Thoughts on Lower Ten Mile Lake Road

by Tom Cox

FROM SOME PERSPECTIVES, with huge machines brushing out the ditches and cutting down trees along its right-of-way, Lower Ten Mile Lake Road in June had the appearance of an ugly gash through the forest. It was reassuring to know that the "time of tearing down" would give way to a "time of building," and that the ultimate promise of this temporary insult to the environment will be an attractive, stronger, safer highway, with clearly demarcated hiking/biking lanes on each side. Still, it has been hard to watch the "Hydro-Ax" and other seeming-monstrous equipment despoil the roadside trees and shrubbery that have taken generations to develop and mature.

I REMEMBER MY OWN mixed feelings when, some forty-plus years ago, Cass County 6 was first leveled and paved, after having served for generations as a gravel road that was almost as much a roller coaster as it was a highway. As children riding in the back seat of our family Chevrolet, my sister and I eagerly anticipated those last four miles of the trip to the lake each summer, when our Dad would accelerate up the rises, and then, just as we crested a hill, take his foot off the pedal. Our upward momentum lifted us right off the seat of the car, our stomachs would do a flip, our heads might actually touch the ceiling, we would exclaim with delight and then holler, "do it again, Dad, do it again!" That roller coaster ride was only the first of the many thrills of arriving on the south shore of the lake in the '40s and '50s.

But as a youngster, little did I appreciate that dusty, washboard road's wear and tear on our car. Nor, in those pre-seat belt days, did I understand the risks to life and limb of driving at speed on a narrow, hilly, gravel road, where the visibility was minimum, shoulders soft and carelessness could easily result in catastrophe, as it did one day when before our very eyes a car came speeding over a rise and smashed into the car of our neighbor, who had only just stopped to pick up her mail from her roadside mailbox.

ITS DANGERS NOTWITHSTANDING, in the early sixties we and our neighbors mourned the loss of the "roller coaster" that was County 6, and gradually came to appreciate and enjoy its newly leveled and blacktopped upgrade. Its new name, Lower Ten Mile Lake Road, seemed like an upgrade, too. It was remarkable to have such an amenity in such a remote and, 'till then, still fairly rustic part of the world.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE CURRENT WORK on CSAH (County State Aid Highway) 6, I recently called the County Engineer, David Enblom, for an update. Some of what he told me I already knew, but good deal of his information was new, at least to me. I learned, for example, that CSAH 6 in its current state is a little over 40 years old. Since it was upgraded to its present state in about 1960, the population around the lake and in north central Minnesota has grown significantly, and with it, of course, the traffic. More and more Ten Milers are using the road, and more each year are finding it a pleasurable road to walk and bike. More than that, the road has become a thoroughfare for heavier traffic; witness the freight and other commercial vehicles that ply the road from dawn to dusk most weekdays.

MR. ENBLOM TOLD ME THAT Minnesota considers CSAH 6 a "major collector," providing access between two "trunk highways," MN 371 and MN 64. Having become a major east-west connector through the County, the road is called upon to bear heavier vehicles, and is thus in need of greater strength. Serving wider as well as local interests, it also needs to be made safer. Almost everyone who walks or bikes on the road has shuddered whenever one of those huge gravel trucks, a semi or even a pickup pulling a boat trailer goes whizzing by, seemingly within inches of the white sideline. Someone may suggest that the County limit such traffic on the road. But because it is a State aid highway, a public road and a "major collector," it must serve the wider public as well as Ten Milers. State law does not allow more limits than are now in place.

WHEN THE ROAD WAS UPGRADED to its present state over forty years ago, the County acquired a right-of-way according to State standards. In rural areas, through which most of the highway runs, the standard is 50 feet from the center line on each side of the highway. One thing I didn't know was that the State classifies the area along the southeast side of the lake - the familiar "30-mile-an-hour zone" - "suburban," as opposed to "rural". The right-of-way standard in this area is 33 feet from the center line. Within the right of way, whether rural or suburban, there must also be a perfectly clear (i.e., no trees, shrubbery, signs, power poles, telephone pedestals) "recovery zone," which in the rural area is 37 feet, and in the suburban area 22 feet from the center line.

