ND North News

It might seem like almost every road in Minot is undergoing construction beginning around July 4.

But Traffic Engineer Stephen Joersz said it’ll only seem that way because multiple road projects will be taking place around the city at the same time.

“It might seem like there’s work going on everywhere between July 4 and the opening of the North Dakota State Fair on July 21,” Joersz said. “We won’t be working everywhere, but there will be a lot of projects going on. But it will come to a screeching halt during the Fair.”

Joersz said contracts include language that requires many projects to be completed prior to or put on hold during the Fair, which runs from July 21-29. Work on the Burdick Expressway East bridge will continue during the Fair. The bridge will be fully open to traffic during the State Fair Parade, but lane restrictions will return shortly after the conclusion of the parade.

So, where else will crews be working in the weeks before the Fair begins?

Perhaps the biggest project will take place on 4th Avenue NW. The stretch of road between Broadway and 27th Street NW will undergo a chip seal, and a lane reconfiguration will be done from Broadway to 25th Street NW. Access to Oak Park and the Oak Park Shopping Center will always be available in at least one location. Crews will chip seal one side of the road at a time, and traffic restrictions will be in place during the project.

Temporary pavement markings will be put down before the Fair, transitioning the corridor from a four-lane road into a three-lane road with one lane of through traffic in each direction along with a shared center turn lane and outside bike lanes.

A couple of weeks later, permanent pavement markings will be placed.

“There are many safety reasons for doing the lane reconfiguration on 4th Avenue Northwest,” Joersz said. “There are numerous locations that experience sight obstructions such as the heavy left-turn locations of 16th Street NW and 6th Street NW and we’re trying to minimize crashes at those spots. It will also improve traffic flow on that stretch, and we’ll use the space left over from reconfiguring the lanes to create bike lanes.”

The bike lanes are just a bonus, Joersz said.

“We have to do something with the extra space, so we’re trying to make good use of the space by installing bike lanes,” Joersz said. “But they are not the reason for the lane reconfiguration. This is about safety.”

As part of the project, the current crosswalk across 4th Avenue NW that leads to Oak Park will be relocated slightly to the west to move it out of the area where vehicles heading west and east make overlapping left turns.

Other work scheduled to begin in early July includes:

-16th Street SW between Magic City Campus and CVS. Crews have already done some asphalt patching on this stretch, and will return to microsurface that section of roadway.

-16th Street SW from 24th Avenue SW to 37th Avenue SW. Chip seal.

-37th Avenue SW from Broadway to 16th Street SW. Chip seal.

-31st Avenue SW from Broadway to 16th Street SW. Chip seal.

-13th Street SE from 16th Avenue SE to 37th Avenue SE. Microsurface.

-Burdick Expressway from 16th Street SE to 27th Street SE. Microsurface.

-There will be chip sealing work in the neighborhoods around Edison and Washington elementary schools.

- The North Dakota Department of Transportation will also be chip sealing the US 83 northwest bypass, and will be chip sealing on US 2 near 42nd Street SE/Gooseneck Implement. The DOT will also be reconstructing the on/off ramps at South Broadway/US 2-52.

Original source can be found here