As the wife of a City of Richfield employee I really feel like I know this city inside and out. My husband comes home from work some days with all sorts of city news. All the latest civil engineering conflicts, like the roundabouts, the stop sign policies, yawn…
Lately talk has
been about the 76th Street Bridge over I-35W. This one is going to drive me insane. This is my street! My bridge! I go over this bridge almost every day. I have to wonder how this will impact our commute, especially all those folks over at the Best Buy headquarters.
We only have about a month to enjoy a normal commute on 76th street as construction will begin in April. It will be seven months of inconvenience with a finish date some where in November of 2008.
Why a new bridge? Apparently the old bridge has a low clearance and trucks have actually collided with this bridge on separate occasions. I know our seven agonizing months of detouring will be worth the end product. One of the reasons the city gives for the bridge needing to be replaced is because of its “deficiency”. In light of the 35-W bridge collapse we can only wonder what exactly they mean by “deficiency.” I don’t know about you, but lately I am all for new bridges after that catastrophe.
More good news about this bridge is it will be built to hold more cars! So less waiting to get onto the freeway, less backup, resulting in a faster commute.
So get ready, this is just one of many projects going on in the Twin Cities. Richfield keeps improving, I will keep you informed of the many updates going on. If you ever have any questions about certain improvements in Richfield please feel free to contact me and I will try to answer them for you.
