A Bridge Too Far

A Bridge Too Far: Brooklyn Park promised a pedestrian bridge to get controversial Highway 252 built. After 11 years and a child’s death, there’s still no walkway at the third-most dangerous intersection in the state.

By John Rosengren

Brooklyn Park promised a pedestrian bridge to get controversial Highway 252 built. After 11 years and a child's death, there's still no walkway at the third-most dangerous intersection in the state.

Highway 252 snakes north out of Minneapolis and west along the Mississippi River, an extension of I-94 that handles 50,000 cars each day. The heavily traveled highway is the main road linking Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, Champlin, Anoka, and points beyond. Highway 252 also leads to Monroe and Oxbow elementary schools, Jackson Middle School, and Champlin Park High School. The road slices through housing developments and suburban neighborhoods, the backyard decks of split-entry homes overlooking speeding cars. School buses and parents carpooling children cruise at freeway seeds alongside commuter drivers juggling coffee cups and cell phones. Three miles north of 694, Highway 252 intersects with 85th Avenue. A hard-used, well-traveled road, 85th bisects farmland and suburban tract housing to the west and ends a scant few blocks later at the Mississippi River.

No one disputes that the intersection of Highway 252 and 85th Avenue is dangerous. A State Farm Insurance study published last June ranked it the third-most dangerous intersection in the state. Brooklyn Park police frequently clock cars speeding 75 miles per hour through the 55 miles per hour zone. According to Minnesota Department of Transportation (MN DOT) records from the past four years, at least 80 serious accidents have occurred there during the same period--nearly one every two weeks.

One year ago, 11-year-old Kara Kavanagh was struck by a car and killed at that intersection. She was not allowed to cross the busy highway on foot or bicycle just blocks from her home. But on Saturday, March 6, 1999, she disobeyed. Kara and her friend, Shannon Amsler, set off for McDonald's on their bicycles. Kara said goodbye to her parents, who were headed to her younger brother's hockey game. They'd granted Kara permission to ride with her friend--but not to ride to McDonald's on the other side of Highway 252. Yet, the lure of a Happy Meal with Tigger prize proved irresistible. Nicknamed "the bouncing kid" because of her love of the backyard trampoline, Kara loved the bouncy Pooh character. Her room was full of stuffed Tiggers.

Kara's parents, Rich and Kris Kavanagh, have a good idea what happened that day. They know the intersection and they've spent a year asking questions. Kara and Shannon, the Kavanaghs say, pedaled east down Brooklyn Park's 85th Avenue to Highway 252, where they paused to push the "Walk" button. The girls peered across the wide expanse of the intersection's seven lanes. The late afternoon setting sun made it difficult to see which lights were green and which were red. They most likely didn't see the orange "Don't Walk" sign way over on the McDonald's side of the road. They probably saw the southbound traffic on 252 in front of them stop for the red light and figured they had the right of way. But the intersection has a "lag green light"--cars heading south stop, but cars heading north get a longer green signal and keep moving at high speeds.

Kara and Shannon crossed the south-bound lanes of 252 in front of stopped cars. But when they started to cross the north-bound lanes, they realized too late that traffic wasn't going to stop. Shannon narrowly avoided being struck. Kara wasn't so lucky. The driver, a 51-year-old Champlin man, had no time to brake before he slammed into Kara and swerved into the ditch. Kara died that night.

For the past year the Kavanaghs have argued that their daughter's death was not an isolated incident or an aberration, but a tragedy likely to recur unless the intersection is made less dangerous. Kara's death was a shock to the community, but some were not surprised. They'd figured it was only a matter of time before a pedestrian was killed on the dangerous stretch of busy highway that snakes through the crowded residential and commercial area. Even before Highway 252 was completed in the mid-'80s, residents had been pushing for a dedicated pedestrian crossing near 85th. Kara's death re-ignited that effort, now led by the Kavanaghs. It also raised grave questions about how such a dangerous intersection could have been created in the first place.

Brooklyn Park city officials and MN DOT representatives pass blame back and forth for the contributing factors that make the junction of Highway 252 and 85th Avenue one of the most dangerous intersections in the state.

And a year after the fatal accident, a pedestrian bridge designed in 1989--and widely supported as the best safety solution --remains unbuilt.

