We drive through this mess each Sunday on our way to brunch. Each week, there’s more ripped apart and more orange cones set up. Lately, there’s the addition of large vertical steel beams in various locations between 35W south and Highway 62. I speculated that they must be creating a new overpass directly over the current interchange failure.
So what are they doing here? I wasn’t too far off in my guess.
The plan is to keep 35W five lanes wide and separate it from 62 completely. Great — ‘bout effin’ time. See the pic for the game plan. Completion is supposed to be by 2009 or 2010. That’s more up to Minneapolis politics than anything though, so we’ll see.
The latest design for Crosstown Hwy. 62/I-35W interchange adds new lanes to both freeways and includes a bus/carpool lane on I-35W. But Minneapolis may withhold its municipal consent for hte road project unless the state makes a high-speed bus service part of the design. That could pose delays for the road project — now scheduled to begin 2006.
