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5.5. SR 01-09-2006 Item 5.5. 13065 Orono Parkway Elk River, MN 55330 January 4,2005 File: 226-001G The Honorable Mayor and City Council City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway Elk River MN 55330 RE: Transportation Issues Update Dear Council Members: This correspondence is intended to give you an update of the various State, County, and local transportation issues that we are currently working on. The list includes the following: 1. MnDOT Spring Tour At a previous meeting, the City Council had indicated an interest in restarting the tradition of a spring tour with MnDOT personneL I have placed a call to Jim Povich of MnDOT and asked him to provide a few dates in the spring when key personnel from MnDOT St. Cloud and Baxter offices could attend a spring tour. These tours typically start about 9:30 a.m. at City Hall with some light refreshments and introductions, and is followed by a bus tour of key issues we want to show to the MnDOT officials, followed by a lunch at a local establishment. Normally, the event is over by 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. I will get back to you when I have the tentative dates for a spring tour to check the Council's calendars. 2. TH 169 Environmental/Geometric Study I have recently discussed with Craig Robinson, the Project Manager for MnDOT, the status of the 1H 169 Environmental/Geometric Study. Craig has informed that MnDOT has selected SRF Consulting Group to head this study for them. A contract has been negotiated and is currently at MnDOT Central Office being reviewed. He does not expect a contract to be approved by MnDOT until the first part of February. Therefore, he anticipates a kick-off meeting with all interested parties along the 1H 169 corridor for late February or early March. As we have discussed before, this study will take from 12 - 18 months and will involve a significant amount of pubic involvement. I Phone: 763.635.1000 Fax: 763.635.1090 www.ci.elk~river.mn.us 2006 Transportation Issues Januaty 4,2006 Page 2 anticipate that through the summer and fall of 2006, there will be a series of meetings regarding this issue. 3. TH 10 Federal Funding Request The Tinklenberg Group is scheduled to make a presentation earlier in Monday evening's agenda at which time they will update the City Council on the request for $500,000 in Federal funding to further analyze TH 10 through the downtown area. We were unsuccessful in obtaining any funding through the most current appropriation; in fact, very few of these types of projects were funded. The Tinklenberg Group is still optimistic that the funding is achievable at some point in time during the six years of the SAFTEA-LU bill. 4. County Highway 40 Reconstruction We have received a draft of an agreement from Sherburne County for the inclusion of City improvements in the County Highway 40 Reconstruction Project. City staff is currently reviewing the draft agreement and has raised a couple of questions with Sherburne County. Once we have a full understanding of the agreement, we will present it to the City Council for your consideration. With regard to the acquisition of land for County Highway 40, I have made contact with all property owners along the County Highway 40 corridor. The individual property owners on the east side of County Highway 40 have all signed their quit claim deeds with the exception of La V onn Nordeen. Ms. Nordeen is the property owner who I discussed with the City Council last month. I have sent Ms. Nordeen a letter regarding our discussion along with the easement document. She has indicated that she has received it and is comfortable with the language. She is checking with her mortgage company prior to signing it. 5. County Road 33/77 Tumback This is the proposed turnback that was discussed at the joint City Council/County Board meeting. Sherburne County staff has now learned that a public hearing needs to be held prior to the tumback of these two roadways. The public hearing has been scheduled before the City Council on your February 21 st agenda. A County Highway Department representative will be in attendance at that meeting. After the public hearing, the City Council will be asked to consider the resolution accepting these two roads as turnbacks. 6. City /County Quarterly Transportation Meetings I will be meeting with John Menter, Sherburne County Public Works Director, on Friday to discuss various issues at our monthly meeting. One of the issues we will be working on is potential dates to reinstitute the quarterly City/Council transportation meetings. I will be back to the City Council at a future meeting to firm up a date to reinstitute these meetmgs. S:\Engineer\2006 cc memos\ Transportation issues.doc 2006 Transportation Issues January 4,2006 Page 3 7. 