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Washington County presents Highway 61 visioning study; Hugo schedules Aug. 15 open house
Summary
Washington County staff told the Hugo City Council the Highway 61 Visioning Study reduces projected right-of-way needs, includes trails on both sides of the corridor and accommodates a connector-bus service; council agreed to an Aug. 15 public open house and to continue coordination on a jurisdictional transfer plan.
Washington County planners gave Hugo City Council members an update on the Highway 61 Visioning Study on July 15, saying the study reduced overall right-of-way needs while adding multimodal elements and preserving the Hardwood Creek trail corridor.
The presentation, led by Maddie Dahlheimer of Washington County, reviewed a study area that covers the corridor inside Hugo and a countywide jurisdictional transfer plan. Dahlheimer said the study focused on access management, right-of-way needs and multimodal improvements and included stakeholder engagement with city planning and business groups, the RushLine transit partners and private property owners.
County staff showed layout alternatives that, compared with a 2008 plan, reduce dedications in many parts of Hugo. Dahlheimer said a consolidated, unified transportation corridor concept allowed the team to shrink right-of-way needs in the northern part of the city to zero in the plan and reduce needs in the south by about half, while retaining space for trails and a connector bus route identified in the 2017 RushLine study. She said the updated cross section developed through the study would require about 155 feet of right-of-way in a single-turn-lane scenario, down from prior guidance of roughly 172–180 feet.
Commissioner Mearon, who spoke after the presentation, said the county's work to treat the highway and rail corridor as a unified transportation corridor slowed the process but ultimately reduced the extent of business displacements that earlier layouts would have required.
Why it matters: the study updates the spatial needs for both highway and transit planning and lays groundwork for future funding and project design. Dahlheimer said the updated vision should make it easier for the city and partner agencies to pursue implementation funding, while noting that detailed traffic-control decisions would be made at the project-design phase.
Council action: the council voted to schedule a public open house for the Highway 61 Visioning Study on Aug. 15, 2024, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Hugo City Hall. Staff said the study will be documented in a final report and that an updated memorandum of understanding among the agencies will follow as the project advances.
Next steps: county staff will hold the open house on Aug. 15 and then finalize the study report and proposed interagency MOU; specific improvement projects and traffic-control elements will be developed at the preliminary-design stage.
