East metro growth

Saw a couple of interesting articles (here and here) about future growth in Washington County. It is expected that there will be 366,000 people over there by 2030, compared with a current population of around 201,000. One article features current landowners and the pressure to sell to developers. It also mentions the internal battles in some of these towns poised for growth. The other article talks about what will happen to the stretch of I-94 between the 694-494 interchange and the Wisconsin border.

As someone who has been on that stretch of road many times going to or coming from Wisconsin, the evolution has been fascinating. Woodbury has steadily marched north to I-94, while the north side, Lake Elmo, has largely remained rural. The juxtaposition of all the big box retailers, lifestyle centers, and the like south of 94 vs. Dolan's Marine and not much else north is somewhat strange. Well, the Met Council changed all that. Now, Lake Elmo will have to bear some of the burden of expected growth in that direction, and that continues to cause a lot of consternation over there.

This brings me to the other article, about how to solve the future transportation problems that will inevitably come with all this growth. As it stands currently, traffic moves along rather well on I-94 east of the 494-694 interchange. It has six lanes, and meets the needs of the area for the most part. But, as growth continues to happen (not to mention the leapfrogging of people over the river to St. Croix County), it seems inevitable that I-94 will need to be widened, regardless of plans for other modes of transportation. Apparently WisDOT believes there will be a need to widen the bridge over the St. Croix River at some point soon to accommodate traffic to and from Wisconsin, thus expediting the need for widening in Minnesota. This wasn't mentioned enough in the article, but it is likely that planning for this will have to include projections for growth in St. Croix County. It has already exceeded its 2010 population projection of 80,779 (Wisconsin Dept of Administration) and stands at 81,331 (2007 estimate, Census Bureau). Without much knowledge of how these are calculated, I would expect that St. Croix County will have at least 115,000 residents by 2030, with another 80,000 in Pierce and Polk Counties. The majority of these people will likely work in Minnesota, in continuance of current commuting patterns.

I guess I don't have much more of an opinion on things at this moment, but I will continue to be interested in watching how things work out over there. My only concern is making sure that corridor allows me to high-tail it out of Minnesota when necessary.