SOMETHING ELSE I DIDN'T KNOW: In some places the power poles and lines were within the 37 Ft. recovery area, and in some places the telephone lines were right beneath the shoulder, and would have been buried beneath the pavement once the hiking/biking lanes were added. In these instances the power poles and lines, and the phone lines are being moved. In general, they are being placed within the outside five feet of the right-of-way, i.e., outside the recovery area, but still within the cleared right-of-way so that the utility companies can readily maintain them.

ADDING THE HIKING/BIKING LANES along the shoulders requires recontouring the drainage ditches and replacing of all of the culverts (some of which had collapsed or become plugged), which reestablishes drainage patterns in order to maintain the integrity of the road.

I MENTIONED TO MR. ENBLOM that in the cases of Highway 71 and Highway 50, the County had consulted with the local community at length about proposed roadway changes and potential environmental damage. I asked why this procedure had not been followed in the case of CSAH 6. Mr. Enblom said that in both of the other cases, improvements required some roadway realignments, and thus the acquisition of new rights-of-way, which involved, of course, the County's purchase from or swaps of land with local property owners. Some of the realignments would also require wetland filling and restoration. Thus, in those cases, the County established citizens' advisory groups to ensure sensitivity and accommodation, insofar as possible, to the preferences of property owners and the local community as well as to safety and environmental requirements. In contrast, for the CSAH 6 project the County already owned the right-of-way, and with one small exception, where a property owner was amenable to selling the County 17 feet of land to enable widening of the right-of-way, did not need to realign the road or to acquire new land. Hence there were no major environmental or property taking issues requiring an advisory group.

Mr. Enblom said that some property owners, soon after they saw the surveyors' stakes marking the right-of-way, called or came to him with their concerns about the potential loss of desirable trees and other landscaping. In most cases, the county was able to accommodate property owners' concerns. Some local residents took a different approach. Enlisting the support of County Commissioner Rusty Lilyquist, on the morning of Tuesday, June 29, Molly Bliska and Nina Burke spearheaded a demonstration to protest the removal of five sentinel pine trees currently standing in the right-of-way across the road from Molly's house in the suburban zone. Nina and Arlen Damlo were deeply disappointed that they did not receive more support from the TMLA in this effort. But with determination, the small group that demonstrated that morning won dispensation from the County, which has agreed to preserve the trees and to reconfigure the recovery area and drainage ditch around and behind the trees [two of the five sentinel pines are shown in the photo at left].

Incidentally, for those who have lost their mailbox posts due to construction, the County will provide and install, at its expense, new "swing-away" mailbox supports.

Finally, the project's total contract cost is $1,060,000, plus about $200,000 in design and inspection fees. Minnesota's State Highway User Fund, which comes from gas taxes and license plate fees, will cover the entire cost.

I HAD MIXED FEELINGS when gravel County 6 became a blacktopped highway in 1960. (No doubt there were those before who had mixed feelings when, sometime in the twenties, the road changed from being not much more than a rutted trail to being a gravel thoroughfare. That would have been a generation or two before my time.) I have mixed feelings now as I watch the Ten Mile area become more densely populated and highly developed. Current Lower Ten Mile Lake Road improvements are a sign of the larger changes taking place all around us. But I must confess, I contribute to those changes, both in population and development. From a family of five in 1950, we've doubled to a family of ten in 2004, still using the same property, and driving the same number of roads. And I do take pleasure in the company of my sons, their wives and my grandchildren at the lake, and in the cabin that we enlarged in 1998 to accommodate us in our retirement.

THE SHOCK OF CHANGE NOTWITHSTANDING, I don't doubt that I'll soon enjoy driving and biking on a newly paved, strengthened and safer Lower Ten Mile Lake Road. Now, having given it some thought, I find I appreciate being a property owner in a State and County that had the wisdom a half a century ago and more to acquire the right of way that now allows for a road which, while it inevitably represents a change to the environment, still respects it, and furnishes me, so many Ten Milers and the general public safe, convenient and still attractive travel by foot, bike, car, motorcycle, pickup, SUV, ambulance, fire truck and, yes, even eighteen wheeler, to and from all the many places we want and need to go.