St. Croix River Crossing: Groundwork Begins this Week
Crews will be hauling materials to the area adjacent to the Beach Road ramp off eastbound Highway 36 in Oak Park Heights beginning this week.
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It’s been a long, long time coming, but groundwork for the new St. Croix River Crossing project will begin this week.
Crews will be hauling materials to the area adjacent to the Beach Road ramp off eastbound Highway 36 in Oak Park Heights beginning this week, according to a news release from MnDOT. Piles of dirt will be visible to the south of Highway 36 while the area is prepared for future Beach Road Bridge construction.
The piles of dirt—called surcharge—will be monitored throughout the winter to measure the weight-bearing ability of soils beneath the piles, providing information for future construction on the site.
In addition, crews this fall will construct a parking lot for use by the city of Oak Park Heights and Phil’s Club Tara restaurant. The parking lot will be located east of the restaurant and will replace parking spaces lost due to changes in the frontage road.
In other river crossing project news this week, MnDOT announced that plans to move the Shoddy Mill and Warehouse have been delayed.
Frank McGruber
6:44 pm on Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Cue the stupid comments about it not being a river, but a lake, it costing too much, it being an agenda by the Koch brothers, etc.
Aaaand... go.
Shawn Hogendorf
1:45 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
After repeated requests to stop making that argument (essentially spamming our comment stream) we banned that user, Frank. So at least you don't have to read that argument ... over and over. The cost ... well, that is still a legitimate argument, I think, but my feeling is as much as people have come to grips with it on some level it will be interesting to watch if the project as a whole comes in at, above or below the estimates.
Frank McGruber
9:06 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
Shawn, thank you for banning the "lake, not a river" guy. It was getting pretty tiresome.
I like your position on the cost issue. I agree that it's expensive, of course, but I also acknowledge that the current bridge is patently unsafe and NEEDS to be replaced.
yomammy
6:56 am on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Bushes fault. Just be sure to move the "endangered" clams to the tune of 100k....
Captain Midnight
4:49 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Your aimless comments would be more interesting if you learned how to spell. The word is "Bush's".
Micheal Foley
4:51 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
Please be respectful.
yomammy
7:20 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
How is it aimless? We spent a TON of "clams" (I will be here all week, try the veal), to move those stupid things when the hudson bridge went in. I think clams make good support bases for bridge pylons....
Carbon Bigfuut
7:27 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2012
I happen to agree with you on maintaining the old bridge, JB. Stillwater would have a beautiful waterfront with the old bridge removed. For historical purposes, they could have left the first span intact. They will also need to pay someone to operate the lift for the whole boating season, which will come out of MN tax $$.
yomammy
7:18 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
yep- the bridge is a stillwater landmark. However, take a wild guess why they are fixing it up right now... to make it safe for current traffic? No. To get as much $$$ as possible to get it to a point they wount have to throw a bunch of money into it when it becomes a foot bridge-yes. I agree a single section people could use as a pier would have been a much cheaper option, but it would be like taking the lift bridge from duluth--
Now a silly law that says we can only have one bridge is just dumb. Especially nowadays that bridges are too expensive to put up "for fun"...
yomammy
8:44 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
I had a birch bark canoe...it sank. Turns out you cant have a bonfire in one...dang...
Connor Goulet
3:43 pm on Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Okay lets get serious here. That bridge is a historic landmark. You cannot just tear it down because you think Stillwaters water front would look better without it. Look at what happened when the city tried to close the Boomsite... Its just not going to happen. I have lived my entire life here in Stillwater and that bridge is an icon for us all. It is a great idea to turn it into a pedestrian bridge. People will be able to fish off it, sit on it to watch the fireworks and take a bike ride to or from Wisconsin. I would worry less about your state tax dollars being spend on conserving a beautiful historical bridge. If you want to complain about where your tax money is being spent, do some research and see how the federal government spends your tax dollars to bail out multibillion dollar corporations on wall street.
yomammy
6:55 am on Wednesday, November 14, 2012
or how the left funds the FSA....
Carbon Bigfuut
4:27 pm on Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The city of Stillwater never tried to close the Boomsite, Connor. That was the state of MN that closed it, and caused public uproar. Volunteer groups banded together to keep it open, and the state eventually relented.
As for the bridge, it will take tax $$ to keep it open every day of the "nicer" 6 months of weather that we have in this area. Who is going to pay for that?
Now, as for the federal government bailing out corporations, you may be right on that. I was very concerned and upset when the federal government recently bailed out a couple of large corporations in Detroit.
yomammy
7:01 am on Wednesday, November 14, 2012
with any luck, they can leave the bridge up more in the summer- maybe stairs up and over... (of course this would cause a s-storm with teh ADA because handicap couldnt "walk" over...)
Also, without car/truck traffic, the bridge should need MUCH less up keep...thats why they are fixing it now...so when SW gets stuck with fixing it, it will mostly be done.
Also, if you insist on keeping the whole bridge, keep the bridge eaisily convertable back to an auto bridge...in case of worst case scenerio.