Battle to lower speed leads Medford to state

Bipartisanship is hard to come by these days, but a safety issue in Medford garnered it in spades.

Mayor Danny Thomas and John Anhorn, chairman of the Medford School Board, testified last week before the Minnesota Senate Committee on Transportation for a bill brought forward by Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault.

“It was an incredible day,” Thomas told Medford City Council members a few hours later at their March 24 meeting.

After months of resistance locally, it appeared state leaders had forced the issue of addressing the speed limit of the county road that leads to Medford Public Schools – but there were some hairpin curves still coming.

By the Numbers

For decades, Steele County Road 12 had a posted speed limit of 45 mph.

In 2023, after a road construction project went through, the limit was raised to 55 mph – as it leads past the bus drop-off area, the main entrance and the bus garage for the school that houses preschoolers through high schoolers.

Vehicles entering and exiting any of the three driveways may need to cross two lanes of traffic.

Thomas was prepared to testify, armed with a litany of additional numbers: The number of buses (14), the number of students on the buses (350), the number of vehicles (432) dropping off students (600), and the number of staff (100).

The speed limit for drivers heading east out of town toward the school is 30 mph until Sixth Street, about a half-mile from the school’s first driveway.

The official speed limit from there is 55 mph, though there is a “preferred” limit of 45 mph past the school.

To complicate matters further, the school sits atop a significant rise in elevation from the town.

Our entrance to the school property sits right on the crest of that hill,” Anhorn said. “Designed that way or not, it’s something we have to deal with.”

To the Capitol

School and city officials have approached Steele County officials multiple times in the past two years, asking to have the limit lowered – with no success.

They then appealed to Jasinski, who invited them to St. Paul to plead their case.

It was clear the committee members were puzzled by the request.

“Why are you looking for a legislative decision?” asked Sen. Robert Farnsworth, R-Hibbing, reminding them it was a local – county – decision.

“We’ve met several times with them,” Thomas said. “We don’t understand it either, to be honest with you.”

Steele County Engineer Paul Sponholz sought advice from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which is ultimately in charge of setting speed limits.

“They did a speed study,” Thomas said, “and came up with the ‘preferred 45,’ but left the 55” mph in place.

“We’d just like to see it at 45 mph,” he said, “not a ‘suggested’ 45 mph. We’ve got to understand, it’s kids driving. It’s slippery in the wintertime, it’s windy… The deputies sit there every morning and night, because they believe it’s a (safety) concern, too.”

The issue was “common sense,” Farnsworth replied. “Any school that I’ve ever seen on the edge of town, the speed limit is slow. It just seems … dumb, I guess, for lack of a better word, that they’d have the speed limit that high, right where the school is.”

That wasn’t the end of the scolding from lawmakers – all of it directed at county engineers.

“The Minnesota County Engineers Association sent a letter in opposition to this, trying to mount some sort of justification on the 55 mph zone,” said Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis.

“I’ll just say this to the county engineers who are listening: This is unacceptable. Letters like this do not help your case at all,” he said. “There’s no one who sits on this panel, I think, that thinks a 55 mph zone here makes any sense.”

Engineers on the spot

Dibble then called on Erik Rudeen, director of government affairs for MnDOT.

“Can you help us understand the methodology that was used to change the speed from 45 mph to 55 mph, approaching a school, at the crest of a hill, adjacent to a small town?” Dibble asked.

The methodology, Rudeen said, “obviously didn’t work as intended in this particular situation.”

Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart, DFL-Minnetonka, an engineer herself, questioned the increase in the speed limit after the road project, “because there was no reconstruction here. It’s an existing road that was repaved.”

Dedicated turn lanes were added during the project.

“We can say all we want that the drivers have every right to come in at 55 mph … but I’ve got to go with safety here,” she said.  “We have to take local conditions into consideration, but I couldn’t live with myself if, a year from now, we have a kid who gets T-boned, trying to turn in or out.”

Dibble returned to the letter from county engineers and read it aloud.

“Please, county engineers,” he said. “Can you hear yourselves? There’s no discussion of working with the city, the school board, the school, on figuring out how to solve a problem this community identified.

“I read the newspaper articles,” Dibble said. The city and school leaders “went back numerous times, trying to get something done and get something changed, and the county engineers have closed their eyes to the circumstances. Just amazing to me.”

Carla Nelson (R-Rochester) seemed amazed that the Steele County Board “ceded their authority to the county engineer.”

Ken Johnson, an assistant state traffic engineer, said he would consider an “experimental speed limit in the area,” but said without constant enforcement, “I do not believe we’re going to have a change in how people are actually driving on this corridor.”

Johnson Stewart, who Thomas said “knew more about this road than the MnDOT guys,” laid the bill over without objection.

“I think we may be saving a life if we do this sooner rather than later,” she said.

Still dealing

The next morning, Jasinski called Thomas with a deal, of sorts: MnDOT wanted a special agreement to prevent setting a precedent. The limit would drop to 45 mph for two years, with a speed study to follow.

Anhorn and Mark Ristau, superintendent of MPS, agreed.

On March 26, Thomas received a phone call from Rep. Tom Sexton, R-Waseca, who had some news.

“The Steele County Administrator and Steele County Engineer will not do this” experimental speed limit change, Thomas said.

Two days later, the mayor received a call from “the head of MnDOT,” who told Thomas he was going to speak to Sponholz, “that we needed to do this, and this is the best for everybody.”

Should Sponholz still disagree, Thomas said, “then we’ll go in front of the House of Representatives.”

Anhorn had a reminder for the members of the Senate committee members, and will probably take it to the House, should he need to.

“It’s all about the safety of the kids,” he said. “We can’t educate them if we can’t get them in the building.”