A large crowd turned out to listen to a presentation by MnDOT about the proposed Highway 61 work that will take place in 2019-2020. The civil engineer making the presentation for MnDOT broke the project down step by step, and he said that there would be difficult times for merchants when Highway 61 is closed for five weeks in the summer of 2020, opening on July 31st to traffic. This was new information for the large crowd who attended the meeting. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
Should the Highway 61 corridor running through Grand Marais be redesigned? Left as it is? Can it be improved, made safer, more beautiful, and if so, how?
Those questions have been asked for the last few years at public meetings and public forums, but with MnDOT poised to let bids for the estimated $10.5 million project in May 2019, they are now back on the table again and plenty of frustration showed at the MnDOT-led public meeting held Wednesday, November 7.
Some new information was provided to the citizens who attended the public meeting held at the city council chambers.
Local businessman Craig Schulte asked the MnDOT moderator Brad Scott if one lane would always remain open during the construction period in Grand Marais, and he was told no. For a five-week period in 2020 the road will be closed from Third Avenue West to Broadway to through traffic and motorists will be rerouted up Eighth Avenue to County Road 7. The road will be open by July 31st, said Scott, in time for the Fisherman’s Picnic.
“That’s not what the last engineer told me,” said Schulte.
“Well she was wrong,” said Scott. Adding later that, “There is going to be some inconvenience for people,” during the construction period.
Scott is a civil engineer who works for LHB engineering, the company hired by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to prepare the final design for the work, which Scott said was now “60 to 70 percent complete.”
Following an hour-long presentation, attendees were asked to meet one on one with any one of the 15 MnDOT officials who were on hand to answer questions about the project, its scope and schedule.
Still, some people insisted on asking questions while the public was all there, and Scott allowed several before asking folks to write their questions on a card and submit them to MnDOT or bring them back to city hall where they will be forwarded to MnDOT.
Work
The project will be let for bids in May 2019, and Scott expects the low bidder to start working sometime in July.
Work will begin at Fall Creek where the bridge will be taken out and replaced. Highway 61 will be shut down entirely during this phase that will last approximately three weeks and traffic will be rerouted up County Road 7.
Scott said the goal is to have the project reach Eighth Avenue in Grand Marais by the end of the 2019 construction season.
Plans are to change the width of the road through town from 54 to 59 feet to 44 feet wide, Scott said.
In conjunction with the road work, the city will replace sewer mains and have other underground utility work done at several junctions, beginning at Eighth Avenue West.
At Fourth Avenue East, the new Gunflint Trail entrance, a four-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide cement culvert will be constructed to replace the smaller culvert at that location.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) found some oil contaminated soils at the bottom of Second Avenue West and the soil affected will have to be removed. Scott said the contractor will have to dig 10 feet down and the area dug out will be 100 feet by 100 feet in diameter.
Planning
Construction phasing and staging is pretty standard for this project, said Scott, adding there were four partners in the project, MnDOT, the city, the contractor and the local citizens.
Planning for this upcoming 61 project began six years ago when the city initiated a process to learn about the community’s needs and interests around Highway 61.
As City Administrator Mike Roth said at last year’s open house held on November 14, “We won’t have to repair the road, and we will be able to replace very old storm sewers. This will be very beneficial to the city.”
At this point in the process, Scott said MnDOT has to secure easements, acquire land in some places and the engineers will have to work with the drawings before the project can be advertised.
As explained by Scott the project, which stretches from Fall Creek and extend almost to Highway 14, a length of 11.2 miles, will be broken into four sections.
Information will be a vital component of the job. Scott said as the work progresses MnDOT will have weekly updates on upcoming traffic re-routes, shutdowns, etc.
Questions
One member of the audience asked what the traffic count was in town during the summer. He was told the yearly average, but when a factor of 40 percent was figured in as noted by the MnDOT employee answering the question, it came to about 10,000 vehicles a day, or about eight vehicles a minute going up streets in town after the traffic has been rerouted.
Another person asked if MnDOT would reimburse the county for the damage that will occur to County Road 7 when many thousands of vehicles will be rerouted onto it each day. Scott said there was a state reimbursement program that could be tapped if damage occurred to a road known by locals to be fragile and in need of constant upkeep.
Because the city has requested that parking is allowed on the shoulder of Highway 61, which is now allowed, MnDOT will no longer clean up the snow from those areas once their plows have made a sweep through town.
That’s because the road will be narrowed and the rules about plowing have changed, said Scott. But, he added, MnDOT does have funds to help pay for the city to remove the snow from these shoulders, although he didn’t know what percentage MnDOT would pay for.
Scott reiterated the point that MnDOT would maintain traffic on Highway 61 in 2020 for as many days as it could, which led one lady to respond, “Basically the town is screwed that summer.”
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