Highway 14 work planned for next year

May interfere with

Heritagefest, New Ulm

anniversary

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--The good news is that Minnesota Department of Transportation will begin work on the reconstruction of U.S. Highway 14 at the north end of Broadway next year.

The bad news is that resulting detours planned by MnDOT may plague both Heritagefest and the city's 150th anniversary celebration.

MnDOT District 7 Traffic Engineer Marcus Flygare told a Chamber of Commerce Hot Topics breakfast audience Friday the $6.6 million construction will cause traffic disruption during the next two construction seasons at the north end of town.

"For those of you who drive by habit, it will be a challenge," Flygare said. "For those businesses that will be impacted by the project, you'll have to inform your customers as best you can on how to get out to you."

The reconstruction will begin at the 7th North intersection on Broadway and continue on past Airport Road. The 10 blocks of Broadway between 7th North and 17th North will see no widening in the roadway, Flygare said.

The segment from 17th North on past the Garden Street intersection will be widened to accept four lanes.

"City officials have suggested a pedestrian underpass approximately 800-1,000 feet west of the Garden Street intersection," Flygare said. That would be added to the project if the project is approved by the New Ulm City Council.

However, Flygare warned city officials that MnDOT is not going to be in a dickering mood about changes this late in the design process.

"We need municipal consent to proceed with the project. If we don't agree, then the project will either die or be pushed way back. We're not open to much change on this project."

While the project will result in inconvenience to the community, Flygare said the project which he estimates would have about a 30-year lifetime "sets your community up for the next generation."

As a prelude to the reconstruction, Flygare said, MnDOT will be placing a recycled bituminous overlay on 20th North street this summer so it can be used as a detour for the Highway 14 reconstruction.

Also planned for this summer is a major overhaul of the Highway 14/15 intersection on the other side of the Minnesota River.

"The worst thing you can do is build an intersection at the base of a hill in the flood plain," Flygare said.

MnDOT's research indicates that vehicles on Highway 14 waiting at the stop sign to turn onto Highway 15 are "screened" by vehicles in the right-turn lane entering Highway 14.

"There have been several bad accidents at that intersection, and the only explanation appears to be that the driver's view was blocked by vehicles using the right-turn lane."

MnDOT plans to move the lane over slightly while creating a depression to try to prevent that kind of screening, Flygare said. The project will take about two months to complete, and Highway 14 traffic will be detoured onto 20th South Street and Broadway during the construction.

MnDOT also plans to overlay 14 miles of U.S. Highway 14 from Highway 15 to Nicollet with bituminous at a cost of $4.2 million next summer. In preparation, MnDOT will be repairing the joints in the pavement this summer.

Flygare said New Ulm residents can get the latest updates on the U.S. Highway 14 reconstruction project by going to MnDOT's website, www.dot.state.mn.us/d7/projects/newulm14.