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Previous research sponsored by the Minnesota DOT (Mn/DOT) documented the state of truck parking issues throughout Minnesota. The study specifically examined the supply and demand of public and private commercial vehicle parking along Minnesota's three primary Interstate corridors: I-35, I-90, and I-94. Results of the study were published in January 2008. This report revealed some critical parking capacity issues at many of the state's rest area facilities and concluded that further research would be necessary to identify potential remedies to improve truck parking into the future. Mn/DOT funded this second phase with the objective of determining opportunities for expanding truck parking where needed across Minnesota. Existing research suggests that although interstate and intercity truck parking may be very limited and marginally expanding existing congested facilities would be useful, parking in urban core areas was overwhelmingly identified as the key truck parking problem in Minnesota. Therefore, Phase 2 looked at parking both in the Twin Cities and in greater Minnesota.

To fully apprize the Legislature of the potential impacts of access management, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) has gathered information and conducted research in order to make recommendations covering a wide range of interrelated land use planning, engineering, and legal practices to maximize the operational efficiency and safety of all functional categories of roadways. The study focused on first identifying and then analyzing a random and statistically representative sample of roadways. The following highlights some of the study’s conclusions:  There is an observed positive relationship between access density and crash rates in 10 of 11 highway categories.  Additional analysis of the crash data in each of the categories revealed that in all cases, roadway segments with the highest crash rates have high levels of access density and segments with the lowest crash rates have low levels of access density.  A review of case studies of 11 access management-related projects (three in Minnesota and eight in Iowa) documented an average crash reduction of approximately 40 percent.  A benefit-cost analysis was completed for the 11 roadway categories. The results are based on a range of estimated project costs and crash reductions and indicate that positive outcomes are possible in every category.  Crash data was analyzed from two different perspectives; a comparison of crash rates on a random sample of the state's highway system and a before/after comparison of crash rates from 11 case studies. The results from each approach suggest a strong and statistically sound relationship between levels of accessibility and crash rates.  The final conclusion addresses the question: Is access management a legitimate public safety issue? All results of the various analyses suggest that yes; access management is a legitimate public safety issue.

This document is the final report for the Clear Roads project entitled Snow Removal Performance Metrics. The project team was led by researchers at Washington State University on behalf of Clear Roads, an ongoing pooled fund research effort focused on winter maintenance materials, equipment, and methods. Clear Roads research projects are managed and administered by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT). Through this project, the research team conducted a comprehensive literature review on the use of performance measures by transportation agencies for winter highway maintenance activities. To identify the effective performance metrics for snow and ice maintenance operations, the team surveyed all possible snow and ice states to gather information about their use of performance measures. The survey results were tabulated and analyzed to identify commonalities and differences between agencies and to develop a matrix of performance measures. Relative costs associated with different metrics were also presented. Based on the literature review and survey results, recommendations were made regarding the performance measures that should be considered for further evaluation. Remaining knowledge gaps were also identified, and recommendations were made for cases where existing measures may be modified or new measures developed for evaluation in future research.

The Clear Roads research consortium requested a tool to help transportation agencies more quickly and easily reconstruct winter weather events by drawing from data sources that cover the entire United States. The goals were to help agencies better understand the development and outcomes of hazardous weather events, react appropriately to them in the short and long term, and refine future maintenance decision-making. The tool would assist with after-action reviews and inform changes to practices at state, county and municipal levels of government. During Clear Roads Project 16-05, the research team designed and built a web-based tool that accesses multiple types of weather data in order for a user to reconstruct what happened during a weather event. This final report describes the steps taken to accomplish this objective. They include: identifying appropriate weather data and locating the best online sources, sketching a mock version of the web-based tool, and, upon Clear Roads approval of the design, building and testing the tool. A guidance document was produced and technical support was provided to the Clear Roads users for one year.

MnDOT is attempting to address an information gap by conducting a comprehensive and systematic analysis of economic effects of a highway improvement project—the conversion of US 12 to Interstate 394 (I-394). This I-394 Business Impact Study is a first step in documenting credible, local information about the potential business related impacts associated with highway improvements. This research is intended to provide a comprehensive long-term evaluation of the transportation, business, and land development impacts of a major transportation project in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.