Highway 10/169 Improvements

The City of Anoka delivered the largest city-led highway project in the State of Minnesota. The nearly fully developed city was bisected by TH 10/169 in the early 1960s. In that project’s wake was a community divided by a major highway which inhibited the movement of all modes of travel. Since then, this roadway remained unchanged carrying more than 60,000 vehicles-per-day on a 4-lane expressway.

For decades, the corridor was severely congested and experienced high crash rates. In the previous 10 years, more than 1,100 crashes were recorded on this one-mile stretch of road, with more than 325 people injured, including two fatalities. Pedestrians and bicyclists had a limited network and their exposure to traffic was extremely high.

This project converted the highway to a freeway including an interchange at Thurston Avenue, an overpass at Fairoak Avenue, and interchange reconstruction at Main Street. Equally important was a new series of frontage roads which allows the community to move without having to access the major highway. The project resulted in a 75 percent reduction in delays by eliminating all at-grade access points and signals on TH 10/169 in Anoka. It also resulted in a 57 percent crash reduction, enhancing the corridor’s safety, reliability, and efficiency.

The success of this project heavily relied on the foundational conceptual work our team led in its development. The shift from a highway to a freeway represented a significant transformation for the community. While ultimately beneficial, it was essential to present the community and project stakeholders with a clear vision of the proposed corridor to secure their support. Our team employed detailed enhanced typical sections and targeted graphics to effectively convey the planned changes; however, the highlight of our efforts was the comprehensive corridor rendering and video fly-through, which played a pivotal role in garnering support from both the public and funding agencies.