The predominantly residential area has pockets of commercial businesses--video stores, fast food chains, and retail shops--north of 85th on both sides of 252, which further congests and complicates the intersection. "Most of the intersections along 252 are dangerous because of the speed and high volume of traffic," says Brooklyn Park traffic patrolman Craig Schmidtke. The nature of the highway creates a string of dangerous intersections through the corridor. "The problem is that the highway is over capacity--there are way too many cars on it for the type of design. What makes 85th unusual is the pedestrian traffic because of the businesses on the other side."

With that busy stretch of 252 punctuated by stoplights, there's also the tendency for drivers to race yellow lights. "People just barrel through this intersection," says Vera Mariner, who lives across the street from the Kavanaghs and drives through the intersection daily on her commute. "They hate to wait for those lights because it's a long line."

Kara's parents are left asking, "What if?" What if there had been a larger traffic light hanging from a cable in the center of the intersection --one that Kara and Shannon could have seen? What if the intersection hadn't had a "lag green light"? What if there'd been a pedestrian button on the median? What if there'd been a pedestrian bridge that the girls could have used to safely cross 252?

The city of Brooklyn Park is trying to answer those questions. It has applied for one of the $20,000 grants State Farm has set aside for communities to perform professional engineering studies on the state's 10 most dangerous intersection.

Yet, the haunting question remains: What if the factors that make the intersection so dangerous hadn't been created in the first place? What if Kara's death could've been prevented with more careful, better coordinated planning?

When the two-lane road that preceded 252 was initially being considered for expansion into a freeway in the '70s, state dollars would have paid for a pedestrian bridge crossing near 87th as part of the package. Though not at a natural intersection, the bridge would have connected two regional bike trails that end there on either side of Highway 252. The decision to make the rout a highway shifted the financial responsibility for the pedestrian bridge to the city of Brooklyn Park. The city had plans for the bridge drawn up by a Minneapolis engineering firm in the summer of 1989 but haggled with MN DOT for several years over what portion of the financial burden each should bear. It wasn't until four years later that Brooklyn Park finally made its first application for federal funds through the Metropolitan Council. Kara's mother thinks the city has dragged its feet on taking responsibility for the project. "The city vowed to take on the financial responsibility, but their idea of making that a responsibility is, "We'll get to it," says Kris Kavanagh.

Other Brooklyn Park residents feel betrayed by city officials who led them to believe there would be a designated pedestrian crossing over the new 252--either the bridge or an underpass tunnel near 87th that was initially considered but rejected because the water table there was too high. Before building his house on 87th a block east of 252 in 1986, Alan Peterson consulted with Dennis Palm, then head of Brooklyn Park's Parks and Recreation Department. Peterson says Palm assured him that a tunnel would be constructed to connect the two bike paths near 87th. "I wasn't going to build a house over there unless I knew I could be connected," Peterson says. "The whole planning of Highway 252 was screwed up from the start."

City officials pin the blame on MN DOT. City council member Joe Enge, who represents the district that includes the area in question, claims than MN DOT officials had made a verbal commitment to the city to cover the entire cost of a pedestrian crossing at 87th. But when the city came forward with its proposal for a bridge, MN DOT representatives told council members there were no funds for the project, Enge says. "I don't necessarily feel the city betrayed residents," says Enge, who was elected in 1988. "As a council member, I feel betrayed by MN DOT for not keeping its promise."

Enge is not satisfied with MN DOT's current offer to pay a quarter of the city's portion to match the federal funds or 25 percent of the total cost of the bridge should federal monies be denied. "Twenty-five percent is a nice token, but that leaves a huge funding gap that the city has to come up with," he says. No one at MN DOT remembers a verbal commitment to shoulder the full cost. And there's no written record of that offer on either the city's or state's side.

MN DOT officials throw the blame back at the city, claiming that they planned adequate safeties in their 20-year forecast for the intersections along 252, including at 85th, but that the city's rapid development created heavier traffic volume than MN DOT had expected. "We do a complete analysis of each intersection to determine how well it's going to operate given the estimated amount of traffic," says MN DOT division transportation planning engineer Mike Christensen, who was involved in the preliminary planning development on 252. "In the case of 252 and 85th, maybe the traffic has grown faster than the amount we anticipated."

