The Minnesota Senate today approved a comprehensive transportation budget bill that includes a provision authored by Senator John Jasinski (R-Faribault) to begin the process of studying the construction of an interchange at I-35 and County Road 9 — a project that has been discussed for more than 10 years. The bill next heads to Gov. Walz for his signature.

“I have been advocating for this project for years; it is well past time to get it moving,” said Sen. Jasinski. “The north end of Faribault has seen rapid growth, with Aldi, Saint-Gobain/SageGlass, Trystar, Daikin, and Faribault Foods among the businesses that have completed expansions. Nearly all of the existing industrial park land is now in use, and the city is looking for more areas to grow. An interchange at County Road 9 will help us maximize our opportunity for economic growth. This is just the start. The interchange will not be built overnight, but this will help the project become shovel ready so it can be completed as soon as possible.”

The bill would appropriate $500,000 to begin a jurisdictional realignment study to examine the estimated construction costs, traffic modeling, environmental analysis, and a potential design layout for an interchange. A jurisdictional realignment study would include trunk highway corridor 3 and trunk highway corridor 21 as well, increasing the project’s chances of securing MnDOT approval