Highway 7 opening thoughts

This morning, my first drive on the newly-opened Highway 7 and Main Street Bridge in Hutchinson was better than expected. It was dusty, but vistas from the elevated road into the city allow motorists to see Hutchinson's water tower in North Park, Peace Lutheran Church's steeple and rooftops of commercial buildings.

The commercial district visible coming down "college hill" or Highway 15, and from Hwy. 7, seems larger. With fewer trees and no leaves on the remaining trees, the wider view into the city makes it appear larger.

The arches and vertical lines pressed into the concrete retaining walls, ironwork on top of the bridge and sidewalk design gives the new highway an historic appearance.

It could be made even better yet.

The next step should be to four-lane it all the way through town to Airport Road. This would keep traffic moving briskly and prevent the backups that happen every Friday.

I just came across the bridge a few minutes ago and I can already see there being issues with the two lanes merging into one just a short distance from the first light by Dairy Queen. Let's open up the traffic as done in most progressive towns (New Ulm, Willmar, etc) so that you can actually get through town with little effort.

I was also surprised by the 30mph speed limit on Highway 7. Seems a bit conservative for a major four lane road compared to other towns where they have four lanes running through.

I was also surprised by the conservative speed limit. While I agreed with the old posting of 30 through that section when it was two lanes and it seemed the houses and businesses were right on top of you. But now with four lanes, I believe it should be 40 miles per hour. I don't see much risk at that speed with the little pedestrian traffic that area has. Other thoughts?

The new dam could be more visible. It is suppose to be about twice as wide -- part of Girl Scout Park will removed to widen the dam -- and maybe pushed back a bit. The drawing I saw last month was slightly rounded. Instead of coming straight from one river bank to the other, picture a half-moon shape curving back further upstream.

Hutchinson is waiting for federal money to go ahead with the project. It has passed the U.S. House, and will be brought up again when the new Congress convenes in January.

My recollection of the reason they eliminated four-lane traffic on Highway 15 through downtown was the danger it posed to people exiting the drivers' sides of their cars. The lanes were quite narrow.

To go back to that would probably mean eliminating parking on at least one side of the street through downtown. Merchants would likely object. Besides, having just two lanes seems to have a "calming" affect on traffic.

When you have four lanes, as Highway 7 is now, drivers tend to want to go faster. The 30 mph limit on the four-lane section of Highway 7 seems to be slow. Try driving 30 mph and see how many people pass you.

The new area of the highway is nice. But there are two things that I do not like about it. First, you can't see the dam anymore when you go over the bridge...it takes away from the scenery a bit. Second, in the area of Hwy 7 and Adams Street there is a section of concrete at the bottom of the hill (towards the Napa store) where there is a bit of a drop off. It kind of jars the car a bit even when you drive over it slowly. Couldn't the workers have finished this up by just slanting the concrete or something so that it doesn't drop?

The roads are ok, that dip silverlakian mentioned, I don't remember it being that bad, Unless the winter frost somehow messed that up. I wonder, if someday they re-do the dam, if they can move it back some so you can see the water fall from the bridge. A person use to take some amazing pictures from the old bridge sidewalk. Now that I think of it, does the new bridge have a sidewalk? humm I'll have to look once.