Highway 12 has often been accused of being a liability to the economic growth of communities adjacent to it. over the years, many suggestions have been made regarding safety and traffic movement features. A few minor improvements have been made, but basically it is still the same design as it was when it was first paved in 1920.
In the fall of 1986, the Mid-Minnesota Development Commission was awarded a grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The grant was for the purpose of studying whether or not the economy of communities along Highway 12 was negatively affected by lack of significant upgrading of the highway. This objective was accomplished by contrasting the Highway 12
corridor with the four-lane corridors of U.S. 169 South to Mankato and North to Milaca.
An independent person was hired to help analyze the data. His analysis of the study helped him arrive at a conclusion that the economies of communities along U.S. Highway 12 are definitely negatively impacted because it is not a four-lane highway. We hope you will use this document to help petition for the upgrading of U.S. Highway 12.
In 1985, the 74th Minnesota Legislature directed the Commissioner of Transportation to establish and direct a series of highway jurisdictional studies at the regional and multi-county levels. These studies are to review the existing ownership of all roads, and to propose changes in jurisdiction to roads not identified as the appropriate level of governmental ownership.
The Commissioner of Transportation was further directed to enter into agreements with regional development commissions to conduct studies of highway jurisdiction in each region. Each region was given the "Regional Jurisdictional Study Guidelines" by the Commissioner to ensure that all studies will be done in a somewhat similar fashion to ensure statewide consistency. The Mid-Minnesota Transportation Advisory Committee made some deviations to these published guidelines in determining what thresholds to use in determining road jurisdiction. These changes are shown by reading the explanation of thresholds within this report.
The following is the final report of the Mid-Minnesota Development Commission's special study on Minimum. Maintenance Roads. This study was funded by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in order for the Region to determine the use of the minimum maintenance designation, and to provide technical assistance in its use. It is the major finding of this study that further action is needed in at least three main areas. The first is for the Legislature or the Commissioner of Transportation to mandate that the resolutions passed by the township be recorded at a central location. The second is that the county engineers maintain a list of those roads which have been designated. The third is that maintenance standards for minimum maintenance roads should also be recorded in an official document.
In 1987 the Mid-Minnesota Development Commission (MMDC) completed a report called "Highway 12 Corridor Economic Study." The study's principal author was Craig Molstad. This report is a continuation of the study by evaluating data in new ways and by highlighting a new highway corridor. The Highway 212 Corridor, from the Carver-Hennepin County border west to the Minnesota-South Dakota state line, has been added into the three previously studied corridors.
On October 16, 1986, the MMDC received funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) to "conduct a study of the economic differences that varying levels of highway service can be shown to produce." As part of a Special Studies Grant Program, the economic characteristics of Highway 12, Highway 169 South and Highway 169 North Corridors were studied and compared through a period between 1959 and 1985. Highways 169 North and 169 South have both been upgraded to a four-lane highway during the time frame of the studied years. Highway 12 has remained a two-lane road with unlimited access and many hinderances to convenient, quick travel.
This study will focus more precisely on the manufacturing sector of the economy than the earlier study. It will not go into as much detail with the service sector of the economy as the previous study.
The premise of both studies was to test the hypothesis that ease and time of travel effects the economics of an economy positively. The hypothesis also states that congestion, difficult and time consuming travel adversely effects an area's economy. This study has added a couple of new analysis techniques to help clarify and strengthen the findings of the first study.
