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Every little bit helps

As highway funding goes, it isn’t much. The state has awarded $700,000 from the Corridors of Commerce funding this year to hlep pay for preliminary design work on the Highway 14-15 intersection just north of New Ulm, the interchange more notoriously know as “The Y.”

That’s loose change for most highway projects, but the fact that the money is being awarded to untangling this dangerous intersection is an encouraging sign that this portion of the Highway 14 project is at least on the Department of Transportation’s priority list.

Another $7.3 million was dedicated to purchasing right-of-way for Highway 14 from Owatonna to Dodge Center. Again, that’s not a lot compared to the total cost of expanding Highway 14 to four lanes all the way to New Ulm, but it’s better than being totally shut out.

Ultimately, though, the state is going to have to come up with a more substantial method of funding transportation, or suffer the effects of prolonged patchwork repairs and neglect of small problems until they become big problems, which has characterized the state’s transportion program for too long.

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