Highway B project expected to be under construction from May to November of 2023
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — If you have to travel to Menomonie and you drive county Highway B, you may want to consider a different route next summer.
The project to reconstruct county Highway B from Highway 12/29 north to just past the Love’s Travel Stop is expected to begin in May of 2023, said Ross Johnson of CBS Squared during a public informational meeting on the Highway B project at the Dunn County Judicial Center September 22.
The project will start with Union Pacific Railroad reconstructing the railroad crossing on Highway B, he said.
While the railroad crossing is under construction, which is expected to take place in May, traffic will be detoured on county Highway E to Highway 12/29 for two weeks, Johnson said.
The reason for the project is that the pavement from Highway 12/29 out to Love’s is in “bad shape,” he said.
In addition to that, since Highway B became a four-lane in 1992, semi-truck traffic has increased in the area, and the semi-trucks have problems turning because the lanes are too narrow.
The semi-trucks have to swing wide to make their turns, and part of the project will be to improve the turning capabilities for the semi-trucks, Johnson said.
There is currently no traffic signal at Badger Drive (Love’s Travel Stop and Exit 45), and the intersection becomes congested, so the project will include a traffic signal, new pavement and turn lane improvements, he said.
The traffic signal will be coordinated with the railroad crossing signal so that no traffic is on the tracks when a train is coming, Johnson said.
The new Highway B will have 12-foot lanes and 10-foot shoulders, he noted.
Along that stretch of Highway B, the traffic signals will be replaced, new islands will be built and the turn lanes will be improved so the semi-trucks can more easily make their turns, Johnson said.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is currently working with Union Pacific Railroad to coordinate the work on the crossing so the crossing is completed first. While Highway B is under construction, traffic in both directions will be routed to one side of the road, he said.
Other than the detour for two weeks for the railroad crossing, traffic will be maintained, Johnson said.
The northbound lanes on Highway B will be closed first, and that is expected to be from June until the middle of August, Johnson said.
The southbound lanes will be closed after that, and the project is expected to be completed by November, he said.
Cost
The south portion of the Highway B project is a $6.5 million project, and the north portion is a $2.5 million project, Johnson said.
At a budget workshop for the Dunn County Board in August, Dustin Binder, Dunn County highway commissioner, talked about the Highway B project.
The cost of the south portion of the county Highway B project will be $6.3 million, with $5.1 million in Wisconsin Department of Transportation funding from Highways 12/29 to I-94 covered by an 80/20 State Transportation Aid grant (STP), Binder said.
From I-94 to the area near the railroad tracks, the cost will be $2.48 million with $1 million in WisDOT funding through Multimodal Local Supplement (MLS) and Local Road Improvement (LRIP) grants and $1.48 million for the county’s portion, he said.
The total expenditure for new construction will be $11.1 million, with $6.6 million from WisDOT and $4.4 million from Dunn County, Binder said.
The STP funds must be used by 2024 and the projects completed by June of 2024, otherwise Dunn County will be on the hook for the entire amount, he said.
Information
Several business owners at the meeting asked where people would be able to find out information about the construction schedules.
Binder said information on the construction schedules would be posted on the Dunn County website.
After Johnson finished his presentation, the Colfax Messenger/Tribune Press Reporter asked Binder about plans for repaving county Highway B from the point where the 2023 construction stops out to Highway 40 just south of Colfax.
Highway B north to county Highway BB is tentatively scheduled for new pavement in 2024, Binder said.
As of right now, Dunn County has no plans to pave the rest of Highway B from BB to state Highway 40 — or that is to say, the rest of Highway B is not on the county’s five-year road improvement plan, he said.
Dunn County does review the five-year plan every year, though, Binder noted.
While the construction is going on next year, Binder said he would recommend that anyone coming from the Colfax area and going to Menomonie should consider taking Highway 40 south to Highway 12/29 and coming into Menomonie from that direction rather than trying to navigate the construction area.
