At its last meeting February 28, 2006, the Coalition moved to request $1 million in Federal funding for a full corridor study. Additionally, the Coalition is in the process of becoming a certified 501 (c) (6) organization.

The Highway 15 Coalition Action Plan provides information on the vision of the Coalition and the direction it plans to take in the future.

About Highway 15
Minnesota Trunk Highway 15 is the major north-south corridor serving south central Minnesota. Classified as a primary arterial, it serves the cities of Fairmont, New Ulm, Hutchinson and St. Cloud while being the closest direct route between Interstate 94 and Interstate 90 west of Interstate 35. The highway runs from the Iowa border to Highway 10, just north of St. Cloud, where state Highway 371 takes traffic from Highway 15 north to the Brainard Lakes area.

The highway has daily traffic counts as high as 24,500 in the St. Cloud metro area, 18,000 in Hutchinson, and 13,500 in Fairmont. Traffic in rural stretches between cities where the highway has an alignment of two-lanes, traffic counts can be well in excess of 8,000 vehicles per day. The section of highway with the lowest daily traffic is south of Fairmont, but still has traffic counts over 2,000.

Between 1990 and 2004, there were over 6,100 crashes on the corridor. Sadly, those crashes resulted in over 50 fatalities.
As the cities along the corridor continue to grow and citizens make longer commutes along the corridor, more and more demands are being placed on the highway. The highway will not be able to effectively meet the demands of this increased growth unless action is taken to improve the highway.

The Highway 15 Coalition was formed to raise “awareness of the access, safety, and capacity challenges facing the TH 15 Corridor, and to lobby state regional and federal officials to take action to protect and improve the corridor for the benefit of its residents, businesses, and other users.