The AARoads Blog

I’ve decided to go with this batch of wintry goodness: a November, 2008 trip to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

It was a dark and snowy night…

Don’t eat the orange snow. Distant municipal lights provide the mushroom-cloud effect. I took this picture by the side of US-45 in Michigan.

The US-41 bridge in Houghton, Michigan.

Oh, nothing to see here, just the last embossed cutout US shield in the wild. Both that and the M-203 date back to the 1930s, and have definitely been repainted several times.

The oldest shield in Wisconsin, complete with old-style CITY banner. This one, and one just like it further down the same road, date back to about 1958.

Sunrise on the third day, along US-51 in Wisconsin.

(more…)

As much of the country is aware, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed during the peak traffic hours of August 1, 2007 near downtown Minneapolis. Without any notice, the 1964-built bridge deck plummeted into the waters of the Mississippi 64 feet below, sending drivers and their vehicles into the river in an instant. It remains unclear as to what was the exact cause of the bridge failure, but crews were working on the span at the time involved in an overlay project of Interstate 35W. Bridge inspections were completed annually since 1993 and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials are still investigating the potential causes of the bridge failure.

I traveled across the Interstate 35W bridge northbound on April 23, 2007 and thought nothing of it. The superstructure of the bridge was hidden from view as I drove across what seemed to be an ordinary bridge…

A $15-million contract to remove the bridge debris was awarded to Carl Bolander & Sons Co. on August 8, 2007. Crews will use three cranes to lift the bridge deck segments which will be moved to a staging area for analysis by NTSB officials.

View looking westward from the Interstate 35W Mississippi River bridge. In the distance are the spans for the Central Avenue (Minnesota 65 / former U.S. 65) and Hennepin Avenue.

Commuters are advised to use Interstate 94 and Minnesota 280 to circumvent the bridge area of Interstate 35W. MnDOT blocked Minnesota 280′s intersections with County Road B, Broadway Street N.E., Walnut Street, and Roselawn Avenue in an effort to temporarily upgrade all of Minnesota 280 into a full freeway (Minnesota 280 existed previously as a freeway halfway between Interstate 94 and 35W). Interstate 35W is otherwise open for local traffic interests between Interstate 94 north to 3rd Street and Minnesota 280 south to 4th Street and University Avenue. See MnDOT’s detour map for more of an explanation.

Nearing the north end of the Interstate 35W Mississippi River Bridge on April 23, 2007.

MnDOT announced that it prefers to replace the collapsed bridge with a ten-lane wide span with pedestrian access. An emergency design-build contract will be issued as soon as possible for the bridge replacement.

Sources:

1. “I-35W bridge collapses over Mississippi River; 7 dead.” San Jose Mercury News, August 1, 2007.
2. “Bolander cranes readied to remove bridge debris,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 7, 2007.
3. Interstate 35W Bridge in Minneapolis, MN, MnDOT
4. “MnDOT wants new I-35W bridge to be 10 lanes, pedestrian-accessible,” Pioneer Press, August 7, 2007

The final day in the Twin Cities involved a spin around the metropolitan area to clinch the remaining Interstates and a dip into Wisconsin. After a few hours at our friends’ apartment that afternoon, we braved peak hour traffic on the return drive to Omaha, Nebraska.

Some additional photos and commentary about Twin Cities area roads:

Interstate 335 was conceptualized as a connector between Interstates 94 and 35W north of downtown Minneapolis. The short freeway would complete a central loop system in conjunction with Interstates 35W and 94 along an alignment roughly parallel to Broadway Street. Early proposals involved an at-grade expressway in the 1940s and a full freeway by the 1960s. Right-of-way purchasing commenced in the 1970s with initial ramp construction of the eastern terminus. Rising opposition mounted from local residents, ultimately curtailing the freeway officially in 1978.¹

Interstate 35W northbound on its departure from downtown Minneapolis. Pictured here is the Johnson Street off-ramp of Exit 21B. Slightly visible beyond the gore point, Exit 21B converges with the Exit 21A off-ramp to Broadway Street. A small area of pavement, a ramp stub, exists between the two ramps as a remnant of the unconstructed Interstate 335 eastbound on-ramp to Interstate 35W north.

