Eden Prairie, Edina, and Bloomington share a common border point. That point is just east of Winter Park on Washington Avenue; just north of the People Soft building; in the center of Washington Avenue. In the photo below, the common point is in the center of the photo between the two yellow lines.
City officials from Eden Prairie, Edina, and Bloomington are engaged in what we hope are the final advocacy stages to secure federal and state transportation funding for the improvement of the 169/494 intersection. The design for the project is essentially complete. If (and when) it’s constructed, it would look like this:
In this look at the plan, North is at the top of the picture. Winter Park is the large greenish rectangular building you see in the top left corner, in the future intersection’s northwest quadrant.
There are three things I’ll direct your attention to in this plan. First, there is a bridge for Washington Avenue to cross 494. Washington Avenue connects W. 78th Street and Viking Drive. It would provide us with another point of entry and exit for the Golden Triangle Industrial Park. That’s good.
I would also point to the extensions of Viking Drive under 494 on the north side of the freeway to connect Eden Prairie to Edina and W. 78th Street under 494 on the south side of the freeway to connect us with Bloomington. Those connections are shown as light blue in color on this plan.
This is a complicated, and expensive project. Deliberations over transportation spending and taxation in St. Paul and Washington DC may impact this project. The state and the federal governments have both appropriated money for this project, but MnDOT believes it is still a little short of what it needs to ultimately proceed with putting the project out for bidding.
Pay attention to the current debate over gas taxes in St. Paul and the reauthorization of the transportation bill in DC. We have a project at stake.
