The Bypass of Commerce

We have a cultural misunderstanding about the economic benefits of mobility.

There is no better example than the State of Minnesota’s new $300 million “Corridors of Commerce” program designed to foster “economic growth with transportation investments.” This is a noble goal and it’s worked well in the past, so why not keep it up?

First, we built highways that connected places that were never before directly connected. This was an enormous benefit to rural populations and opened up to more marketplaces. Towns that were once a 5 hour journey apart turned into an easy 1 hour trip. There is no question that this created an economic benefit.

But, we’ve continued building and expanding this roadway system to much diminishing return. The Corridors of Commerce project is just another example of this misapplication of limited transportation dollars. The most glaring example is the Highway 14 Nicollet Bypass.

The proposed $15 to $25 million Nicollet Bypass

Nicollet is a small town of approximately 1,000 people situated 15 miles outside of the region’s center, Mankato. The proposed $15 to $25 million four lane divided bypass and entrance ramp will replace the two lane highway (with center turn-lane) that runs along the town’s southern edge.

There are three justifications given for this project;

1) Improves safety
2) Enhances mobility for commercial traffic
3) One step closer to a regional goal of a 4-lane highway between New Ulm and Rochester

Let’s examine each justification to see if there can be another alternative.

Does it improve safety?

Here is where our misunderstanding of mobility comes in. We are aiming to improve safety by building a new. expensive highway at the edge of town without examining why the original highway was dangerous in the first place.

There are nine highway access points. Six are privately-owned driveways (red) and three are intersections (blue)

There are nine access points where collisions are likely to occur along the 1.1 mile corridor. Three intersections connect to local roadways and six are driveways to private entities, include a taxidermy and self storage business, trailer park and a gas station (low ROI land uses). This roadway combines fast moving through-traffic with slow, turning local vehicles.

If safety was truly the priority it is claimed to be, the rational response would be to reduce speeds from 35 mph to 20 mph, close (or seriously limit) access to the six driveways, and realign the most dangerous intersection (TH99 in northwest) to allow a less abrupt merge. This would cost virtually nothing in comparison to the proposed $15 to $25 million project.

Does it enhance mobility?

When determining the cost-benefit of a project, we place emphasis on improved mobility, or in other words: time savings. Time is important, but how important? The existing speed limit is 35 mph and the expansion will be 65 mph (conforming to speed limits of other divided highways). According to my calculations, the project will have a travel time savings of nearly 1 minute.

Speed Limit (MPH)	Distance (miles)	Travel Time	Time Difference (+/- 35 mph)
20	1.1	3m 18s	- 85 seconds
25	1.1	2m 38s	- 45 seconds
30	1.1	2m 12s	- 19 seconds
35*	1.1	1m 53s	0
45	1.1	1m 28s	+ 25 seconds
55	1.1	1m 19s	+ 34 seconds
65	1.1	1m 0s	+ 53 seconds

Fostering commerce is important, but it is difficult to make a convincing argument that one minute in travel time savings justifies such an expenditure for less than 7,000 vehicles traveling through on any given day weekday [MnDOT Traffic Data].

Does it move towards a goal of a regional 4-lane highway?

No. We have it all backwards.

As for right now, why would you create a two-lane highway that turns into a four-lane highway for a 1.1 mile stretch as it passes through a town just so it can turn back into to a two-lane highway? If having a regional 4-lane highway is your goal, then the money could be better spent doing the opposite. The goal should be to first create a four-lane highway outside of towns and then reduce size and speed while traversing through towns.

This 1.1 mile new bypass has the same cost as expanding 15 miles of existing highway in four lanes between Mankato and Nicollet.

The need for Highway 14 enhancements has been a regional concern since the early 1990s. It’s been long known as a dangerous corridor where speeding is prevalent, where there are limited opportunities for passing and where there are countless access points and intersections that can be dominated by slow-moving farm equipment.  Hence, I do not question the need for Highway 14 safety improvements, including the adding of passing lanes along with improved forgiving design elements along rural stretches.

We have a cultural misunderstanding about the economic benefits of mobility. Constructing new roadways to bypass small towns at tremendous costs won’t improve safety as the old highway stretches are often left in the same unsafe state. Meaning, local vehicles will continue to use the unsafe roadway. Not to mention, there will be a stretch of auto-oriented businesses on the old highway which will be abandoned and rebuilt closer to the bypass. I do not mourn the loss of a Super America gas station, but I do question the value of it closing down one location just to re-open a half mile down the road.

These one-time State transfer payments like Corridors of Commerce seem to go to the most wasteful projects. The DOTs are unwilling to fund these out of their dedicated revenue streams, primairly because they are no top-priority projects, so these are reliant upon political justifications and quick transfer payments.

One-time 2011-2 Transpoortation and Economic Development (TED) Grants from the State went to similar projects, like the fourth interchange ramp in Perham, Minnesota.

Perham is a small town in central Minnesota that is getting a new interchange that will support an estimated 240 jobs. TED will be providing $3.5 million of the $6.7 million project. This project might make sense if the town didn’t already have 3 interchanges leading to the same highway.

These are the types of investments that do little or nothing to boost economic vitality in local small towns or distant communities. And, the kicker, it's not going to speed up traffic or make us any safer.

Will the Nicollet Bypass project generate wealth? Will Perham ever add the economic juice that town needs? Will these projects ever pay for themselves or create a genuine societal or economic benefit? If the State of Minnesota, for whatever reason, were to ever ‘turnback’ the highway, would the County or Town of Nicollet be able to maintain?

Hopefully these considerations are conducted prior to the authorization of spending millions of dollars to bypass Courtland (pop. 611) [MnDOT], which has yet to receive funding, and the countless other projects that divert limited resources to low returning projects.

“What will speed up that change is an understanding of the fact that our transportation investments are not creating wealth, they are destroying it. Now I’m not talking about just the investments where the old Target store at the old interchange is induced to move into the new Target store at the new interchange four miles up the road. I mean almost all of our highway spending. It costs more to build and maintain than it generates in returns and, therefore, will only continue so long as we have the capacity and the desire to delude ourselves.” - Chuck Marohn, Paved with Good Intentions