Indeed, it may have been the city's ambitious desire for development that created the dangerous intersection at 85th and elsewhere along 252. Brooklyn Park, along with Brooklyn Center and Maple Grove, wanted the current expressway instead of a freeway so residential and commercial expansion could occur. As a result, the number of houses and businesses along that route--and the traffic--has increased significantly over the past decade. "The city saw it as an economic advantage to have it as an expressway because of the commercial viability," says city engineer Doran Cote. "The city of Brooklyn Park developed in accordance with its comprehensive plan. It didn't willingly or knowingly create a dangerous intersection."

Christensen, for one, does not see the pedestrian bridge near 87th as a panacea for the intersection's problems. The crossing would be located away from the commercial attractions on either side of Highway 252 at 85th, and therefore may not be as effective as its supporters would hope. "You've got to realize that's almost a block and half north (of 85th) on a trail system," he says. "I would not expect a lot of people to go out of their way to use it. There will still be a lot of pedestrian traffic at that intersection [of 252 and 85th]."

While city and state officials point fingers and dicker over who should pay for the bridge, Kara's parents have taken matters into their own hands to garner support for the project. Within days of their daughter's funeral, they were canvassing Festival Foods on 85th, telling her story and soliciting signatures on a petition requesting the bridge's construction. On March 22, 1999, the presented the Brooklyn Park City Council with a petition signed by more than 4,000 sympathetic residents.

From U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, who sent the Kavanaghs a letter of support, to neighbors who tied purple ribbons--Kara's favorite color--around mailboxes after her death, the community has rallied. The city council voted last year to make it a priority to find funds to build the pedestrian bridge. By the end of the year, the community had raised nearly $90,000 dollars for the project through memorials, a benefit concert, business donations (including $2,000 from McDonald's), and a fund-raiser put on by Kara's school, Monroe Elementary.

But that's still a long way from the $600,000 that's needed. In September 1999, the city of Brooklyn Park applied for a $480,000 grant through the Metropolitan Council, which distributes federal monies. The city already has in hand $100,000 in a park bond that voters approved in 1997 to be put toward the pedestrian bridge. This month, on the one-year anniversary of the accident, Kara's parents, along with the rest of Brooklyn Park, await word from the Metropolitan Council as to whether it will grant the city's request for federal funding.

City officials are optimistic, but thrice before--in 1993, 1995, and 1997--the council denied funding on the project. The last time, the project scored low "relative to selected projects in the project readiness criteria," according to a letter written by Metropolitan Council chair Ted Mondale to state representative Darlene Luther, who had inquired on the city's behalf why the project had not been approved. Mondale suggested further project planning, approval, and design before applying again.

Brooklyn Park city engineer Doran Cote says the city beefed up its application by submitting final design plans and approval along with documented support from MN DOT, the Hennepin County commissioner, Hennepin County Public Works, and the North Metro Mayors Association. "We went out of our way to demonstrate the regional significance of the project," Cote says. "This isn't just a stand-alone project; this fills a gap in an existing trails system in the North Metro."

The project has already received the state legislature's blessing. Representatives passed a bill in May 1999, directing MN DOT to give Brooklyn Park a $440,000 no-interest loan to be paid back with federal monies, though the loan is contingent upon the Metropolitan Council approving the federal funds. The bill would make money immediately available so construction could begin this summer and the pedestrian bridge be completed by the time school starts in the fall.

The pedestrian bridge project will be ranked by the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) against other projects competing for limited funds under the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century, then passed on to the full Metropolitan Council, which is likely to accept the TAB's recommendations. The competition in both categories under which Brooklyn Park has applied--the surface transportation program and the transportation enhancements program--is intense.

Kris Kavanagh is doing all she can to influence the outcome--she's seeking appointment to the TAB before it ranks the projects. Her Metropolitan Council representative is sponsoring her for the open civilian position for her district.

While city engineer Cote has every confidence the project will win approval this time around, Kavanagh has been pushing the city to develop a contingency plan. "That's a little challenging," she says. "The city's so optimistic it's going to get federal funding, but it didn't get it twice before." Kavanagh would like city officials to explore ways to raise additional funds and dig deeper into its resources.

One way or another, the Kavanaghs believe they'll see Kara's bridge built. "My hope is that the Transportation Advisory Board will approve this project in March," Kris Kavanagh says, "and near the anniversary of her death we'll be able to celebrate a milestone of this project."

Whether or not the pedestrian bridge project wins approval and is eventually built, the cross remains in the median at 85th--a reminder of one young girl's untimely death and a challenge to city and stat officials to prevent future tragedies with better planning.

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