By Craig Wilkins

Elected officials and other leaders Sept. 6 celebrated opening a newly rebuilt section of Interstate 494 that will add capacity and reduce congestion on the Twin Cities metro area’s highway system.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Lt. Gov./Commissioner Carol Molnau presided over the event.

“This project wasn’t scheduled to start until 2007,” Molnau said, “but we were able to move it ahead in our construction schedule to start in 2004 due to our $900 million bond accelerated program approved by the Legislature in 2003.”

The project adds a third lane in each direction to the freeway between Hwy 5 in Eden Prairie to I-394 in Minnetonka, a distance of about eight miles.

“This project was one of our top priorities because we knew it was a priority for the traveling public,” Molnau said.

Planners estimate more than 90,000 vehicles will use the rebuilt section daily.

"That's going to be about 90,000 fewer headaches waiting in traffic, 90,000 soccer games with moms and dads in the stands hopefully quicker and sooner, 90,000 more productive workers as they're able to go to or from work or their place of business more quickly and more efficiently," said Pawlenty.

Managers of the $137.5 million project used the design-build process to complete the work within two years and to minimize traffic impacts during its construction.

Kevin Anderson, Metro District, serves as project manager.

During its construction, the project involved rebuilding 14 bridges, replacing 14 miles of fencing and reconstruction of the freeway’s interchanges at Hwy 62 and Hwy 7. The project also included building four miles of sound walls.

Several speakers applauded the project, echoing the accomplishments that earned the “Roadway Project of the Year” title from Roads & Bridges magazine last year.

Innovations cited by Roads & Bridges include:

• Maintaining two lanes of traffic in each direction for the project’s duration
• Using tow trucks to patrol the corridor for stalled or disabled vehicles
• Building emergency  pull-off sites for motorists
• Using concrete pavement with a 60-year design life

Commenting on the recent project, Molnau said, “We’ve done a hefty amount of work here and you can see that it’s well done. Congratulations to Mn/DOT employees, contractors and consultants who worked on the project.”

By Craig Wilkins

The small city of Nicollet in Nicollet County was quickly overwhelmed by effects from a powerful tornado that struck on Aug. 24.

The F3-level twister damaged buildings, blew down trees and left a trail of debris in the city of about 1,000 residents at the junction of Hwy 14 and Hwy 99 in southern Minnesota.

Rebecca Arndt, Mankato/District 7 public affairs coordinator, said crews responded from the Mankato, St. Peter, Gaylord, Montgomery and LeSueur truck stations.

Dan Woodteach, Nicollet’s city administrator, said the assistance from Mn/DOT was especially helpful because the tornado’s aftermath severely taxed city and county emergency resources.

The tornado’s path extended from Nicollet nearly to Faribault. Officials estimate it caused about $20 million in damages. Maintenance crews from the Mankato and Rochester districts fanned out to help several communities hit by the storm.

The twister, Woodteach said, damaged a few buildings in the city, but the storm’s major effect was uprooting and knocking down trees that fell on the highways and city streets.

“The response from Mn/DOT was immediate,” he said.

Woodteach said Mn/DOT’s ability to quickly clear trees and other debris helped spur city residents into action as well.

“The crews’ work energized people to remove their own debris and not let stuff sit around,” he said.

The district’s quick response, he said, supported the city’s recovery work and may have helped residents avoid unscrupulous people charging exorbitant rates for debris removal.

Once debris removal was completed, Woodteach said, District 7 sent sweeping machines to clean the streets and keep small pieces of debris from clogging the storm water system.

He said Nicollet and other cities in the county have been developing plans to coordinate their responses from storms and other disasters.

“We’ll debrief from this storm; our experience will help us learn how to better coordinate our responses the next time something happens,” Woodteach said.  

By Kevin Gutknecht and Vicky Sarner

Several Mn/DOT facilities are paving the way to the future by serving as the initial installation sites for a Voice over Internet Protocol phone system for the department.

