Brookings to Get New South Exit, Thanks to Big Government!

Here’s another great project South Dakota couldn’t do without the assistance of big government: Brookings is getting a third on-ramp to I-29!

U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) and U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) today applauded the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) decision to award the City of Brookings $18.7 million in critical infrastructure funding under the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program. Today’s announcement follows requests from the delegation to DOT Secretary Elaine Chao for the project’s funding.

…The City of Brookings plans to use the BUILD funding to construct an interchange at the intersection of Interstate 29 and 20th Street. This project would allow for an additional arterial road to provide proper traffic flow between the residential and commercial sectors of the city, taking pressure off of the 6th Street interchange, which has become increasingly congested. It will also provide more convenient access to I-29 for southern Brookings as the area continues to grow [Office of Senator Mike Rounds, press release, 2019.11.06].

BUILD is the same program that Senator Rounds cheered last year for sending money to Tea and White River to improve our roads. It’s the infrastructure investment program that President Barack Obama and the Democrats enacted in 2009 (TIGER, it was called then) to pull us out of the recession. It’s one of the good public programs that Donald Trump tried to kill, but didn’t, because Donald Trump can’t do anything right.

I wholeheartedly endorse this third exit for Brookings. The main drag, 6th Street, is a zoo. The north exit to the US 14 bypass is a nice release valve for campus traffic and events at the Swiftel Center, but the burgeoning south side needs more direct Interstate access. As an SDSU alumnus who lived in Brookings from 1990 to 1994, I am stunned to see the growth of housing and recreation toward 20th Street and on south. I stayed with a friend in Brookings a couple years ago and went for a Sunday morning run in that direction and was stunned to find I didn’t run out of Brookings. It felt like a whole nother town, especially when I could run to the lovely Dakota Nature Park, a jewel which I hope the new exit will invite more people to discover.

Yay, federal government! Yay, socialism! Yay, Republican delegation for putting aside ideological hogwash to support redistribution of wealth to make it possible for us impoverished South Dakotans to build a better freeway!