St. Croix River Crossing Coalition: Statement on proposed legislation

The House Committee on Natural Resources today held a hearing to review and amend the legislation which would allow the St. Croix River Crossing to move forward. The U.S. House and Senate now have the same language in their bills for exempting the St. Croix River Crossing from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

We are very pleased with the results of today’s committee action, and we thank Congresswoman Bachmann and Congressmen Kind, Cravaak and Duffy for their support and leadership.

This is another important step forward for our region. The St. Croix River Crossing has strong and unified support from both Minnesota and Wisconsin federal lawmakers, as well as support from other members of Congress who are taking our region’s request for a new bridge seriously.

We have known for years that the St. Croix River Crossing is the best solution to solve our region’s unique environmental, traffic safety, and historic preservation goals. We are hopeful that Congress will agree and let this project finally move forward.

Recent developments with the StillwaterLiftBridge show that we need to work quickly to secure approval for the project. New weight restrictions were placed on the bridge, and the traffic gridlock is only getting worse.

We need to work even harder now to make sure we don’t lose this opportunity to make the new bridge a reality. The coalition will be working closely with our Congressional supporters to ensure that this legislation gets passed.

The best thing that citizens can do to help ensure that the new bridge is built is to join the coalition of thousands of people who want a new bridge. Join the coalition at www.stcroixcrossing.org.