LAFAYETTE — If Lafayette area residents would have their way, an improved Hwy. 15 wouldn’t by pass their town.

A bypass of Lafayette is one consideration of a plan being made by the Mankato District of the Minnesota Highway Department, which unveiled the proposal at Lafayette Thursday night. The preliminary plans calls for widening and leveling of Hwy. 15between New Ulm and Winthrop, as well as reduction of curves and elimination of three bridges-all for the estimated current cost of about $6 million. Work is to start in 1980.

BUT IT WAS the future proximity of Hwy. 15 to the city of Lafayette itself that was the main consideration Thursday night.

For the Lafayette area, the proposal lists two alternative measures for Hwy. 15 work: a bypass east of town, and widening of the existing highway route through Lafayette.

Merle Sater of the preliminary design and environment section of the Mankato Highway District argued that the bypass would amount to greater total dollar savings because it would be six-tenths of a mile shorter than the other alternative.

Basing his argument on a 1974 average daily traffic count indicating more than 2,000 vehicles per day would pass through Lafayette, Sater estimated as savings of more than 1,000 vehicle-miles per day, 365,000 vehicle-miles per year, and at 10 cents per mile, $36,500 per year.

“IT SOUNDS GOOD,”countered a man in the audience, “but you’re forgetting about the damage that will be done out there.”

The damage refers to the cropland that would be taken out of production to accommodate the highway.

Others argued that it would hurt the economy of Lafayette.

“As a whole, it will be very damaging in the long run to bypass Lafayette,” one man said.

“If the highway is improved, there will be more traffic, and if it bypasses Lafayette, Lafayette won’t see any of it,” said another man.

ANOTHER OF THE five highway men at the meeting, Larry Filter, assistant preliminary design engineer, said he felt Layette’s economy was primarily locally supported and wouldn’t be affected if the highway were moved.

Sater said the University of Minnesota had conducted studies on the economic impacts on small towns near Interstate 90 in the southern Minnesota after the freeway went in.

“They were really surprised how little effect it had,” he said.

Some in the audience, however, didn’t think the analogy between Hwy. 15 and a freeway was accurate.

A man who said he operates a business a half block from the high-way in Lafayette said “very many”people stop in Lafayette off the highway.

“The downtown merchant benefits,” he said. “I don’t see how you can say a bypass will benefit the town.”

PRELIMINARY COST estimates are that the upgrading of the existing highway route through Lafayette, including 2,400 feet of curb and gutter work, would be 13 per cent more costly than to construct the bypass.

The bypass would be shorter because Hwy. 15 curves east on the north side of Lafayette, and then curves north again. The bypass would connect the eastern end of that curve with a point just south of town

A show of hands indicated that nearly all at the meeting were op-posed to the bypass. Of about 100perople, about four raised their hands in support of the bypass.

THE HIGHWAY men stressed that all plans are in their early stages and subject to change, but the project has been given a green light with the approval of its project development report last August.

Work is now being done on a draft environmental impact report to be followed by public hearings, a final environmental impact report, a location-design study report, and finally by right-of-way purchases and bid-letting by 1980.

Richard Stjernstrom, district right-of-way engineer, said 150-foot rights-of-way are now mandated.

Rights-of-way on Hwy. 15 are now 100 feet, meaning an additional 25 feet will be needed on each side of the highway, which is to be widened from its present 20-foot width to 24 feet.

TWO MORE HEARINGS on the Hwy. 15 project are scheduled for next week: Tuesday night at the New Ulm City Council room and Thursday night the Winthrop City Council room and Thursday night at the Winthrop City Council Room. Both meetings start at 7 p.m.

The main concern at the New Ulm meeting may be three alternative methods of curve cutting between New Ulm and Klossner.

There also are three alternatives of changing the route of Hwy. 15near and through Winthrop.

One alternative would flatten the curve southeast and northeast of Sand Lake and require the purchase of land from the Winthrop Golf Course and the relocation of a drainage ditch.

Like Lafayette, Winthrop will face an alternative concerning a bypass. The Winthrop bypass would be west of the town and link up at the present junction of highways 19 and 15 on the town’s west edge.

New Ulm Daily Journal

March 26, 1976