MnDOT Cameras Go Black In Gov’t Shutdown

July 1, 2011 8:37 AM

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The government shutdown in Minnesota means non-essential state workers are laid off until a new budget is in place. The Minnesota Department of Transportation and about 65 of its employees fall into that category.
“We’re not going to be providing the normal travel information because we won’t have staff here to make sure that the proper information gets up and then is taken down in a timely fashion,” said metro RTMC engineer Jim Kranig.
That means no 511 travel information, no MnDOT twitter feed to follow and, most importantly, no freeway cameras. So, MnDOT will be turning to you, to help keep track of incidents like crashes and stalls.
“It will have to be from observations, maybe people calling in. Because the video will not be going out to the normal public distribution,” said Kranig.
And that’s not all. If you pay to use MnPass lanes on your commute, you can’t during the shutdown.
“The MnPass lanes will be restricted to just carpools and transit only. Basically operating like they did prior to MnPass,” said freeway operations engineer Brian Kary.
There will still be a small amount of MnDOT employees available for emergency road repairs
“It might take a little longer to respond because of the limited staff but they will be responded to,” said Kary.
For MnDOT employees, this is more than not being able to provide drivers with information and being able to improve Minnesota roads.
“This will affect a lot of the employees of MnDOT. It’s essentially leave without pay for folks,” said Kary.
Fortunately, MnDOT staffers do not believe that these temporary changes will be dangerous. Inconvenient yes, but not dangerous.