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Staff Writer

Although the County Road 116/Bunker Lake Boulevard joint powers agreement was on the agenda for a second time, the Ramsey City Council was not ready to make a decision.

The council decided to table the agreement with a 4-1 vote March 9. Councilmember Matt Look voted against.

Councilmember David Elvig said there are still too many issue that need to be resolved before he would be comfortable approving the agreement for the $6,027,100 improvement project.

Among the issues the city wants Anoka County to change is the installation of concrete medians, lack of a signal lights at Magnesium Street intersection, opening up a three-quarter intersection at Unity Street and reducing the proposed 55 mph speed. The speed is 50 mph currently.

The proposed project from Germanium Street to Basalt Street would expand the road to a four lanes with turn lanes and include concrete medians.

According to the county, County Road 116 is looked at as a reliever for Highway 10, said Look.

“I don’t want a reliever for Highway 10. I want the (highway) problem fixed,” he said.

“I don’t like the freeway speeds through the city of Ramsey. We don’t need to increase the speeds on Bunker,” Look said.

The county road design would built it to 2030 capacity and claims the existing businesses would benefit from increased traffic it will see in 2030, he said.

According to Look, installing the concrete medians would inconvenient and harm businesses today.

“Business are dying because of (concrete medians),” he said.

The county is not willing to see businesses’ needs or consider a parkway or reducing speeds, said Look.

According to Assistant County Engineer Andrew Witter, the project received $3.7 million in federal funding based on a safety design that includes concrete medians and the money would be lost if they were removed.

For Councilmember Jeff Wise, it’s a hard decision.

While project could help revitalize Ramsey Town Center, he wonders who will be paying the cost.

“Our decision tonight might affect transportation in the future. I don’t need to look at any more studies to see what that (concrete medians) does to businesses. I just have to go to the business (around Highway 47/Bunker Lake Boulevard intersection),” Wise said.

On the other hand, the improvements need to be done and the city can not do it on its own, he said.

Wise said he is not ready to give up on the project yet, but he can not support the agreement at this point.

The council needs to face the fact that Ramsey is a growing city and it needs to get ahead of future problems today, said Councilmember Colin McGlone.

The city needs a reliever for Highway 10. “We need to consider flow of traffic and plan for potential issues,” he said.

The county is a willing partner for this project and it applied for federal funding on the city’s behalf, McGlone said.

Councilmember David Elvig wants the county to consider changing some of the language in the agreement.

The county says that the Magnesium/Bunker intersection does not meet warrants for a stop light, but it needs to consider into the equation that the project will change traffic patterns in the neighborhood, possibly making the intersection meet warrants shortly after the project is done, he said.

When the county did a traffic study, it appeared the traffic in the neighborhood would not increase significantly,Witter said.

Because concrete medians were included in the Highway 47 project that changed traffic patterns, the city has had to close 142nd Avenue to prevent people using the neighborhood as a short cut, Elvig said.

While the council understands the need to build infrastructure and how hard it is to get federal funds, “we don’t like the restrictions,” he said.

The problem is the project would put additional pressure on city streets because the traffic patterns will change, Look said.

It will also increase the safety issues because the traffic will be going “so freakin’ fast and I don’t like it,” he said.

The lack of a Magnesium signal light and the concrete medians are a deal breaker for Mayor Bob Ramsey.

Drivers southbound on Magnesium Street have to deal with the eastern sun while trying to pass four lanes to turn east on Bunker,which decreases the safety of the intersection, he said.

The medians will also result in more U-turns that will also decreases the safety of the road, said Ramsey.

The county has included wider street widths to make U-turns safer, Witter said.  

The Bunker Lake Boulevard project is a good project done with approved practices that address both the safety concerns and the capacity issue, he said.

While he was willing to talk to city officials, Witter told the council there is an approaching deadline.

The county has to know if the project is going ahead before it can acquire the necessary right of ways in enough time for the project to start in 2011, Witter said.

There is not enough time for to do studies on the Unity Street intersection and the Magnesium stoplight, he said. Even though Witter would not say when Magnesium would receive a stoplight, he did tell the council the county would provide funding for the light when it met warrants.

If the city does not partner with the county on the project, the $3.7 in federal funds and the project will go away, said Witter in an interview with ABC Newspapers.

When Look requested the county turn Bunker Lake Boulevard over to the city, Witter said no.

It has been discussed and the county is not interested in turning Bunker back to the city, he said.

It needs to remain a county road because of the traffic volumes and because it is between city streets and a highway, Witter said.

The joint powers agreement will come back to the council for consideration March 23.

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