jackson county impact report of vacating county road 61 at highway 60

7/31/2019 Jackson County Impact Report of Vacating County Road 61 at Highway 60

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Memo

vpb v:\1938\active\193802231\reports\technicalreports\final report\jackson county revised 042412.docx

To: Tim Stahl From: Dale Grove, PE

Jackson County Stantec

File: 193802231 Date: 20 April 2012

Reference: County Road 61 Vacate at TH 60 Impact Memo

Introduction

Vacating County Roads

Rural areas are experiencing increased consolidation of farm lands and thedevelopment of agriculture-based industry. Changes in traffic patterns andredundancies of rural roads related to these changes provide opportunities to eliminateroad segments that no longer serve a practical purpose. Generally township and countyroads, roadway elimination/vacation can save maintenance costs and eliminate barriersto assembled properties and enhance the efficiency of agricultural practices.

This analysis offers alternative options and uses for existing road rights of way to thebenefit of the community and the taxpayer. Recommendations are based on measuredtraffic and land use criteria, balanced with agency guidance on the appropriate levels ofpublic road access and support of the traditional farm to market road systems.

Road Vacation Request

Minnesota Soybean Processors (MnSP) is investigating the alternatives for addingadditional rail access so that they may ship via unit trains. These unit trains wouldconsist of approximately 110 railcars and ship about once per month for 10 months ofthe year. MnSPs projections indicate that they may have the potential to increase thisproduction to up to 20 unit trains in the future. MnSP believes that the addition of thisunit train shipping capability will expand its revenues and income significantly providingeconomic development to the Jackson and Nobles County area.

MnSPs facility is located on the far eastern edge of Nobles County at the SW corner of

the intersection of TH 60 and Zeh Avenue. Rail service is located north of the facilitybetween the plant and TH 60 and is a Union Pacific (UP) mainline. Surrounding landuses are agricultural in nature.

In order to accommodate unit trains, additional track is required for storage of railcars.MnSP and UP are currently analyzing two design alternatives for the additional track asfollows:


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A single track parallel to the UP mainline. This track could be constructed

completely on existing UP right of way.

Two tracks parallel to the UP mainline. This option would require the purchaseof approximately 50 of adjacent property to accommodate the second track.Approximately 9,000 linear feet would need to be acquired or approximately 11acres.

The construction of either of these alternatives will necessitate the closing of CR 61.CR 61 is an existing County Road east of the MnSP running north and south andparallel to the County line (see road jurisdiction map on following page). Currently,320th crosses TH 60 and the UP mainline just north of 850th Street. 850th Street doesnot intersect with TH 60 or the UP mainline.

Vacating or Revoking County Highways

Minnesota Statutes 163.11 provides the regulatory framework for counties in theelimination of roadway segments. There are two primary methods for removing acounty highway from the system vacation and revocation.

Vacation is the process where a county highway is eliminated from the public roadwaysystem. Following vacation, the roadway generally becomes a private access drive, acartway or may be eliminated completely. Prior to vacation, easements are generallyreserved for any public and private utilities that are currently utilizing the public right ofway so that they may continue to remain in place.

Revocation and reversion is the process where a county highway is transferred to theroad system of a township or city and therefore remains in public use. This process isgenerally used when the roadway is still needed by the public but for some reason itappears to be more appropriate for a different level of government to control theroadway. When a county revokes a roadway, the statutes provide various protectionsfor the entity receiving the roadway such as ensuring that adequate repairs orimprovements have been made to the roadway and the county is required to maintainthe roadway for two years following the date of revocation.

One further protection for the receiving entity (city or township) is that if there is nolonger any use for a revoked county highway, the township or city can choose toeliminate the road from their system through a vacation process. If they choose to do

this within one year of the countys revocation, any damages from the vacation shall bepaid by the county out of its road and bridge fund. The county board does have to beinvolved and consent to any settlement of damages.

Vacation is the preferred method for elimination of county highway sections that are nolonger necessary both because it does not require the township to be burdened with aroadway that has lost its purpose but also because it saves the county the trouble andexpense of improving or maintaining a roadway that it views to have lost its use.


