Car crashes abound at this Rosemount intersection. What could make it safer?

The boom of yet another car crash was as jarring as it was familiar, reverberating in Albert Padilla’s townhouse one afternoon this year as he watched TV.

“Instantly,” he recalled, “I knew something had happened.”

He rushed outside, running without shoes toward the heavily trafficked intersection of Biscayne Avenue and County Road 42 in southwestern Rosemount, where a car appeared to have spun out, he said. Inside, a woman lay pinned between air bags and the driver-side door.

Padilla and his wife live in a townhouse development on a corner of this busy intersection. Residents and local officials agree something needs to be done to boost safety in the area. The node — not far from a gym, numerous single-family homes and a soon-to-be-constructed middle school — is a hot spot for collisions: 56 incidents have occurred since January 2019 where Biscayne Avenue crosses County Road 42, also known in that area as 150th Street W., according to Rosemount Police Department data.

That’s about 11 crashes a year over a nearly five-year span. And although none have been fatal, data shows 30% of all incidents resulted in injuries.

Padilla worries more people will get hurt if officials don’t swiftly implement solutions — especially as Rosemount’s population booms.

“As we continue to grow, it’s going to get more and more busy,” said Padilla, who works in Shakopee and navigates the corner on his morning and evening commutes. “More and more accidents are going to happen.”

A traffic light is slated for the area in coordination with a new middle school coming to the southeastern corner of the intersection. Officials will also realign part of Biscayne Avenue to reduce its skewed orientation, which impedes visibility. But that light installation and realignment won’t be complete until 2027, frustrating residents who say the node needs a makeover — now.

Rosemount and Dakota County officials are sympathetic to these concerns as they sort out the challenges where the city street meets the county road. Jake Chapek, an assistant county engineer, said officials are working with the city and collecting data about the area to determine short-term solutions to reduce hazards, though there’s no timeline for those immediate fixes.

Mayor Jeff Weisensel said this intersection has been on the city’s radar for a while. Staff and elected officials know an uptick in traffic, thanks in part to “explosive growth” along County Road 42, has compounded problems in some places, and improvements are in the works.

But city officials, the mayor explained, are also contending with the realities of road projects. An overhaul in one area can create unexpected issues in another, Weisensel said, underscoring the need for careful planning. And routine steps — from design to land acquisition to construction — can prolong solutions for which residents are urgently clamoring.

“This isn’t something new … or unexpected,” Weisensel said. “We are planning for these things. It’s just the process takes sometimes more [time] than what any of us like to see.”

As cities grow, traffic and collisions tend to follow. In Rosemount, a suburb of about 27,000, the population has increased by more than 50% over the last decade and will reach 42,000 people in 2030 if projections hold.

County Road 42 cuts through the booming suburb, with its new houses, sprawling distribution centers and plans for new schools and a Life Time gym. The roughly 33-mile multilane artery from Shakopee to Hastings is a mainstay for thousands of commuters in Dakota and Scott counties.

It intersects with Biscayne Avenue at a bend, reducing visibility for drivers on the city road who must cross multiple lanes and turn lanes to continue their route.

“It’s so dangerous,” Rosemount resident Felicia Burton said.

Burton was driving home in November from Minneapolis, her 9-year-old daughter buckled in the backseat, when chaos unfolded: A car sailing down County Road 42 collided with a black Jeep trying to turn onto Biscayne Avenue.

She said she swiftly pulled over and called 911, asking an operator to send an ambulance to the scene after she glanced at one driver’s injured finger.

“You could see his bone,” she said. “It was really bad.”

Shoring up safety in the area is “top of mind” for city staff, said City Council Member Paul Theisen, who mentioned several ideas for short-term fixes. Among them: installing a temporary traffic light and barricading part of the intersection so drivers trying to get from one side of Biscayne Avenue to the other must take another route — a proposal Weisensel also brought up.

Chapek, the county engineer, pointed to other possible immediate remedies: stationing a monitor showing how fast cars are traveling along County Road 42, and requesting more police officers watching speeds in the area.

None of these proposals are final, Chapek said. He added that county staff are working with Rosemount officials to ensure temporary measures don’t interfere with traffic flowing down city-maintained side streets.

The next step is for the county to procure a consultant engineering firm for the traffic light project before launching the public engagement process in the early spring of 2025 to talk about the permanent fix, he said.

Residents have their own ideas for improving the hotspot. Burton said adding a traffic light or eliminating the lanes on County Road 42 that let drivers turn onto Biscayne Avenue could reduce crashes. But she remains skeptical that infrastructure improvements would solve the bigger issue: “selfish” driving, with tailgating, speeding and texting among her top concerns.

Padilla, who figures he’s responded to nine crashes since moving into the townhouse in 2019, wants a temporary traffic light installed. He has emerged as an advocate for concerned residents, phoning the city and county for updates about short-term fixes.

“I just hope that the county can figure out something sooner than later,” he said.