Traffic notes: highway construction projects wrapping up for winter
I. Crossing the Mississippi
The Interstate 90 Dresbach Bridge will return to two lanes in each direction for the winter season by Saturday. Crews had been working on a $187.5 million project that includes construction of a new I-90 crossing over the Mississippi River.
Steel workers build piers on new #Dresbachbridge near La Crosse, Wis. on I-90 #MnDOT @WisconsinDOT pic.twitter.com/NZIRvK6KEb
— MnDOT District 6 (@mndotsoutheast) November 19, 2014“The winter wrap-up marks the halfway point of the Dresbach Bridge project,” said Mark Anderson, MnDOT project engineer. “Moving traffic back to regular flow during the winter will help with snowplowing and maintenance to ensure an efficient and effective transportation system.”
The project is a joint effort between the Minnesota and Wisconsin departments of transportation. Construction will continue through 2016.
II. Heading west on Highway 14
Unseasonably cold weather has suspended work on the Highway 14 expansion project for the year east of Owatonna and work will resume in the spring.
Traffic will remain single lane in each direction in the construction zone. The westbound off-ramp to Highway 218 and Steele County Road 48 will remain closed during the winter months.
The $12 million project will expand the highway from two lanes to four lanes. MnDOT expects the project to be done by September 2015.
III. Safer travels on Highway 52
Video: news report from 2011
The completion of the new Highway 52/Goodhue County Road 9 interchange seven miles south of Cannon Falls will be marked with a celebration Friday afternoon.
The new $6.72 million quadrant interchange is one of several projects completed over the past several years designed to make Highway 52 safer.
Earlier this year, a new $14.3 million interchange project was completed in Cannon Falls. That project included new access roads to the nearby businesses and the removal of the two remaining stop lights between Rochester and St. Paul on Highway 52.
The Highway 52 corridor between Cannon Falls and Rochester has seen an overall decline of 200 crashes when comparing the past five years with the previous five years, according to MnDOT.
(Cover photo: Shelley Bernstein / Creative Commons)
