Workers from Mankato East Operations clear debris from Hwy 99 near St. Peter in order to open the road to traffic after it was flooded by the Minnesota River.  Photo by Rebecca Arndt

As though the effects of widespread flooding weren’t enough, Mn/DOT maintenance crews also faced an onslaught of trouble from rain, hail, ice and snow since Saturday.

While the flood situation stabilized and some previously flooded highways were reopened, the snow, ice and rain took their toll elsewhere. 

In the Duluth District, an ice storm over the weekend toppled trees onto highways and knocked out power over a wide area, including service to the district headquarters building for several hours. Duluth crews worked Saturday, through the night and into Sunday to clear fallen trees and other debris from highways.

District Engineer Mike Robinson praised the efforts of his staff who also had to repair washouts on Hwy 23 and Hwy 123 and take care of icy spots at many locations.

On Tuesday afternoon, the district closed the Hwy 48/Danbury bridge over the St. Croix River when crews observed water creeping over the highway about 300 feet west of the bridge. The river was expected to rise another foot before today’s anticipated midday crest.

A strange year

Nearly a foot of snow complicated the picture for crews in the eastern half of the Bemidji District. Power was also knocked out at the district headquarters for a short time.

“It was as heavy a snow as you’ll ever see,” said Dave Dalager, district maintenance superintendent.

Dalager notes the western half of the district received no snow at all and temperatures were in the 50s, compared with the 30s in the snow-covered eastern part of the district.

Maintenance crews plowed snow while maintenance supervisors kept a watchful eye on roads still closed due to flooding in the district’s northwestern corner.  Dalager notes that Hwy 220 between Hwy 1 and Hwy 11, and Hwy 175 between Hallock and the N.D. border are closed. In addition, Hwy 200 is closed due to a culvert washout near the junction with Hwy 32 near Twin Valley.

“It’s been a strange year,” Dalager said. “We’ll see what happens next.”

Dalager added that in one way the district was fortunate because it received far less than its average amount of snowfall. The district received about 45 inches of snow instead of the 60 to 70 inches annual average.

“That saved us a lot of water,” he said. “If we would have had our average snowfall, we might have had problems worse than we did in 1997.”

More than enough work to keep busy

The Hwy 99 bridge over the Minnesota River at St. Peter gets a final inspection from Gary Swedberg, transportation specialist, and Larry Cooper, Mankato bridge crew supervisor, before it was reopened to traffic on Friday. Water reached the bridge’s bottom girder before it receded. Photo by Rebecca Arndt

In the Brainerd District, heavy rain sent Stoney Brook over Hwy 95 in Benton County, causing St. Cloud area maintenance crews to close a seven-mile segment of the road for several hours on Monday. Crews are now assessing the level of damage caused by the flooding waterway.

Randy Reznicek, maintenance supervisor at St. Cloud, said high water from the Rum River went over the southbound lanes of Hwy 169 near Pease. Maintenance crews, he said, controlled traffic through the area until the water subsided hours later.  Damage to the roadway was minimal, he said.

High water on the Rum, he added, may cause the Westport bridge on Hwy 47 near Princeton to be closed again in a few days. Late Tuesday afternoon, the district closed Hwy 70 in Kanabec County between Hwy 65 and Hwy 107 because of water over the road.

District maintenance crews are busy patching and repairing damaged roadways, he said.

“We’ve got more than enough to keep us busy and when the blacktop plants open we’ll really be hopping,” Reznicek said. “We’ll be patching and doing short overlays to get us through the next couple of years.”

Eight inches of heavy, wet snow scrambled Detroit Lakes district maintenance crews to their plows at 4 a.m. on Monday.

“It was snowing fast and the crews had a hard time keeping up with it,” notes Patty Vogt, district public affairs coordinator. Vogt said, however, that maintenance forces repeated their routes until the roads were cleared.  Flooding still affects the district’s western boundaries, she adds. The two remaining closed roads are Hwy 9 from Herman to Donnelly, and Hwy 117 from the South Dakota border to Hwy 27 near Wheaton.

