Four Lanes for 34 Still in the Future... Way in the Future

The South Dakota Department of Transportation has posted online its Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) for 2008-2012 (Stalin used to call those Five-Year Plans). You can read through the entire plan or look at the major highway projects on the statewide map (both PDFs). The site also includes a menu that allows you to pull up all the projects for one county at a time (HTML format -- downloads more quickly!).

Of course, those of us interested in a couple more lanes to Colman are hurrying to the Lake County list... and alas! No expansion of Highway 34! Both 34 and 81 get some pavement restoration (expect traffic tie-ups in town in 2009), and Madison gets some more bike path, but it looks likes two lanes to Colman for the foreseeable future.

Come on, SDDoT, what gives? We get interim DoT secretary Darin Bergquist a nice t-shirt [more PDF!], he doesn't pull any strings for us, and Governor Rounds still appoints the guy full secretary? That's not right! Sounds like it's time for local GOP legislator and favorite of the Rounds administration Representative Russ Olson to drop by the Capitol for a little heart to heart with the boss about giving some love back to Madison.

But maybe keeping Highway 34 small and slow is for the best. After all, who wants to get caught speeding into Colman nowadays? Certainly not the Madville Times....

[Photo courtesy Madison Chamber of
Commerce Newsletter, August 2007, p. 1]