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The


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The statutes provide that vacation can occur when a new, relocated or altered county

highway is opened that takes the place and serves the same purpose as the portion ofthe county highway to be vacated. The current request appears to fall into thissituation. It would appear that Zeh Avenue may be a candidate for meeting the criteriafor a new or altered county highway because it has been significantly upgraded inrecent years in response to the establishment of the MnSP facility and now serves anidentical purpose as CR 61. Zeh Avenue is not currently a designated Jackson Countyhighway, but has taken on many of the characteristics of one with the roadwayupgrades and rail crossing. Designation of Zeh Avenue as a county highway andvacation of a portion of 320th Avenue therefore could potentially fall under this statutesregulatory framework for vacation.

CR 61 South of 850th Street

If CR 61 is vacated between the railroad tracks and 850th Street, it will leave anorphaned segment of CR 61 directly south of the vacated segment that no longerconnects to the rest of CR 61. Leaving this segment designated as a county road couldcreate confusion in the community since it does not serve the typical purpose ofconnecting local roads to other county roads or regional highways. In addition, since itwould no longer be attached to the rest of the county road system, regularmaintenance, such as snow removal or surface grading would become more complex.This segment therefore seems to be a good candidate for revocation and reversion tothe township roadway system. The township would likely be in a better position tomaintain it and it would minimize confusion in the public that would expect the segmentto connect to the rest of CR 61.

As mentioned previously, revocation of this segment would still create some short termobligations for Jackson County regarding the condition of the roadway and maintenancefor two years.

Existing Conditions

TH 60 is a four-lane divided rural highway. CR 61 (also known as 320th Avenue) is atwo-lane undivided rural road. TH 60 is a principal arterial between Worthington to thesouthwest, and Windom to the northeast.

The CR 61 intersection with TH 60 is an access point for parcels east of the soybeanprocessing plant for destinations southwest and northeast. Removing this access willrequire those motorists to travel an additional distance to reach their destination, whichis also known as circuitry of travel.

The following two maps show the TH 60 & CR 61 intersection and the parcels that willhave drive distances extended if the road segment is eliminated. The first graphicillustrates those parcels that will have longer drives to reach destinations to the north onTH 60 and the second graphic illustrates those parcels that will have longer drives to


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reach destinations south on TH 60. Parcels to the north of TH 60 will still be connected

and therefore are not impacted significantly.


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Affected Roadways

To understand the magnitude of the vehicular impacts, Jackson County laid pneumaticcounting tubes at four locations:

CR 61 north of TH 60 CR 61 south of TH 60 CR 61 south of 850th Street 850th Street east of CR 61

The table below summarizes the daily averages for the four collection points, and also

shows the passenger vehicles, and commercial vehicle daily averages.

Table 1 - Daily Traffic by Type

LocationTotal Daily

TrafficPassengerVehicles

CommercialVehicles

CR 61 north of TH 60 30 28 2

CR 61 south of TH 60 27 26 1

CR 61 south of 820th Street 14 13 1

820th Street east of CR 61 19 18 1

Daily traffic volumes are very light and almost entirely passenger vehicles.

Since this is an agricultural area, traffic volume is expected to change significantly atharvest time. This impact is examined more closely later in this document.

Property Access

There are two properties with access on CR 61 in the areas proposed for elimination--one owned by Rose Marie Otterson and another owned by John Schwartz (see map onfollowing page). Both properties have alternate access potential to 850th Street.

There is an existing service drive constructed on the Otterson parcel which serves awind turbine and would need to be relocated if access were fully removed from thecurrent CR 61 (if the road surface were eliminated rather than turned into a privatedrive). However, if the road surface remained as a private drive, there would be noneed to relocate the wind turbine access.


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In addition, neither Otterson nor Schwartz have adjacent farms on the north side of TH

60 that would imply a heavy reliance on the CR 61/TH60 intersection. Property accesstherefore, does not seem to be an insurmountable barrier to the vacation.

The segment south of 850th Street that is recommended for revocation should notimpact any properties since all that would change is the governmental agency that ownsand maintains the road.


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Cost/Benefit Analysis

One-Time Costs

Land Value

The Jackson County Assessors Office assesses agricultural land in this area atapproximately $5,000 per acre. Both of the parcels adjacent to CR 61 are assessed inthe range of approximately $4,700 - $5,100 per acre.

