment of I-94 to be fully effective other improvements to I-94/I-494 will be necessary as well. These include improvements to the I-94/I-494 (Fish Lake) Interchange; lane additions to I-494 from I-94 to TH 55 and I-94 from I-494 to Hemlock.