A VoIP system allows users to make telephone calls over a computer data network. VoIP phones talk to each other over the state’s private network or to ordinary phones via a public switched telephone network gateway. Mn/DOT VoIP phone calls never go over the Internet.  

All of Mn/DOT will soon use the new computer network based phone system that will save significant amounts of money in the future. And, when the phone system is complete, Mn/DOT will fall in line with several other state agencies moving to VoIP.

“It will save money,” said Bob Bennett, project technical architect, Office of Information Technology. “A regular desk phone now costs us about $27 a month just to sit on the desk. The VoIP phones will cost about $11 a month to operate.”

This saving occurs because the state owns a computer network that connects all state agencies. Currently, the departments of Administration, Agriculture, Health and Revenue have moved to the new system. Bennett said the state Office of Enterprise Technology, which oversees the state’s computer and network operations, is encouraging all state agencies to move to this system.

Besides the cost savings, the system brings other advantages. The phones used for the system will have more features, such as call-waiting, than the current phones do. And once the phones are installed in all Mn/DOT sites, the agency will no longer pay long distance charges for calls made between phones in the network anywhere in the state.

Bennett said the initial investment to install the entire system will be about $2 million, which will purchase the new phones and some network equipment.  

“The savings will allow the system to pay for itself in about three years,” he said. “Currently, we spend about $94,000 a month on phones. With this system, we will cut that to $47,000.”

There are some disadvantages, he noted. If the computer network it is using stops operating, the phones don’t work. However, power interruptions will not be a problem since the phones and network are protected by backup generator power at most sites.

In addition, everyone at Mn/DOT will be required to change phone numbers, which means that contact information on Web sites, business cards and letterhead will need to be updated.  

“It has worked well in the other state agencies,” Bennett said. “We expect the transition to be smooth and that employees will like the system when it is installed.”

Currently, the Network Operations Center and St Cloud have the system in place. In September, the Baxter half of District 3 will complete installation along with the Materials Lab facility in Maplewood.  

Funding has been secured for installing the system in two additional offices in the Central Office, the Office of Information Technology and the Civil Rights and Administrative Services office. Implementation will begin in September for both offices.

Division directors are working to find funding for the rest of the agency. The implementation schedule for the rest of the agency will be based on critical needs, and largest return on investment, Bennett said.

Checking out an excerpt from her winning essay about the history of the interstate system wasn’t the only reason Rachel Dahlen visited the State Fair, but it did steer her toward Mn/DOT’s exhibit where it was on display.  

Dahlen, a sophomore at Northfield High School, earned first place and a $1,000 prize in the essay contest sponsored by Mn/DOT and the American Automobile Association’s Iowa/Minnesota chapter.

Contestants were asked to describe the past and future significance of the interstate highway system in Minnesota and the United States as part of Mn/DOT’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the interstate system.

Excerpts from the top entries were included in a display about the history of the interstate system.

Besides celebrating the 50th anniversary of the interstate, Mn/DOT’s exhibit included a hands-on look at Mn/DOT’s core services such as snowplowing and traffic management, a1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, and displays looking at innovations in rail, water, air and transit transportation.

The exhibit’s “information shed” also was a source of many educational handouts for fairgoers, such as brochures on the ABC ramps, highway and bike maps, bookmarks with aviation statistics and historic transportation postcards.

Mn/DOT staff fielded questions from visitors, ranging from striping, traffic signals and turn lanes on specific sections of highway to more general comments on traffic information and bike safety. Employees staffed the booth each of the fair’s 12 days from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Pioneer Press recently published two letters from readers that praised the work of Mn/DOT employees. You can find the letters (highlighted in blue) on Mn/DOT’s iHUB site under the Daily News Clipping feature.

One letter writer thanked three employees who gave a family shelter during 101-degree weather while their camper was being fixed on Interstate 94 north of Albertville. Another expressed gratitude for the way Mn/DOT crews have kept the grass and weeds trimmed near the entrance ramp to east-bound I-94, thus improving driving sight lines.