Becker Asking for Bonding Money to Fix Dangerous Intersection

BECKER -- The city of Becker will be looking for some bonding money next year to help fix a dangerous intersection.

Community Development Director Marie Pflipsen says they are asking for $4 million from the State Legislature for design money and buy land at the Highway 10 and Highway 25 intersection.

We do know that just with the growth of the area, and with lake traffic, not only is the highway busy so are some of our local streets as well. We really want to make sure our region is safe, especially within the city of Becker, so we have made this one of our highest priorities.

Pflipsen says they've been working on improvements for the interchange since 2017 when they conducted a study and have come up with multiple design concepts.

She says statistics back up the city's argument that it is a dangerous intersection.

MnDOT and other statistical people show that this intersection is high on crashes, they have different crash rates that they use, they have a crash rate they have a critical rate, both of those are high for this type of intersection.

Pflipsen says Becker has already received a $500,000 grant to do some preliminary engineering.

They are hoping to have the preliminary work done by June with the final design work starting next summer. The total cost to reconstruct the interchange could be anywhere from $28 million to $35 million.