In the midst of the good news regarding Minnesota 60 came two paragraphs toward the end of Tuesday's Daily Globe story headlined "MN 60 back on the drawing board." For all the positive developments announced during Monday's Southwest Minnesota Highway 60 Corp. meeting -- funding for the Minnesota 60 four-lane expansion project is expected to be available as soon as the 2010 road construction season -- there's still a fairly big "if" lurking in the shadows.
"One of the concerns (MnDOT's Peter) Harff has regarding the project's announcement is finding money for the needed rights-of-way," Tuesday's story read.
It continued: "All money for rights-of-way comes from the district budget," he said. "We've got our budgets done to 2011, and we didn't outline any rights-of-way money for Highway 60 because we didn't know when we would be able to fund (the project)."
Will this budgetary wrinkle be enough to stall a project that -- as one person commented on our Web site Tuesday -- "was started in about 1959, the year I graduated from Worthington High School"? We certainly hope not. We've stood on the sidelines behind many other road and transportation projects long enough.
Our legislators worked diligently to make sure Minnesota 60 language was included in this year's transportation bill. MnDOT should recognize that, and in turn do what's needed to free up whatever monies are necessary for right-of-way purchases.
