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U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar had barely cleared the entryway to the Chisago County Government Center, when she  engaged in a personal chat with two uniformed deputies monitoring the metal detector.  As past chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, Klobuchar explained;  walking quickly to catch up with the delegation headed to a Highway 8 meeting, she never passes up a chance to say hi and interact with law enforcement.  

Down one flight, in a meeting room with a wall of windows overlooking North Center Lake,  a rep from MnDOT, the county engineer and deputy engineer, the mayor of Center City, two county commissioners, sheriff personnel, the county environmental services head, and others awaited the senator.  

Plans for the Highway 8 $100 million “safety and capacity” rebuild were laid flat on tables end-to-end.

County Engineer Joe Triplett summarized the concerns the new highway will rectify, among them a weigh scale for commercial truck enforcement built into the roadbed, a pedestrian underpass, reduction of conflict ridden intersections and new frontage routes. A trail is also part of the new corridor.  This led Klobuchar to recall a suburbs-to-Cloquet bike ride with her late father Jim Klobuchar years ago.  She supports trail systems as a policy overall, and is aware of the multiple existing bike trails accessible both east-west and north-south. 

Engineer Triplett continued, saying, the “...education, enforcement” parts of addressing the highway’s shortcomings have been exhausted and now comes “engineering— the last step,” Triplett said.

Work on Highway 8 will be underway in some shape or form by 2026.  Triplett said the timeline calls for going out for bid in 2025.  The eight mile stretch within the work zone will be a challenge for commuters, but Triplett told Klobuchar the partners in the project Washington County and MnDOT have spent a lot of time figuring out how this two-year work schedule gets done.

Sen. Klobuchar remarked that Congress must get the budget done and implement funding first.  

She acknowledged the spirit of cooperation being demonstrated on the Hwy. 8 planning is good  but couldn’t make any promises as to last second political budgeting adjustments.  She added Rep. Pete Stauber has been working hard on U.S. House funding too.

Staff say the senator has a goal to visit every county in Minnesota at least once every year.

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