Ever since I decided that I no longer wanted to live in Eden Prairie in February 2008, my work commute has been significantly longer. Instead of leaving work at 5:00 and getting home at 5:08, I now leave work at 5:00, pick up Lauren between 5:12 and 5:22 depending on how much work she has to do, and get home around 5:53. That’s like 1.7 hours of driving each day round-trip. That shall be the case no longer!

The northbound 35W/eastbound Hwy. 62 interchange portion of this multi-year major road construction project has been completed, and it is glorious. We can now take Hwy. 62 to 35W and cruise home in 25 minutes, major traffic catastrophe pending.

Prior to this, I had taken dozens of different routes over the last couple years, trying to find the speediest way home. There simply wasn’t a great route, but I had devised a route comprised mainly of back roads that worked better than any other.

As you can see on the map below, the blue line is the route that is inevitable—it is essentially the only way to get to Lauren’s office to pick her up from work. The magenta line indicates our usual route the past 2+ years—Shady Oak to 7 and then taking the scenic route around the Lake of the Isles to avoid the clusterf&$k of traffic where 7 and Excelsior merge at Lake Street. The green route indicates our new smooth-sailing route. Even though it does get a little condensed here and there, I am still able to drive over the speed limit most of the way!

chanhassen to eden prairie to minneapolis highway route

Unfortunately, this 35W/62 route does not work so well going the opposite way, so we are stuck taking a variety of routes to work in the morning, none of which are terrible, but none are surefire ways to get to work quickly.