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A new Grand Cities bridge has been a civic bugaboo for years – some Grand Forks politicians and residents have strongly opposed a bridge at 32nd. They’ve pushed for one at 47th instead, but East Grand Forks leaders are generally uninterested in a bridge there or anywhere south of 32nd because their city has not meaningfully expanded that far south yet, and because it would sit beyond the city’s levee systems.
The next step, at least administratively, is studying how traffic patterns in 2030, 2045 and the present day would be affected by a bridge at Elks or 32nd, as well as what those patterns might look like if no new bridge is built. The traffic effects of potential bridges at 17th, which was also not included in the hydraulics study, and 47th are not set to be studied.