Drivers, MnDOT feel more bumps in the roads

06/11/2007

For the fourth straight year, more Minnesota highways and byways aren't in what state officials consider good condition. Also, the share of lower-volume roads in poor condition is at its highest level.


By Laurie Blake,
Star Tribune
Last update: June 10, 2007


The people of Wanamingo don't need any report to tell them they live with Minnesota's bumpiest roads. With knowing smiles, they just point to Hwy. 57.

All vehicles ride like buckboards on the cracked, pitted and patched highway that runs parallel to Hwy. 52 north of Rochester.

"It shakes you, and when you hit the big holes you are afraid you are going to pop your tires," said Todd Greseth, who lives along the highway and occasionally finds chunks of it in his lawn. "I drive a school bus, too. It shakes the buses up terrible."

For the fourth year in a row, the state missed its target for the number of roads it wants in "good" condition, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation's annual survey of highway smoothness. And the percentage of lower-volume roads in "poor" condition increased to 5.2 percent -- the highest level on record. By 2010, more than 3 percent of freeways, interstates and other high-volume roads are projected to be in the poor category, up from 2.3 percent last year.

"The public tells us ride is very important to them," said MnDOT director of operations Bob Winter. Meeting its goals within budget limits means the state will have to spend more over time on preserving existing pavement and less on building new roads, he said.

"We gave ourselves until 2014 to get our pavement up."

The one exception is the district around Rochester in southeastern Minnesota, including the little town of Wanamingo. There, the roads are so bad that officials have given themselves until 2022 to meet their standards.

Of the state's 7,405 miles of heavily traveled roadways, about 5,102 offer a "good" ride, slightly short of the goal of 70 percent for good roads. Another 170 miles of busy roadways had a "poor" ride -- just slightly over the target of no more than 2 percent in that condition.

To earn a "good" rating, roads can't have much more than fine cracks. Roads rated "poor" have large potholes, deep cracks over half the surface and, on concrete roads, unevenness and crumbling at the joints.

MnDOT has said for years that it doesn't have the money it needs to keep up with road demands. Legislators and the governor agree that more money is needed, but they disagree about how to deliver the extra funds. Legislators have twice voted to increase the state's gas tax. Twice Gov. Tim Pawlenty has vetoed it.

The constitutional change that voters approved in the fall of 2006 to channel all vehicle sales-tax receipts to roads and transit will provide an extra $31 million for highways in the fiscal year that starts in July. Meanwhile, gas tax receipts slipped from $650.6 million in 2005 to $646.8 million in 2006 and this year is expected to again be below the 2005 level.

Besides funding limits, MnDOT has also shifted priorities away from pavement preservation in order to work on the bigger, bottleneck-removal projects that the public wants.

As a result, five of the nine MnDOT districts failed one or more of four ride-quality targets.

The southeastern Minnesota district, the home of Hwy. 57, was the only one that flunked all four categories.

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