Highway 5 is the primary east-west route that connects Chanhassen, Victoria, Waconia and Norwood Young America to the metropolitan area.
Highway 5 provides access to important destinations including the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Ridgeview Medical Center. The Medical Center serves as the primary care facility for residents in the surrounding area-an area that is over 700 square miles.
The crash rate on Highway 5 is over 20 percentage points higher than the statewide average, while the fatality rate for crashes on Highway 5 is over 70 percentage points higher than the statewide average.
With the population of the Twin Cities metropolitan area projected to grow by 1 million more residents over the next 20 years, we need to plan now to ensure a safe, east-west connection.
With no major capacity or safety improvements planned, traffic jams will grow, with over 50 percent of the Highway 5 corridor congested by 2030.
The Hwy 5 Corridor Study was done by Carver County and the cities of Victoria and Waconia, in collaboration with MnDOT and the communities along the corridor, in order to guide future planning and improvements along Hwy 5 from Hwy 41 in Chanhassen to Hwy 212 in Norwood Young America. The study:
- Proposed and analyzed corridor concept alternatives
- Conducted initial environmental screening to identify fatal flaws
- Selected a corridor footprint that can be carried into a future environmental study