The 400 families who live along the 55 mph sections of Highway 61, ask the remaining 2,000 families who live the year round in Cook County for their help for us, and for the 360 families who spend their summer vacations here beside this highway.
Most of you, who do not live in this narrow corridor around HY-61, do not know what happened to us in 2013. MnDOT installed rumble strips (RS), which disturbed our sleep and way of life. The abrupt noise, when tires contact these strips, awakened us several times each night at distances up to one mile.
The rocks thrown by these strips pitted car windows, hit one dog, and frightened the many residents who use the broad shoulder for their health and recreation. For over a year we endured this, before the rumble strips were filled in.
This August, MnDOT will again install these strips, which are quieter, from mile marker 117 to the Reservation River. MnDOT has been contacted and asked to delay this installation for the following reasons: the abrupt noise is still heard a halfmile away. None of the safety issues, from the 2014 Petition to Remove Rumble Strips (200 family signatures) have been acknowledged or addressed by MnDOT.
MnDOT’s official position is that none of these issues are real, but if they are wrong, then when they are resurfacing Highway 61 in 2022, these strips can then be removed! They will not even acknowledge the injury accident caused by the driver overcorrecting after unexpectedly encountering the strip this May in Brainerd, Minnesota!
Since rumble strips themselves cause accidents, will there be any reductions in the injury and death numbers after spending $118 million of taxpayer money?
Is there not a better use for these funds?
Shoulder rumble strips (SRS) were first installed on long stretches of highways where drivers were falling asleep and then going off the road. These strips reduced the accident rate by 40 percent, but left the remaining Roll-Off-Road (ROR) accidents undiminished because SRS are ineffective with DUIs and other causes of ROR accidents.
The SRS have been used with the same success for Federal & State Divided Highways, which mostly do not have any homes nearby or people walking along the shoulders.
The use of rumble strips on rural two-lane highways is really a new use of a safety device and MnDOT is using the numbers from divided highways to justify their installation; there are no studies or reports (and I have read all of MN documents) to support their claim for reduced accidents or deaths.
Is there a more serious safety problem for Lake and Cook County TR-61 highway residents than shoulder rumble strips? Unfortunately the answer is YES! Highway 61 from Two Harbors to Canada will have the posted speed limit raised from 55 to 60 mph in 2019.
The report, which supports the above increased speed, only has the following comments with respect to safety.
“After raising the speed limit to 60 the mean speed went from 59 to 60 mph! The average of the five highest speeds remained the same at 76 mph – page 7.
“In other words, more drivers traveled at a similar speed after speed limits increased. This is a desirable outcome, but this change is very slight and may not impact the frequency or severity of crashes. It is important to remember that raising a posted speed limit is not inherently making a road ‘less safe.’”
WOW, and I have a bridge to sell you!
Chuck Flickinger
Hovland
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