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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Opponents: Four-Lane St. Croix Crossing Too Big, Too Spendy

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011   

STILLWATER, Minn. - Opponents of a new four-lane bridge to span the St. Croix River at Stillwater say a crossing that large isn't needed.

The scale and scope are too much, says Bill Neuendorf, director of policy and advocacy for Transit for Livable Communities, and so is the bridge's $690 million price tag.

"Minnesota has over 1,000 bridges that are structurally deficient. They're not unsafe, but they're old and they need repair. With this St. Croix River crossing that's proposed, the price tag for this is so large that it's really drawing funds away from repairing other bridges throughout the state."

Some of those other problem bridges carry up to 80,000 cars a day with no plans to replace them, Neuendorf says, while the Stillwater Lift Bridge averages 18,000 cars a day.

"To replace a bridge that serves that amount of traffic with a close to $700 million bridge expansion is a mega-project at a time where governments - states, federally and locally - are really watching our pennies. And in this particular project, it seems like cost is no limit."

Instead, Neuendorf says, his group supports an informal plan which cuts the cost by 60 percent by reducing the bridge to three lanes.

"Where you have one lane in each direction and then, during the peak rush-hour periods, that center lane is reversible so that it serves the travelers when the travelers are there. If you build a wider bridge, let's say four lanes, most of the times of the day those lanes are pretty quiet."

The smaller plan is also supported by the National Parks Conservation Association, whose senior Midwest regional director, Lynn McClure, says Congress would have to exempt the St. Croix from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to accommodate a larger bridge.

"The Act is there to protect the St. Croix River. There are ways to build new crossings, to put a bridge across that river, without the harm that this one will cause."

In the Act's 43-year history, McClure says, there's never been an exemption for a bridge, and she feels it would set a precedent that could cause problems for other protected rivers. A bill to allow the exemption is in Congress, wading its way through the subcommittee process.

Supporters of the four-lane bridge proposal - including Gov. Mark Dayton, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. - say the current Stillwater Lift Bridge, built in 1931, is becoming increasingly unsafe.

More information on the St. Croix River Crossing Project is online at state.mn.us.


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