193rd Avenue Corridor Study We have gathered significant information and have spent time analyzing it to determine several prospective corridor alignments. With each of these, we have prepared a series of pros and cons. These will be presented to the affected property owners at informational meetings scheduled for Monday January 23r , and Tuesday January 24th. We are planning two separate informational meetings so that property owners in the nonexisting roadway area of 193rd Avenue will be together on Monday evening, and an informational meeting with property owners surrounding the existing portion of 193rd Avenue will be held the following evening. The idea is that these two groups will have distinctly different issues to be discussed at these informational meetings. After the informational meetings, we will prepare a report summarizing the findings and providing minutes from the informational meetings. This information will be presented to the City Council at an appropriate meeting. This may be an item that would be best handled at a workshop meeting, where plans can be spread on the table and discussed in greater detail. Another issue that we are working on is an application for Federal funding to construct this portion of 19yd Avenue. We will be submitting the application to Region 7W in the next week or so. We will not know what our competition is or get a preview of how our potential project stacks up until some time in early February when the TAC meets followed by the elected officials group for Region 7W. 8. Highland Road Reconstruction and Feasibility Study We have completed much of our preliminary analysis for the feasibility study regarding the reconstruction of Highland Road between Jackson Road and Proctor Avenue. As you are aware, we have previously held an informational meeting with the entire neighborhood. We did indicate at that meeting that if the Council proceeded with a feasibility study for just Highland Road, we would schedule another informational meeting with only the properties abutting Highland Road. That meeting is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, February 16, 2006. The presentation and minutes from that meeting will become part of the official feasibility document. Therefore, it will be some time after the February 16th informational meeting that the feasibility study will be ' completed and presented to the City Council for consideration. 9. Dodge Avenue Reconstruction The Dodge Avenue Reconstruction Project from 5th Street to approximately 1,000 feet north is scheduled for Tuesday, January 17, 2006. Based on the informational meeting we held for this project, we anticipate that the property owners will be in support of the reconstruction of this portion of Dodge Avenue. After the public hearing, the City Council will be asked to consider a resolution that would order the project and the preparation of plans and specifications. The project could be designed and bid in the spring of 2006 with other street reconstruction work within the City. $: \Engineer\2006 CC memos \ Transportation issues.doc 2006 Transportation Issues January 4,2006 Page 4 10. Waco Street Reconstruction Plans and specifications for Waco Street Reconstruction were authorized by the City Council in the later part of 2005. Work has been completed on the preliminary plans and they have been sent to MnDOT for review by the Office of State Aid. Waco Street is on the City's Municipal State Aid System and this will be an opportunity for MSA funding to pay for the portion of the project not funded by the Target Technology Center Developer Agreement payment. The project will include the reconstruction to an urban street section of Waco Street, addition of a concrete sidewalk along one side, the addition of a bituminous pathway along the County Road 30 frontage of the Target Technology Center and the looping of watermain further to the east. The watermain portion of the improvement as we previously discussed will be funded by the Elk River Municipal Utilities. This project will be ideal to combine with Dodge Avenue for constructIon purposes. 11. 2006 Overlay Project Late last year, the City Council authorized a feasibility study be prepared for the 2006 Overlay Improvement Project. We are currently working on that and anticipate it being available for City Council consideration in February or March. These projects are typically 100 percent assessed with City street crews providing some work in preparing the areas for the overlays or doing restoration after the overlay is placed. 12. 186th Avenue/Naples Street Feasibility Study The City Council authorized this feasibility study for sanitary sewer, watermain and street improvements on 186th Avenue and Naples Street in late 2005. We are currently gathering information and researching our previous files on this project. We anticipate having an informational meeting with the affected residents sometime in the latter part of February. Once the informational meeting is held, we will prepare minutes and provide them as part of the feasibility study. The study will come forward to the City Council in early spring of this year. Since the Council has a relatively busy agenda for Monday night's workshop, I have not provided any significant backup material, but I will be available Monday evening to discuss any of these projects or others in greater detail. Sincerely, T~ City Engineer S:\Engineer\2006 CC memos\ Transportation issues.doc