Vogt said district officials met Tuesday to plan future recovery efforts, such as road and shoulder repair necessitated by extensive flooding in the district.

At Mankato, heavy rains raised river levels but not sufficiently to cause immediate additional major flooding. However, said Rebecca Arndt, district public affairs coordinator, a second crest on the Minnesota River may require closing Hwy 169 again between Mankato and St. Peter. Crews were expected today to begin building a 3,000-foot dike with concrete barriers, plastic and earth along the shoulder of the northbound lane of Hwy 169 north of St. Peter.

In the Twin Cities metro area, a dike built along I-35W kept the Minnesota River from reaching the freeway despite the heavy downpour the region received early Monday. The Stillwater Bridge remains closed as water levels remain high on the St. Croix River.

Holding our own

Denny Marty, a Willmar District maintenance supervisor, confers with a resort owner on the approach to the Hwy 40 bridge at Milan. The debris on the bridge was left behind after ice from Lac Qui Parle, carried onto the bridge by wind and water, melted.  Photo by Bill Zimmer, West Central Tribune

In the state’s southeastern corner, Greg Hussman, maintenance supervisor at La Crescent, keeps a wary eye on the Mississippi River but focuses his attention on damage to the region’s highways. Recent heavy rains, he said, aggravated damage already done to roads such as Hwy 26 between Brownsville and New Albin, Iowa, and Hwy 44 from Hokah to Caledonia. The most recent rain and hailstorms also caused rock slides, mud slides and washouts on Hwy 61 south of Winona and on Hwy 76.

Denny Marty, a Willmar District maintenance supervisor, notes employees are paying close attention to the Minnesota River, recharged by recent rains, which will crest  again Thursday at Montevideo and Friday at Granite Falls. Hwy 67 southeast of Granite Falls remains closed due to high water.

“So far we’re holding our own,” he said,  “and hopefully the river will not come as high as predicted. If it does, we’ll have to close Hwy 40 and Hiwy 212 again, but I hope we’ll be alright.”

For more information about the changing flood situation, see Mn/DOT’s road and weather conditions Web site, the TripUSA alerts site or the Division of Emergency Management site.

By Craig Wilkins

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Twenty-eight orange cones, each symbolizing a transportation worker who was injured or killed while working on the state’s highways, were part of the observation of Workers’ Memorial Day, held April 24 in Granite Falls. Photo by Dave Gonzalez

Granite Falls hosted this year’s statewide observance of Workers’ Memorial Day on April 24, reports Sandy East, District 8 public affairs coordinator.

The observance was held in conjunction with the district’s annual employee meeting. The day included speeches by government and union officials, as well as a moment of silence to memorialize Minnesota workers who were killed or injured while working on the state’s highways.

According to East, the focus of this year’s observance was on Mn/DOT’s partnership with the Department of Public Safety.  Featured speakers included Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg, and Sgt. Dewey Severson and Capt. Van Moer, who talked about their colleague, Trooper Ted Foss, who was killed last year along I-90. 

Since 1960, 28 Mn/DOT workers have been killed on the job. Last year, a memorial sculpture dedicated to those workers was installed at the Transportation Building in St. Paul.

"Mn/DOT hopes to never add additional names to that memorial," Tinklenberg said in a news release issued last week. "In order to achieve our goal to eliminate work zone tragedies, Mn/DOT commits to pursue the safest work zone practices possible."

About 200 people were in attendance at the event, said Mary Meinert, work zone safety coordinator. Attendees included District 8 employees, District Engineer Dave Trooien, Dep. Commissioner Doug Weiszhaar, as well as representatives from the Department of Labor and Industry, the Department of Public Safety, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

For more information, contact Mary Meinert, 651/297-5868, or Sandy East, 320/214-3773.

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With less than four weeks to go before the end of session, the Minnesota Legislature still needs to decide a number of issues affecting transportation, including whether to establish long-term funding for transportation.