The CR 61 right of way proposed for vacation is approximately 2.4 acres in size. Titleexamination is beyond the scope of this study, but typically, when a road is vacated, theadjacent property owners benefit through the receipt of the unencumbered property

(except easements reserved for utilities) to the former centerline of the roadway.

Gopher State One Call was contacted to locate any utilities that might be utilizing theCR 61 right of way.

The following utilities were identified by Gopher State One Call as having service areasthat included the subject property and most, but not all, provided detail on utilitylocations (see graphic on following page). Several follow up calls were made to theutilities that did not respond:

CenturyTel (did not respond)

HickoryTech (response received)

Federated Rural Electric (response received)

Nobles COOP Electric (response received)

Qwest (response received)

South Dakota Network LLC (did not respond)

Sprint/Long Distance (response received)

It appears that the only identified utilities in the CR 61 area serve the adjacent parcels.

If this segment of roadway is vacated, there are two primary alternatives for thedisposition of the roadway. Alternative 1 would be to vacate the roadway and leave it inplace where it could serve as a private roadway for the adjacent parcels. Alternative 2would remove the existing roadway and return the land to the adjacent parcels so that itmay be cultivated.


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Alternative 1

In Alternative 1, the roadway is left in place for use as a private drive; therefore theprimary one time cost will be approximately $5,000 to remove the railroad crossing.

Alternative 2

Since access to the adjacent parcels could be provided from the south, it should bepossible to remove the existing roadway, in effect, expanding the size of the adjacentagricultural properties. This provides a land value benefit of approximately $12,000 tothese adjacent properties but will generate additional one time costs as follows:

Relocation of Wind Turbine Access Drive

A wind turbine is located approximately 600 feet northwest of the CR 61/850th Streetintersection. Accessing CR 61, the driveway is roughly 20 feet wide, 410 feet long, andis located about 440 feet north of the intersection. This access drive must be relocatedto 850th Street to facilitate the vacation of CR 61.

In developing unit costs for the removal of the existing and installation of a newdriveway, conversations with construction-related contacts familiar with local conditionsand bid prices were completed. After considering the potential salvage value andusability of the materials in the current driveway, costs of $10/foot for access removaland $22/foot for new drive construction were developed.

Land costs for the relocation of the drive were assumed to be approximately equivalent

in nature to the benefit received by the removal of the E-W access driveway. Therelocated drive will be approximately 30 feet longer, so some minor additional landcosts are to be expected for the increased length. However, this minor additional costis greatly outweighed by the additional land area that will be available to this parcel fromthe vacation of CR 61.

Costs to Obliterate County Road 61

In developing the costs associated with the obliteration and vacation of CR 61 between850th Street and TH 60, no value was assigned to any salvaged materials. An averagecross-sectional area was developed and costs were assigned using assumed averagedimensions and costs shown below.

Roadway surface = 24 feet

In-Slopes = 3:1

Roadway elevation over adjacent property = 3 feet

Roadway length = 1,570 feet

Common Excavation = $8 per cubic yard

Additional Costs = $6,910 (15% contingency) + $5,000 (railroad crossing)


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Summary of One Time Costs/Benefits (Alternative 2)

Land Benefit to Adjacent Properties $12,000

One Time Costs

Cost of Access Drive Removal ($10/foot x 410 feet) $4,100

Cost of Access Drive Construction ($22/foot x 440 feet) $9,680

Cost of CR 61 Removal (5,760 cubic yards x $8/cy) $46,080

Additional Costs $11,910

TOTAL ONE-TIME COSTS $71,770

Private Drive Maintenance Costs

Alternative 1

If the roadway is left in place and utilized as a private drive, the adjacent parcels willincur additional costs for maintenance of the new private drive. The approximateannual cost of maintaining this roadway is estimated to be approximately $800 for eachof the two adjacent parcels that will take over the private drive.

Alternative 2

Since Alternative 2 removes the roadway, there would be no private drive maintenancecosts.

Vehicle Operating Costs

The elimination of a roadway segment can create situations where vehicles must makelonger trips to their destination than when the roadway was in use. As mentionedearlier, this is referred to as circuitry of travel. Right of way (ROW) staff from theMinnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) were contacted to determine how

and when circuitry of travel damages are utilized in damage calculations. MnDOTfrequently has to remove access to the trunk highway system in order to maintain safeoperating conditions. For instance, in the study area, 850th Street was vacated in thearea of TH 60.