(more…)

Spent the morning in west Minneapolis and then headed west to Fargo and south to Sisseton, South Dakota. Heavy rains washed out the majority of the afternoon as I returned east along state highways and U.S. 12. As usual, some highlights and photos are found below.

While Minnesota 100 is a full freeway now, elements of its past as a lesser route remain in the form of old overpasses with no shoulders. One such span remains in place at the Minnesota 7 & Hennepin County 25 full-cloverleaf interchange. After a series of accidents, some fatal, Mn/DOT restriped the freeway mainline to provide limited acceleration lanes in place of a narrow shoulder at the overpasses, thus improving the situation from a safety standpoint. Before this improvement, drivers would come to a complete stop from the adjacent on-ramp, thus necessitating fast acceleration to freeway speeds while also dodging exiting traffic onto Minnesota 7 & Hennepin County 25.

Interstate 394, similar to a handful of other urban freeways, includes tunnels underneath buildings and other structures at downtown Minneapolis. Pictured here is the east end/beginning and one such building tunnel. Other freeways, such as the Cross-Bronx Expressway, Interstate 395 in Washington, D.C., Interstate 5 in Seattle, and the Georgia 400 Toll highway travel under such infrastructure.

(more…)

Day 2 of the trip involved generally spending time in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the associated metropolitan area. Some photos and thoughts from the day:

Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of several metropolitan areas that institute the use of ramp meters. The premise of such meters is to limit the amount of merging traffic during peak hours of traffic. Whether they work or not is a question that many drivers debate. However there are benefits to through traffic movement when the number of cars merging at once is reduced from 20 or more at a time to two or three at a time. One issue that I have with the Minneapolis area ramp meters is that they include freeway to freeway connections, such as the one pictured here along the ramp from Minnesota 100 south onto Interstate 494 west. So in a sense a high-speed connection becomes an off-ramp with a stoplight.

Adam Froehlig has a master list of cities that use ramp meters. Thus far we’ve come across ramp meters in Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area, and Metro Philadelphia among other locations. Los Angeles is the only other city that I know of that implements ramp meters on freeway to freeway connection.

The Twin Cities are one of two areas in the country to retain suffixed Interstate highways (Dallas-Fort Worth being the other). Interstate 35 splits into Interstate 35W through Minneapolis and Interstate 35E through St. Paul. Interstate 35E retains Interstate 35′s mile based exit numbers, while Interstate 35W’s mileage starts at zero (this is similar to Dallas Fort-Worth’s as well). Although AASHTO mandated that all suffixed Interstate numbers be changed to remove the alpha character, both the Twin Cities and DFW could not compromise as to which would get Interstate 35 and which would get a I-x35. Thus two sets of Interstate 35E and 35W remain.

(more…)

Started the day in west Omaha on U.S. 275 and U.S. 6 (West Dodge Road) and quickly departed for Minneapolis by way of Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Worthington, Albert Lea, and Faribault to the Twin Cities.

As written about in a previous post, the West Dodge Road freeway is now wholly complete between U.S. 275 and Interstate 680. The final portion of this project are the twin viaducts carrying U.S. 6 high above the original West Dodge Road between 132nd Street and Interstate 680. The elevated roadways are dubbed the U.S. 6 Express Lanes while the original West Dodge Road continues below as an at-grade facility, serving movements to 120th Street, 114th Street, and the Old Mill area.

U.S. 6 splits with West Dodge Road for a pair of six-lane viaducts west of the 120th Street intersection. Before construction of the elevated roadways, West Dodge Road met 120th Street at a diamond interchange. That interchange was removed and replaced with an at-grade intersection.

(more…)