Grand Forks approves 2050 Street and Highway Plan, moving intercity bridge to illustrative list.

Dec. 18—GRAND FORKS — The Grand Forks City Council voted to approve the 2050 Street and Highway plan, excluding mention of an intercity bridge between the Point Bridge and 47th Avenue South on the illustrative list, at its Monday night meeting.

At its Dec. 4 meeting, the council gave first approval to the 2050 plan,

in a 4-3 vote, but in its approval struck all mention of an intercity bridge. On Monday, the council voted to approve the plan but only struck mention of the intercity bridge from the illustrative list in a 5-2 vote.

Grand Forks Planning and Zoning has recommended the approval of the plan with mention of an intercity bridge. East Grand Forks Planning and Zoning also voted to approve the plan with mention of an intercity bridge.

The intercity bridge has been part of the draft plan's illustrative list and is mentioned throughout. The illustrative list is for projects that have conversations and desires to happen, but aren't fiscally constrained and have no funding mechanisms or means in place. An intercity bridge would be a bridge between the Point Bridge in the north and Merrifield Road in the south, a stretch of the Red River nearly 10 miles long.

Two bodies that haven't voted on the Street and Highway plan are the East Grand Forks City Council and the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization Executive Board, which will be voting and discussing the plan at meetings later this week.

MPO Executive Director Stephanie Halford had previously said that striking the intercity bridge would be difficult.

"You will never be able to fully take it out because it's been presented at committees. It's been presented at different boards. It's been at public input meetings (and) we've received comment back," Halford said. "(If it is struck), what (are comments) referencing? I wouldn't be surprised if the departments of transportation would want an updated presentation because the document would feel different."

Michael Johnson, a representative from the North Dakota Department of Transportation, said during the meeting that major changes at this stage would require vetting.

"It would raise questions from both states and from our federal partners on what effort, what legwork, what planning level effort was done to just remove that project from discussion that had been involved from the get-go," Johnson said. "We would want some sort of documentation, some knowledge of the participation efforts that were gone through to make sure it was vetted before accepting it in that fashion."

Conversations about a potential intercity bridge have been around since at least the 1970s. Currently, no exact location, design, logistics, or funding of a plan has been decided or approved by either the Grand Forks City Council or the East Grand Forks City Council.

According to traffic projections shown to the city councils in September,

if no crossings are built in the next 25 years, parts of Grand Forks will become gridlocked with traffic. Building any bridge would help, but the models show that a bridge built between the Point Bridge and Merrifield Road had the most beneficial impacts to Grand Forks' future traffic.

"If you live south of 32nd (Avenue) and you need to run your kid to hockey practice and you chug down Belmont (Road) and you have to wait four blocks because traffic is backed up from Fourth (Avenue) to Eighth (Avenue) you're going to try a different route," said council member Tricia Lunski, who represents much of the area that could be the Grand Forks end of an intercity bridge. "It's backed up every day. ... We need some major change."

At one point during the meeting, City Council President Dana Sande went to a public comment podium to show the council a satellite view of Grand Forks to illustrate his opinion against an intercity bridge.

"We can model, model, model all we want. Looking at the map, that's not how people behave," Sande said. "The way I see it — what will happen, and I'm a guy who loves to predict the future, you're going to have one-way traffic from East Grand Forks across in the morning and then you're going to have one-way traffic from Grand Forks back into East Grand Forks in the afternoon. It'll be great for the people that live south of the Point Bridge and, here's what I believe, that the people who live (on the north side of East Grand Forks) aren't going to drive down to 32nd Avenue to cross."

The final plan that gets submitted for approval by state and federal officials still has to go through other public bodies. The East Grand Forks City Council is expected to vote on the plan at its Tuesday meeting and the MPO Executive Board, which has the final say on the matter, votes Wednesday. The Grand Forks City Council discussed potentially withholding funding to the MPO due to dissatisfaction with the current makeup of the board and how much say Grand Forks has on the board.

"This process started months or years ago and it seems to me (that an intercity bridge) was being pushed by one side and just got added as a certainty and this conversation should have been had 12 months ago," said Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski. "(The threat of federal funds being in jeopardy) has started this cascade and now we're being held with a gun to our head. ... We've got $100 million in projects and the other side has nothing essentially. The whole process stinks."

According to the 2050 plan, Grand Forks has almost $97 million in projects and East Grand Forks has $14 million in projects.

The list of projects was brought up to city councils in September,

but mention of an intercity bridge was not struck at that time nor was it struck when traffic models were presented in June of this year.

In other news, the council:

* Canceled its Dec. 26 Committee of the Whole meeting. The council will have its next meeting on Jan. 2.

* Approved a development agreement with Epitome Energy. Epitome is planning to build a soybean crush plant on the northern edge of Grand Forks. The plant will process soybeans into soybean meal, oil and hulls.

*

Approved changes to city code and letters of intent for the new Altru Sports Complex.

Grand Forks residents approved an extension and modification of the Alerus Center sales tax in November, allowing funds generated to be used for the construction of the new facility. The facility is expected to be complete by the beginning of 2027.