MnDOT ROW staff confirmed that the courts have ruled that circuitry of travel is not adamage that is typically able to be claimed unless the damage was extreme. Even inthat instance, it is compensated in some way other than circuitry of travel, which isprimarily through the severance process.


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The vehicle operating impacts resulting from a road closure were determined by the

number of impacted vehicles and the additional distance that they must travel due toroadway closure. This analysis was completed to determine the severity of any circuitryof travel impacts.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) summarized an economic analysis of abridge project in Virginia occurring in 2009. Within the analysis, FHWA presentedaverage vehicular operating costs (VOC) of $0.23 per mile for passenger cars, and$0.62 for commercial vehicles for the variable operating costs (including costs for fuel,maintenance, etc.). To account for the increase in fuel costs between 2009 and today,we will use a VOC of $0.46 per mile for passenger cars, and $1.24 for commercialvehicles.

The impact of this road closure can be measured by the number of passenger vehiclesand commercial vehicles that must reroute. The count at CR 61 south of TH 60 shows26 passenger cars, and 1 truck per day that must travel approximately 2 extra miles toreach TH 60.

Using the costs from FHWA, the additional operating cost of this roadway closure wouldbe

VOC = [(26 passenger cars)*($0.46) + (1 commercial vehicle)*($1.24)] * 2 miles

= $26.40 per day or = $9,636.00 per year

These impacts are the cost of background traffic and therefore are not attributed to anyparticular parcels.


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Harvest Impacts

As mentioned previously, certain parcels will be impacted at harvest time. To determinethis impact, we examined the acreage of the affected parcels, the number of loadsrequired (to determine the number of loads, we projected 16 loads of corn per 80 acres,two trips each), and then multiplied by the commercial vehicle operating costs and theadditional distance required to access TH 60. Table 2 summarizes harvest impacts tothose parcels.

Table 2 - Additional Harvest Costs

Parcel Owner acreage

yearly

harvest

loads

current

distance

to TH 60

proposed

distance

to TH 60

add'l

distance

add'l

annual

cost

John Schwartz/

Schwartz Farms Inc159.06 64 0.75 1.75 1.00 $ 78.89

Duane Schmitz et al 187.53 76 0.40 2.30 1.90 $ 176.73

Darol Schmitz 79.77 32 0.40 2.30 1.90 $ 75.18

Randol Schmitz et al 79.77 32 0.75 1.75 1.00 $ 39.57

Mavis Behrends 157.17 62 1.25 3.25 2.00 $ 155.91

JCW Farms 160.47 64 1.00 1.50 0.50 $ 39.80

Dorothy Graf 79.92 32 1.00 1.50 0.50 $ 19.82

This analysis shows that the number of affected vehicles is few, and the additional

distance that must be traveled is short. The additional vehicle operating cost is too lowto preclude a road closure at County Road 61 at TH 60.

Conclusion

The segment of CR 61 that is proposed to be vacated does not appear to carry enoughtraffic volume nor serve an access purpose that would preclude any consideration ofvacation. The low levels of traffic volume could be handled by parallel roadways andthe additional private vehicular costs to the general public due to the loss of thisroadway segment are low.

Based on the analysis of the two alternatives for disposition of CR 61 north of 850th

Street, the one time costs and benefits favor Alternative 1 which would leave the roadsurface in place as a private drive. The primary expense with this alternative is theadditional costs of drive maintenance which are estimated as $800 each for the RoseMarie Otterson and John Schwartz farms. The actual figures may be lower, however,since it is unlikely that they would choose to maintain the existing road surface all theway to the railroad tracks, but would instead, maintain only that roadway necessary toreach their property access.


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The analysis of harvest costs shows that there will be a modest additional cost for a

small number of farms in the immediate area of the proposed vacation. These costs donot appear to reach the level of extraordinary which would necessitate compensation.

Therefore, there does not appear to be any overwhelming technical or financialrestrictions which would prevent the vacation of the segment of CR 61 north of 850thStreet and the revocation of CR 61 south of 850th Street.

jackson county impact report of vacating county road 61 at highway 60

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