Both the House and the Senate have constitutional amendments that would dedicate a percentage of the motor vehicle excise tax to transportation. The House measure calls for dedicating 60 percent of the MVET revenue—32 percent for reductions in license tab fees and the rest for roads and bridges. The Senate’s proposal would dedicate 50 percent of the MVET funds to transportation—32 percent for tab fee reductions and the rest for a transit assistance fund.

A proposal in the Senate that would increase the gas tax by 3 cents a gallon was removed from the transportation spending bill, but remains alive in the Senate Tax Committee. The House bill has no provision for raising the gas tax. The state’s gas tax, now 20-cents per gallon, has not been increased since 1988 and is worth only 13.2 cents today.

Improvements to I-35W/Hwy 62 would be delayed for at least a year under bills making their way through both the House and the Senate. The bills would require Mn/DOT to halt its current construction plans and consider alternative designs for handling the projected traffic growth on to I-35W/Hwy 62. This stretch of road carries approximately 250,000 vehicles per day and has an accident rate nearly three times that of the rest of the metro interstate system.

Floor votes on the spending bills are expected this week. The bills then go to a conference committee, where differences between House and Senate versions will be worked out. The Legislature must adjourn by May 21.

For more information about legislative issues affecting Mn/DOT, contact Joe Hudak at 651/297-5149, click on Mn/DOT’s weekly legislative summary or check out its Government Relations Web site. See also the Minnesota Legislature Web page.

By Chris Joyce

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Maintenance officials from the Upper Midwest met in St. Cloud on April 19-20 for the annual Midwest Snow and Ice Workshop. The workshop provides an opportunity to assess the winter season while at the same time, share information and research techniques from each state’s snow and ice season.

While each state might believe they have unique problems and issues, according to Mark Wikelius, state maintenance engineer, the states are not that different.

“We are able to build on our state’s similarities,” explained Wikelius. “Starting with someone else’s solution and building on it means we don’t reinvent the wheel.”

Issues discussed this year include salt availability, environmental concerns and salt storage. Discussion also focused on the trend toward more use of liquid in winter maintenance operations, both pre-wetting and anti-icing.

A surprise for Minnesota officials was learning the amount of salt used by other states. Early estimates are that Minnesota used approximately 300,000 tons, compared to an estimated 520,000 tons for Wisconsin and 700,000 tons for Michigan. 

Attending the workshop were representatives from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

The workshop overlapped with this year’s Spring Maintenance Expo, which annually brings together maintenance employees from Minnesota’s townships, cities, counties and the state. In addition to the opportunity to network with colleagues, Expo participants had a wide selection of seminars, equipment demonstrations and maintenance vendor displays to attend.

By Kent Barnard

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The Transportation Research Biennial Report is now available online.

The 1999-2000 Transportation Research Biennial Report is now online.

The report highlights the significant accomplishments and success stories of the Mn/DOT research program from July 1998 through June 2000, explains Micky Ruiz, Research Services.

“For example,” Ruiz notes, “Did you know that a company in Seattle is interested in developing a new technology that is based on research funded by Mn/DOT?”

“A system that detects and tracks humans, or in this case, ‘blobs,’ that comprise a human model, was developed initially to identify pedestrians at crosswalks. The system has the potential for many other applications, and several security companies have also indicated an interest in commercializing the technology.” 

For more information about this and other research projects, check out the Research Services Web site. For the biennial report, users can choose to download the entire document or select a section such as pavement, bridge, maintenance, environment, modes or the economy.

By Kay Korsgaard

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State highways have long been more than pathways for vehicles: they serve as pathways for communications utilities as well. Telephone lines along the side of the road and cables beneath the road have been a fixture for many years. These days, the underground cables often carry Internet traffic (the “Superhighway”) as well.

This week’s question comes from a reader who wants to know the status of Connecting Minnesota, a public/private initiative to build a 2,200-mile fiber optic cable network along freeways and trunk highways.

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