This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Staff writer

An approximately $1 million federal grant will make it possible to add a traffic signal at the Highway 65 and 221st Avenue intersection in East Bethel.

“This is the worst intersection in East Bethel hands-down,” Councilmember Bill Boyer bluntly stated.

The earliest this project could happen is 2012 however, because the $1,080,000 highway safety improvement program grant is not available until the 2013 federal transportation fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2012, according to Kate Garwood, the multimodal transportation manager for the Anoka County Highway Department.

City officials want to get the traffic signal installed sooner, but Garwood said it would take some time to design and plan for the project before construction could commence.

The Highway 65-221st Avenue intersection has claimed five lives since 2003, according to East Bethel statistics.

Besides a traffic signal, other improvements that will be made to 221st Avenue near Highway 65 are turn lanes and a concrete median.

Construction is slated to cost approximately $1.2 million. The federal grant covers 90 percent and the county and city will discuss how to share costs to pay for the remaining 10 percent, said Anoka County Engineer Doug Fischer.

According to its application, the county would also like to get participation from the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to increase the Highway 65 turn-lane lengths to give motorists more room to slow down before turning on 221st Avenue.

Fire Chief Mark DuCharme said there were six major accidents at that intersection in 2009. Major accidents include crashes that send one or more people to the hospital who are at least critically injured.

According to DuCharme, the Highway 65-221st Avenue intersection in 2009 had more accidents than any other intersection in the city.

East Bethel officials have pushed for an interchange for years. After the Anoka County Highway Department found out late last year that it would receive the grant, the city asked if the $1,080,000 could be used for a more extensive project than as traffic signal.

The answer was no.

Fischer said the money could not be used for an interchange because the county applied for a traffic signal project. One million dollars would not go far for an interchange anyway, he said.

Anoka County received a $10.7 million bid for the I-35E and Main Street interchange project. This does not even include land costs, Fischer said.

East Bethel Public Works Manager Jack Davis estimated a Highway 65-221st Avenue interchange could have cost around $8 million.

The city has raised concerns of whether a traffic signal would be the best long-term solution.

At the end of the Jan. 6 council meeting Boyer shared a story of seeing five cars run a red light at the Highway 65 and Viking Boulevard intersection. His opinion was Viking Boulevard traffic did not have enough time to turn on or go through Highway 65 before the light turned red, so a lot of people just blew through the red light.

Other residents at the Jan. 6 meeting said they have seen the same thing at other Highway 65 intersections in East Bethel.

Boyer asked if there could be more enforcement during peak traffic times along Highway 65.

“We can signalize all we want, but if we’re not going to enforce traffic laws, it’s not going to do any good,” he said.

While he said he still prefers an interchange, Mayor Greg Hunter said the city will gladly accept this money so there can be some improvement.

“Whatever we can get done to make that safer is what we need to do,” Hunter said.

The traffic signal project at Highway 65-221st Avenue ranked fourth out of 50 applications reviewed by the Metropolitan Council, according to Garwood.

Eric Hagen is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it